new paper: Lost and Saved . . . Again: The Moral Panic about the Loss of Community Takes Hold of Social Media.

new paper: Lost and Saved . . . Again: The Moral Panic about the Loss of Community Takes Hold of Social Media.

Nineteen years ago Barry and I published our first, of what would become many papers together. “Living Networked On and Offline,” published in Contemporary Sociology, set much of the foundation for our work over the following two decades. We talked about a paradigm shift in how the Internet was shaping community, we explored the fallacy of separating ties into the dichotomy of online/offline relations, glocalization, and the groundwork for the concept of networked individualism.

We are back with a new installment in the latest issue of Contemporary Sociology. “Lost and Saved… Again: The Moral Panic about the Loss of Community Takes Hold of Social Media.” Again, we talk about how new technologies are (and this time, are not) responsible for a paradigm shift in how we think about community. We take on the hype about how social media is destroying community, and recent commentary critical of the impact we have had on the study and conceptualization of community. In the 15 years since Barry and I last published together, our thoughts on community branched in different ways. This is also our attempt at unifying our view of community in an age of social media and digital mobility, including recognizing that as community is increasingly subject to ‘relational persistence’ and ‘pervasive awareness’ it has characteristics of both traditional community and networked individualism.

You can find an open access copy here.