Popular Sociology On The Air!

Twitter, NBC, & London 2012

Sadly, I hold the belief that sociology and the social sciences more generally are not held in high regard in the wider society.  Thanks, however, to my childhood friend, Duke Gent, who always said things like "the world needs people who study things in detail and share the products of their labour," I want to try to show people that sociological insights can be used to help think about our everyday lives in new, provocative, and helpful ways.  I was most fortunate to have the chance to do this on Monday, July 30 when I was invited by Dave Kaufman to join him and Jay Farrar on their kickass TSN990 radio show, The Kaufman Show.

In the segment, we spoke about the temporary suspension of Guy Adams' Twitter account.  The LA based correspondent for The Independent had his Twitter account shut down after he encouraged his followers to complain to NBC about the quality of their coverage of the London Olympics.  Twitter cited Adams' publication of an NBC executive's e-mail address as a violation of the social media site's User Policy in its decision to shut down his account.

Dave, Jay, and I discussed the significance of these events and I suggested that they reflected tensions between two differing logics of communication and community in the new media world.

Thanks so much to Dave and Jay for having me on the show.  Listen to the entire episode (and tune in each Monday night) or zoom ahead to my segment (starts around 1:45).  You can find the link here.