Han.+Sam-Theorizing+New+media.+Web+2.0

   **Abstract** A recent wave of popular and scholarly discourse has hailed the arrival of the Web 2.0, marking a new generation of Internet users who share and collaborate on popular social networking sites such as MySpace and user-generated communities such as YouTube and Wikipedia. Social and cultural critics have attempted to take stock of the implications of these various technological changes with specific emphasis on the state of knowledge in contemporary society. This article aims to theoretically examine knowledge in the context of new media technologies with particular attention paid to the notion of “reflexivity.” Focusing on the work of Scott Lash, whose theory of reflexivity radically differs from various other interpretations, I suggest that knowledge, in its modern formulation—as reasoned, stable, and linear—must be rethought for the information age, critiquing some of the predominant scholarly and popular media criticisms that suggests media to be mere enhancements of human forms of communication, knowledge, and sense-making. I conclude by considering some of the ontological dimensions of the transformations in the dynamics of knowledge in new media technologies.

**Argument** In volume eighty, issue two, of "Sociological Inquiry", Sam Han describes the relationships of linear and non-linear elements through technological aspects and discusses blogs and Web 2.0 in relation to societal advancements. Han demonstrates the possible advantages of technology and refers to the abilities that technology brings into play as non-linear, since technology allows for virtually any elements of structure to be inlcuded into society. Han further claims that linear structure is in the past and that non-linear advancements have aided to diminish the linear structures in human order. Reflexivity is the inate ability to understand rationale and process the functions that occur on a daily basis, or rationality. Blogs are portrayed as a major influence in the journal through their importance in disorder and lack of fundamental American structure. Blogs, Han claims, are ever changing, which can be useful but detrimental as well. Unlike newspapers, blogs are not printed daily and updated frequently, which leaves room for error and claims that lack credability. Han explains that in this sense non-linear structure could lack proper credability and use in a professional work space or academia. Overall, Han stresses that Web 2.0 is useful and can function in a numerous amount of ways outside of the realm of Internet access. The role of Web 2.0 can also play a role in the growth of society and communication. Instead of the typical linear structure, Web2.0 takes form in the non-linear structure, becoming a multipurpose tool for structure and understanding.

**Key Passages** Description of reflexivity:
 * "While Beck and Giddens present “reflexivity” to be a creative and dynamic process that has emerged with a post-traditional social order, their critics have argued that “reflexivity” is not really new at all and is indeed a very //modernist// notion."

Reflexivity and non-linear relationships:
 * "Ultimately, these various examples of reflexive living and social relations lead us to understand contemporary life as non-linear. It is not defined by stability but de-stabilization; it is no longer about continuity but discontinuity and movement."

Importance of blogs:
 * "Blogs also demonstrate the speed-up that Lash sees as characteristic of non-linearity of technological forms of life."

**Selected Works Cited**  //Beck, Ulrich//, //Anthony Giddens// , and //Scott Lash//. //1994// . //Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order//. Cambridge: Polity Press.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">//Lash, Scott. 2001. “Technological Forms of Life. Theory, Culture and Society 18:105–20.//

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">//Lash, Scott. 2003. “Reflexivity as Non-linearity. Theory, Culture and Society 20:49–57.//