Fluctuations, technologies and media: social change and sociology change

Sociology has long been criticized for not incorporating tools, imbued with power and the ability to interact as nonhuman, into its basic research paradigms (Latour, 2005). This criticism has continued as computation, ontologically and epistemologically pragmatic in its creation (Naur, 1985), has manifested philosophies of and about communication that are not accessible, nor discussed (Dourish, 2004). The technological makeup that sits at the foundation of computer-mediated communication has had tremendous impact on society itself. Despite that impact, there have been few sociological voices that focus on design, development, or programming languages. Instead, sociologists have examined use and consequence of use from the perspective of users themselves (see: Wellman, 2006). What work has been done within technology has not been loud enough to have lasting impact on design, development, nor programming languages. The fault does not sit within sociology, but within the development of computer science and much of the work of the technological sciences themselves. Sadly, this path for the technological sciences was foreseen by Thorstein Veblen in his work The Engineers and the Price System (Schatzberg, 2006; Veblen, 1963). Within just a few decades, technology has encountered, and incorporated, the fabric of society itself in its design repertoire (see Carroll, 2001). Sociologists have begun to work toward regaining much of the social capital lost as technologists gained their current sway with society. At present, the Communication and Information Technologies section of the American Sociological Association (CITASA) has been a means through which Sociology can address and attempt to correct the criticisms levied toward sociology as a whole. The work of the sociologists in this section makes what Jennifer Earl calls a, ‘reconnection between communication and sociology’ (Earl, 2015). While important, I would take this statement one step further to say that this reconnection allows CITASA to regain computation as a means through which to do research and teaching. In fact, it even allows the expansion of Hampton, Hargittai, and Quan Haase’s report that widened CITASA’s goal to allow sociologists to explore the social consequences of computing (Elesh & Dowdall, 2006). It does this by aligning technology and society as overlapping, concurrent objects. This is an exciting time as the work CITASA members do has begun to expand beyond sociology itself, symbolizing a unique end and consequence to the period of diaspora from sociology. The diaspora of sociologists interested in technology and communication has resulted in unique voices for sociology in Information Schools, Communication Schools, and many disciplines surrounding both the act and technologies of communication. By plainly