In 2001, DiMaggio and Hargittai argued that the literature about inequality and internet use needed to move beyond the binary “digital divide,” coining the term “digital inequality” to refer to the spectrum of differences in internet experiences beyond an access divide. A large body of literature has since established that people from more privileged backgrounds use the internet for informational purposes more than those from a lower socioeconomic status. Little of this research, however, has examined whether these patterns hold over time given that most internet-use research relies on data collected at one point in time. This article contributes to digital inequality scholarship by examining how internet use has changed for people of differing socioeconomic backgrounds. The analyses are based on a unique panel survey that followed people over a decade with data collection about their internet uses every third year between 2010 and 2019. Thanks to the longitudinal nature of the dataset, the article is able to examine whether people from less privileged backgrounds catch up with their more privileged counterparts over time or whether inequalities in use persist. Findings suggest persisting inequalities with significant implications for how digital media may contribute to social inequalities.
In response to formative work by DiMaggio and others, scholars of culture in sociology eagerly took up the task of describing, measuring, and integrating schemas and cognitive processes into accounts of culture. I offer an extension of DiMaggio’s framework that centers not the lessons from cognitive psychology, but those from social psychology, for studying culture. A relational-analytic approach to culture utilizes the concept of mechanisms from analytical and pragmatist sociology, and recenters relational processes as core mechanisms in the study of culture. I propose that sociologists of culture attend to both synchronizing and separating relational mechanisms to understand how shared meanings develop in social collectives beyond the interaction itself. I illustrate the types of questions a relational-analytic research approach would take.
Contagious distributions can be recognized by skew more pronounced than that seen in a Poisson distribution. In social contexts, we often interpret excess skew as evidence of social contagion. This article uses a simulation to demonstrate that interpreting Poisson distributions as evidence of independent action rests on the implicit but dubious assumption that social networks are closely approximated by administrative units or spatial areas. I use the case of recreational drug use at college to illustrate that the pattern holds in empirical data. To the extent that networks are decoupled from administrative units or space, skew is suppressed, and we will fail to recognize social contagion.
Thirty years ago, Paul DiMaggio, Bethany Bryson and I published an article in the American Journal of Sociology titled “Have Americans’ Social Attitudes Become More Polarized?” In this article, I recount some of the social context and process of creating the article and describe how it exemplifies the DiMaggio academic style. The style is: (a) a focus on conceptualization of social processes that have previously been only vaguely described; (b) a push for innovation in measurement and estimation; (c) attention to social theory. I finish by showing the influence and legacy of this paper over the past 30 years. While the topical foci of scholars change, as do their measures and methods, the emphasis on conceptualization in the paper has guaranteed its enduring legacy.
Few sociologists have influenced as many areas of inquiry as Paul DiMaggio. Across organizational sociology, culture and cognition, economic sociology, networks, inequality, political sociology, and methodology, his work has repeatedly reshaped research agendas. Just as importantly, generations of scholars have carried those ideas forward, extending them into new domains and developing them in unexpected directions.This issue brings together papers by Paul’s former students to celebrate both his scholarly contributions and his lasting legacy as a mentor. When we began organizing the volume, we contacted former students without regard to specialty area, method, or seniority. The response was immediate and overwhelmingly enthusiastic. People were eager to participate and quickly committed to the project. Had time permitted, the volume could easily have been twice as large. The collection includes work in the domains of organizational sociology; economic sociology; networks, diffusion, and inequality; culture and cognition; and political sociology. While, remarkably, Paul has contributed to even more areas than this, such a list is already incredibly impressive in its breadth. Using his own concepts, we could say that Paul is an institutional entrepreneur who reshaped many academic organizational fields. A common thread running through much of Paul’s work is the conviction that theoretical and methodological innovation are inseparable. He coined the term “theorodology” to express the idea that behind every difficult theoretical problem lies a methodological challenge, and behind many methodological innovations lies an effort to answer an important theoretical question. This perspective appears repeatedly throughout the volume. The contributors employ a striking range of methods, but they share a commitment to using those methods in the service of substantive sociological questions rather than treating methodology as an end in itself.
