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No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior
How have changes in media affected our everyday experience, behavior, and sense of identity? Such questions have generated endless arguments and speculations, but no thinker has addressed the issue with such force and originality as Joshua Meyrowitz in No Sense of Place . Advancing a daring and sophisticated theory, Meyrowitz shows how television and other electronic media have created new social situations that are no longer shaped by where we are or who is "with" us.
While other media experts have limited the debate to message content, Meyrowitz focuses on the ways in which changes in media rearrange "who knows what about whom" and "who knows what compared to whom," making it impossible for us to behave with each other in traditional ways. No Sense of Place explains how the electronic landscape has encouraged the development of:
-More adultlike children and more childlike adults;
-More career-oriented women and more family-oriented men; and
-Leaders who try to act more like the "person next door" and real neighbors who want to have a greater say in local, national, and international affairs.
The dramatic changes fostered by electronic media, notes Meyrowitz, are neither entirely good nor entirely bad. In some ways, we are returning to older, pre-literate forms of social behavior, becoming "hunters and gatherers of an information age." In other ways, we are rushing forward into a new social world. New media have helped to liberate many people from restrictive, place-defined roles, but the resulting heightened expectations have also led to new social tensions and frustrations. Once taken-for-granted behaviors are now subject to constant debate and negotiation.
The book richly explicates the quadruple pun in its title: Changes in media transform how we sense information and how we make sense of our physical and social places in the world.
While other media experts have limited the debate to message content, Meyrowitz focuses on the ways in which changes in media rearrange "who knows what about whom" and "who knows what compared to whom," making it impossible for us to behave with each other in traditional ways. No Sense of Place explains how the electronic landscape has encouraged the development of:
-More adultlike children and more childlike adults;
-More career-oriented women and more family-oriented men; and
-Leaders who try to act more like the "person next door" and real neighbors who want to have a greater say in local, national, and international affairs.
The dramatic changes fostered by electronic media, notes Meyrowitz, are neither entirely good nor entirely bad. In some ways, we are returning to older, pre-literate forms of social behavior, becoming "hunters and gatherers of an information age." In other ways, we are rushing forward into a new social world. New media have helped to liberate many people from restrictive, place-defined roles, but the resulting heightened expectations have also led to new social tensions and frustrations. Once taken-for-granted behaviors are now subject to constant debate and negotiation.
The book richly explicates the quadruple pun in its title: Changes in media transform how we sense information and how we make sense of our physical and social places in the world.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 13, 2020
Is information technology a side phenomenon to historical events or the actual driver of them? Lately I've been leaning towards the former conclusion and this book issued from the pre-internet mists of 1985 takes much the same view. At that time the big new world-making technology was still television. What TV did was give people a view into the lives of others, including those more powerful and higher up the social hierarchy. One of the prerequisites to wielding power is being a bit mysterious and inaccessible. Once women saw a glimpse on the screen of how men really lived in their most rarefied places, and children saw how adults in general lived and the intimate flaws and struggles that they had, much of the power of the old hierarchies was indeed weakened.
The essential argument of the book is that information technology destabilizes the social order and pushes it further towards egalitarianism. It tears down the walls that segmented people and information and places everything into clearer vision, where people can be viewed in a new and more accessible light. Among other things it makes it harder to inculcate myths in the population through segmented forms of learning like grade schools when young people can leap ahead the knowledge hierarchy on their own, usually by accident, and preemptively debunk the myths they'll later be taught.
This book belongs to the era of tech-optimism, or at least before the true consolidated power of personal computing technology and the internet became known. It is too bad that Meyrowitz is a bit difficult to read because in this book he made a solid point about one of the most important issues in the world. I wonder what he thinks about social media.
The essential argument of the book is that information technology destabilizes the social order and pushes it further towards egalitarianism. It tears down the walls that segmented people and information and places everything into clearer vision, where people can be viewed in a new and more accessible light. Among other things it makes it harder to inculcate myths in the population through segmented forms of learning like grade schools when young people can leap ahead the knowledge hierarchy on their own, usually by accident, and preemptively debunk the myths they'll later be taught.
This book belongs to the era of tech-optimism, or at least before the true consolidated power of personal computing technology and the internet became known. It is too bad that Meyrowitz is a bit difficult to read because in this book he made a solid point about one of the most important issues in the world. I wonder what he thinks about social media.
October 30, 2016
Also posted on Eva Lucias blog
Inspired by Goffman’s theory, Joshua Meyrowitz puts his focus on self-representation through media. There is no longer a need for a physical place in relation to social interaction. It has developed into a modern transcendence without physical restrictions. We can connect and interact with our friends or strangers online, and on social media. Modern interaction can be submitted through a phone call, a text, a selfie or a snapchat. Furthermore, Meyrowitz focuses on: ‘’being’ (group identity), roles of transitions or ‘becoming’ (socialization), and roles of authority (hierarchy)’. Besides, he defines the individual as functioning in all three categories:
"identified with a number of groups, at various stages of socialization into new roles, and at some particular rank or ranks within one or more hierarchies […] Socialization is unique among the three categories in that it involves the process of ‘becoming’, that is, the transition from role to role".
In this case, we can draw a parallel to the dynamic between the individual and social media’s different platforms, where the individual has a possibility to present itself. Nowadays, the user (= the individual) has the chance to create its own role and identity on social media because they allow the individual to develop its own individual character: what one wishes to show the world, instead of having to adapt to a social condition, where the individual feels uncertainty of truly belonging. It is possible to create your own world, reaching out to the people who would fit into your ideals, values or interests, and therefore you are able to show your strengths instead of weaknesses.
This is of course as staged as how celebrities often spin their public life in order to attract attention to a product or a brand, but for the individual it is a way of developing a unique character and determine who you are on your own premises. In 2016 it is a fact that life is often lived through a lens or a filter. Selfies or photos posted on social media work as intermediates for contact and interaction with other people. But does the selfie trend destroy the true search for identity? Or does it simply allow the individual to truly find its strengths, interests and social matches?
One could fear that the increasing use of social media has led to identity crisis, and that it is more difficult to find the core of what identity truly represents. The tendency now is that the individual is driven by attention from online followers and social media; as if the validation of the self comes from likes, shares or re-tweets. This has created loneliness and isolation, especially for the younger audience. Due to the fact that most social interaction between people these days is online and through social media, superficial things like losing a follower can be a disappointment and create insecurity in the modern individual.
Blog ~ Facebook ~ Instagram ~ Youtube ~ Spotify
Inspired by Goffman’s theory, Joshua Meyrowitz puts his focus on self-representation through media. There is no longer a need for a physical place in relation to social interaction. It has developed into a modern transcendence without physical restrictions. We can connect and interact with our friends or strangers online, and on social media. Modern interaction can be submitted through a phone call, a text, a selfie or a snapchat. Furthermore, Meyrowitz focuses on: ‘’being’ (group identity), roles of transitions or ‘becoming’ (socialization), and roles of authority (hierarchy)’. Besides, he defines the individual as functioning in all three categories:
"identified with a number of groups, at various stages of socialization into new roles, and at some particular rank or ranks within one or more hierarchies […] Socialization is unique among the three categories in that it involves the process of ‘becoming’, that is, the transition from role to role".
In this case, we can draw a parallel to the dynamic between the individual and social media’s different platforms, where the individual has a possibility to present itself. Nowadays, the user (= the individual) has the chance to create its own role and identity on social media because they allow the individual to develop its own individual character: what one wishes to show the world, instead of having to adapt to a social condition, where the individual feels uncertainty of truly belonging. It is possible to create your own world, reaching out to the people who would fit into your ideals, values or interests, and therefore you are able to show your strengths instead of weaknesses.
This is of course as staged as how celebrities often spin their public life in order to attract attention to a product or a brand, but for the individual it is a way of developing a unique character and determine who you are on your own premises. In 2016 it is a fact that life is often lived through a lens or a filter. Selfies or photos posted on social media work as intermediates for contact and interaction with other people. But does the selfie trend destroy the true search for identity? Or does it simply allow the individual to truly find its strengths, interests and social matches?
One could fear that the increasing use of social media has led to identity crisis, and that it is more difficult to find the core of what identity truly represents. The tendency now is that the individual is driven by attention from online followers and social media; as if the validation of the self comes from likes, shares or re-tweets. This has created loneliness and isolation, especially for the younger audience. Due to the fact that most social interaction between people these days is online and through social media, superficial things like losing a follower can be a disappointment and create insecurity in the modern individual.
Blog ~ Facebook ~ Instagram ~ Youtube ~ Spotify
March 10, 2016
This book is a classic in the area of media and communication studies. It brings together Goffman's studies of interaction and Marshall McLuhan's analysis of the impact of electronic media on society. I highly recommend it. It's one of the books I probably will go back to again and again
January 7, 2009
kinda messy the beginning and the 1st of the 3 last chapter was pretty boring great the conclusion!
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February 24, 2026i wanted to like it more because of how highly it was recommended to me. Nevertheless, it did move some ideas forward for me.
Every new type of medium shrinks the differences and distinction between live and mediated encounters. This starts with writing and explodes with radio and television. This book is written in the 80s so you can well imagine my interests in the 2020s. Without spatial and temporal limits, that work of definition is left unfinished and essentially now required by us to do ourselves consciously. Walls and sign posts for conversation, convention of behavior, and social spaces are all particularly susceptible to digital media with its ability for desegregation of purpose, rule, and intention argues Meyrowitz.
That great opening in online life is what made the 90s internet so utopic and innocent. The digital time and place you did this activity was fairly regulated. The phone means you have a new border at your side at all times. All social borders of your life at all times are always available (and I would argue being encroached by notifications, intruders/intrusions into the specific moment you live in)
A powerful metaphor that is worth sharing is the author's use of 'the back region' which is like back of house at a restaurant. Front region is a space with distinct rules, how customers and waiters exist socially. Back of house is where those social rules can be commented on and a shared sense of overlap occurs, an inside crowd. There the performance would not be welcome but outside of the house back space, you would be disturbing everyone by violating the definitions and expectations of the restaurant. What is true for TV is true for always on digital life. Front and back space are gone and people have unlearned how to seek social borders in the real world.
I recommend the read. I'm not sure it was worth the interlibrary loan to get it though.
Every new type of medium shrinks the differences and distinction between live and mediated encounters. This starts with writing and explodes with radio and television. This book is written in the 80s so you can well imagine my interests in the 2020s. Without spatial and temporal limits, that work of definition is left unfinished and essentially now required by us to do ourselves consciously. Walls and sign posts for conversation, convention of behavior, and social spaces are all particularly susceptible to digital media with its ability for desegregation of purpose, rule, and intention argues Meyrowitz.
That great opening in online life is what made the 90s internet so utopic and innocent. The digital time and place you did this activity was fairly regulated. The phone means you have a new border at your side at all times. All social borders of your life at all times are always available (and I would argue being encroached by notifications, intruders/intrusions into the specific moment you live in)
A powerful metaphor that is worth sharing is the author's use of 'the back region' which is like back of house at a restaurant. Front region is a space with distinct rules, how customers and waiters exist socially. Back of house is where those social rules can be commented on and a shared sense of overlap occurs, an inside crowd. There the performance would not be welcome but outside of the house back space, you would be disturbing everyone by violating the definitions and expectations of the restaurant. What is true for TV is true for always on digital life. Front and back space are gone and people have unlearned how to seek social borders in the real world.
I recommend the read. I'm not sure it was worth the interlibrary loan to get it though.
April 13, 2019
such a typical North American social science piece on a combination of Gofman and McLuhan. btw just happened to know that Meyrowitz and Postman were not quite with each other bc the disappearance of the childhood part. （shrug）
November 14, 2023
I liked the book. It had novel ideas that are very interesting and which are not commonly heard anywhere at all. While this book is quite long and can be considered a drag sometimes, it is still worth a read, because stuff found in here is unique and can spur new interpretations of life around you.
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May 29, 2018I did not read the book because I could not get access. The process is not clear and should be checked
April 19, 2021
Eerily prescient of our own media landscape. Lots to think about here.
December 9, 2021
中文版《消失的地域:电子媒介对社会行为的影响》
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February 26, 2015Great book on TV's impact on social structure (age, sex, social status).
I wonder what the author would have thought about computer/internet's impact on the society.
I wonder what the author would have thought about computer/internet's impact on the society.
April 13, 2017
Great resource reference for my advance research paper regarding how social media effects human behavior. Insightful and informative.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews