OxfordAQA International A-level Sociology (9690): Unit 5 – People and technology – Study Guide

This guide covers section 3.2.3, People and technology (3.2.3.1 to 3.2.3.5), of the OxfordAQA International AS and A-level Sociology (9690) specification, Version 1.1 (first teaching September 2026; first A-level exams May/June 2028). The section is assessed in Unit 5: People and technology, a 1 hour 30 minute exam worth 50 marks and 20% of the International A-level, with short and extended response questions. The specification also says you must use examples from your own society, or a society you know about, in selected extended response questions.

Use it with the revision notes for this unit and the practice questions for this unit. Everything for this course is on the OxfordAQA A-level Sociology hub, and you can tick off each point on the syllabus checklist.

Coverage table

Syllabus reference	What you must know (from the specification)	Where assessed
3.2.3.1 Pre- and non-digital technologies	Machines: industrialisation and changing work (extraction, manufacturing, service industries); mobilities and mass transport (cars and roads, railways, air travel) and effects on people and environment; consumerism and conspicuous consumption; technological determinism; social constructionist views of technology	Unit 5
3.2.3.2 ‘Traditional’ media	Post, telegraph, telephone; newspapers, radio, television, film; popular/mass culture; Marxist and pluralist views; ownership, control and concentration; misinformation, disinformation and propaganda; representations by class, gender, ethnicity and age; hypodermic syringe, two step flow, cultural effects, uses and gratifications	Unit 5
3.2.3.3 The internet and social and new media	Fast global access to information; changes in communication; social media and mental health; ownership and control; misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories; audience involvement, content creators, citizen journalists, influencers	Unit 5
3.2.3.4 Digital technologies	Digital/online games; how traditional media adapt; health and fitness, quantification and gamification of social life; surveillance; cybercrime, cyber security, hacking; digital divides	Unit 5
3.2.3.5 Artificial intelligence and cyborgs	Types of AI; algorithms, power and inequality; extent and effects of AI use; technologies merging human and machine; robots and cyborgs	Unit 5

The specification says you “would benefit from studying” six sociologists for this section: (Stanley) Cohen, Haraway, Latour, McLuhan, Urry and Uscinski. Other sociologists are credited when used appropriately.

3.2.3.1 Machines, mobilities and consumption

Industrialisation moved work from farms and workshops into factories powered by machines. Work in extraction (mining, oil), then manufacturing, and then service industries (retail, finance, care) has grown and shrunk in turn. Daniel Bell’s The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973) argued that service and knowledge work would come to dominate rich economies. Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974) argued from a Marxist view that machines deskill workers and give managers more control. Robert Blauner’s Alienation and Freedom (1964) found alienation varied with the type of technology: highest on the assembly line, lower in automated process work.

Mobilities are the movements of people, goods and information. John Urry argued sociology should study movement, not just fixed societies (Sociology Beyond Societies, 2000; Mobilities, 2007). His idea of automobility treats the car as a self-expanding system of roads, fuel, suburbs and habits that locks people into car use. Railways shrank journey times and pushed Britain towards standard “railway time” in the nineteenth century. Mass air travel made tourism and migration easier but adds to carbon emissions, noise and inequality: a minority of people take most flights.

Conspicuous consumption (Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899) means buying goods to display status. Consumerism is a culture in which identity and status are built through buying.

Technological determinism says technology drives social change. Marx wrote in The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) that “the hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist”. Social constructionist views reverse this. Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker (1984) showed that the safety bicycle beat the penny-farthing because of how social groups (sporting young men, women, older riders) interpreted bicycles, not because it was technically “better”. They call this interpretive flexibility.

Evaluation: determinism explains big shifts but ignores choice and power; constructionism explains design but may understate how a technology, once built, constrains people. Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory offers a middle way: humans and non-humans (machines, roads, speed bumps) are all actants in a network.

Worked paragraph. Knowledge: Urry argues that automobility is a system that locks people into car use. Application: in many Gulf cities, wide highways, low-density suburbs and cheap fuel make walking or cycling hard, so families feel they need cars. Analysis: this suggests the technology shapes behaviour, close to a determinist view. Evaluation: however, governments chose to build these roads, and cities such as Copenhagen, where planning has long favoured cycling, show that policy can reduce car dependence, supporting a social constructionist reading.

3.2.3.2 ‘Traditional’ media

Communication technologies (post, telegraph, telephone) let messages travel faster than people. The telegraph separated communication from transport for the first time. Newspapers, radio, television and film created shared national audiences. Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media, 1964) argued “the medium is the message”: the form of a medium changes society more than its content. He also described a global village linked by electronic media.

Popular/mass culture grew with these media. Adorno and Horkheimer of the Frankfurt School criticised the culture industry for producing standardised products that keep audiences passive. Others see popular culture as a source of pleasure and identity.

Marxist views: owners and advertisers shape content to support capitalism. Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model (Manufacturing Consent, 1988) names filters such as ownership, advertising and reliance on official sources. The Glasgow University Media Group (Bad News, 1976 onwards) argued TV news framed industrial disputes from management’s viewpoint. Pluralist views: many outlets compete, audiences choose, and journalists have professional values, so no single group controls the message.

Ownership and control: a few media corporations own many outlets across newspapers, TV and film (concentration of ownership). Marxists say this narrows views; pluralists answer that regulation and competition limit owners.

Misinformation is false content shared without intent to deceive. Disinformation is false content spread deliberately. Propaganda is organised persuasion, often by states, as in wartime posters and radio.

Representations: media may stereotype the working class as feckless, women through appearance and domestic roles (Gaye Tuchman’s “symbolic annihilation”, 1978), minority ethnic groups through crime or threat, and older people as frail or invisible. Stanley Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972) showed how press coverage of the 1964 clashes between mods and rockers exaggerated a threat and created “folk devils”.

Media–audience models:

Model	Main idea	Key evaluation
Hypodermic syringe	Messages are “injected” into a passive mass audience	Ignores how people interpret content; the 1938 War of the Worlds “panic” was later shown to be exaggerated by the press
Two step flow	Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955): messages pass through opinion leaders who influence others	Still treats audiences as fairly passive; social media blurs who leads
Cultural effects	Repeated messages over time shape what is seen as normal	Long-term effects are hard to measure
Uses and gratifications	Audiences use media actively for needs: diversion, personal relationships, personal identity, surveillance (McQuail, Blumler and Brown, 1972)	May overstate audience freedom; needs are themselves shaped by media

Worked paragraph. Knowledge: the two step flow model says media influence passes through opinion leaders. Application: in a village in Pakistan, a respected teacher or imam may explain a TV news story to neighbours. Analysis: so the effect depends on who interprets the message, not just on the message. Evaluation: but the model was built on 1940s US election research and may not fit societies where most people now get news directly on phones.

3.2.3.3 The internet and social and new media

The internet gives fast global access to information. Social media changed communication from one-to-many to many-to-many. Henry Jenkins (Convergence Culture, 2006) described a participatory culture in which audiences create and share content.

Social media and mental health is contested. Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation (2024) argues that smartphones and social media harmed adolescent mental health. Amy Orben and Andrew Przybylski (2019), analysing large datasets, found only a small negative association between digital technology use and adolescent wellbeing, explaining at most 0.4% of the variation. Present both views and note that correlation is not causation.

Ownership and control: a few large platform companies own the main social networks, search and app stores. Their algorithms decide what users see, which gives them power that Marxists compare with traditional media owners.

Conspiracy theories: Joseph Uscinski and Joseph Parent (American Conspiracy Theories, 2014) argue that “conspiracy theories are for losers”: groups out of power use them. Their study of letters to the New York Times from 1890 to 2010 found no long-term rise in conspiracy talk, which questions the claim that the internet has caused one.

Audience involvement: content creators make their own media; citizen journalists record and post events before professional reporters arrive; influencers build followings and earn from brands. Evaluation: platforms and advertisers still profit, and only a small share of creators gain large audiences.

3.2.3.4 Digital technologies

Digital/online games are a large entertainment industry and a site of community and identity. They have also been the focus of moral panics about violence, which can be analysed with Cohen’s ideas.

Traditional media adapting: paywalls and digital subscriptions, streaming services, podcasts, social media accounts for TV channels, and live blogs.

Health and fitness: wearables and apps count steps, sleep and calories. Deborah Lupton (The Quantified Self, 2016) discusses how self-tracking turns the body into data. Gamification adds points, badges and leaderboards to everyday activities such as exercise, learning or work.

Surveillance: Foucault’s use of Bentham’s panopticon (Discipline and Punish, 1975) explains how people discipline themselves when they might be watched. Thomas Mathiesen’s synopticon (1997) describes the many watching the few, as in celebrity culture. CCTV, facial recognition and data tracking extend both.

Cybercrime and hacking: David Wall (Cybercrime, 2007) separates crimes against computers (hacking, malware), crimes using computers (fraud), and crimes in computer content (illegal images, hate speech). Cyber security is the response: passwords, encryption, and laws.

Digital divides are gaps in access to and skills with technology, between and within countries: by income, age, rural/urban location, gender and disability. Pippa Norris (Digital Divide, 2001) separated the global divide, the social divide within countries, and the democratic divide in use for civic participation.

3.2.3.5 Artificial intelligence and cyborgs

Types of AI: narrow (weak) AI performs one task, such as translation or face recognition; artificial general intelligence would match humans across tasks and does not yet exist. Generative AI produces text or images; predictive AI makes forecasts or classifications from data.

Algorithms, power and inequality: Joy Buolamwini and Timnit Gebru’s Gender Shades study (2018) found commercial facial analysis systems had error rates as high as 34.7% for darker-skinned women, against under 1% for lighter-skinned men. Safiya Umoja Noble (Algorithms of Oppression, 2018) showed search results reproducing racist and sexist stereotypes. Cathy O’Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction, 2016) and Virginia Eubanks (Automating Inequality, 2018) argue that automated decisions hit poorer people hardest.

Extent of AI use: use by individuals and organisations is spreading in recruitment, banking, health, education and policing. Effects include speed and lower costs but also job change, bias and loss of human judgement. Evidence changes quickly, so use current examples from your own society.

Robots and cyborgs: the word “robot” comes from Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R. (1920). “Cyborg” was coined by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline in 1960. Pacemakers, cochlear implants and brain–computer interfaces merge human and machine. Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985) argued that the boundaries between human and animal, organism and machine, and physical and non-physical are breaking down, and that feminists should reject fixed, “natural” identities (“I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess”).

Worked paragraph. Knowledge: Buolamwini and Gebru found much higher facial analysis errors for darker-skinned women. Application: if police in a city use such a system, people from those groups are more likely to be wrongly flagged. Analysis: this shows inequality built into technology that appears neutral. Evaluation: developers improved some systems after the findings, which suggests bias can be reduced, though critics argue the deeper issue is who controls deployment.

Common errors

• Treating technological determinism as a named study. It is a perspective; support it with McLuhan or Marx.
• Mixing up misinformation (no intent) and disinformation (deliberate).
• Describing the hypodermic syringe model without any evaluation of its passive-audience assumption.
• Calling every online creator a citizen journalist. Citizen journalism means reporting news events.
• Claiming social media “causes” poor mental health as settled fact.
• Writing about “AI” in general without naming a type or a specific use.
• Forgetting the required examples from your own society in extended answers.

For the AS content that leads into this unit, see the Exploring Sociology guide (which covers socialisation, social control and online identities) and the Introducing Sociology guide. For exam technique on a new specification, read preparing for the new 9690 exams. The other A-level units are covered in the guides to People and development and People and the environment.

Official syllabus

OxfordAQA International AS and A-level Sociology (9690) specification, Version 1.1 (first teaching September 2026; first A-level exams May/June 2028), section 3.2.3 People and technology and section 4 Scheme of assessment. Your teacher will confirm any local details of how Unit 5 is entered and timetabled.