Réseaux No. 253 – "Private Social Interactions in the Digital Context" – Issue coordinated by Éric Dagiral and Olivier Beraud Martin.
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For the past decade, research on sociability practices has largely focused on their public visibility via social media, often relegating so-called "private" communications to the background. However, these discreet exchanges have neither disappeared nor diminished: supported by traditional tools (telephone, text messages, emails, etc.) and the rise of contemporary messaging services, they are reconfiguring and multiplying intimate circles and groups that are hidden from view. This issue of Réseaux refocuses attention on the private side of social interaction to shed light on its continuities and digital reconfigurations. The dossier opens with an overview of the uses and challenges of the concept of sociability, which the six articles explore in a variety of contexts: the development of sexual and emotional relationships at work; the online expression of grief and the resulting interactions; the work of maintaining family ties through WhatsApp groups; the place of smartphones in agricultural social interactions; the role of personal comments in video calls between friends; and the "diplomatic" interventions of teenage girls when faced with friendship issues.
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SUMMARY OF THE DOSSIER "PRIVATE SOCIAL LIFE IN A DIGITAL CONTEXT"
Private social interactions and digital practices. An overview of social science research By Éric Dagiral and Olivier Beraud Martin
Digital mediation of sexual and emotional relationships at work. Privatization of flirting, hierarchical regulation of harassment, and reconfigurations of private life in the workplace By Farah Deruelle
Defining oneself in mourning on digital platforms. Normative recompositions and relational strategies through the prism of sociability By Delphine Moreau-Plachy
Bringing the family together on WhatsApp? Digital reconfigurations of maintaining relationships through instant messaging By Laurianne Trably
On the phone all the time. Telephone and digital technology in agricultural social interactions By Victor Potier, Guillaume Favre, Edgar Perrin, Julien Brailly
Small video chat remarks between friends By Christian Licoppe
Friendships, intimacy, and digital intermediation in adolescence. An outline of relational diplomacy from middle school to high school By Rosa Maria Bortolotti, Sigolène Couchot-Schiex
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VARIA
"Rappers are becoming influencers. You're surprised by the opposite." By Caroline Creton
Can we play at designing weapons? The 24 Hours of Innovation "Special Forces" edition as heterotopia By Jean Frances
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READING NOTE
Pascal ROBERT, Le numérique-monde. Histoire et géopolitique de la logistique informationnelle. Du télégraphe à l’IA (The Digital World: History and Geopolitics of Information Logistics. From the Telegraph to AI), Limoges, FYP Éditions, 2025, 255 p. By Victor-Manuel Afonso Marques
Émilie POTIN, Family Separations in the Digital Age, Toulouse, Érès, 2024, 189 p. By Laurianne Trably
Florian JATON, The Constitution of Algorithms. Ground-Truthing, Programming, Formulating, Cambridge, MS, The MIT Press, 2020, coll. "Inside Technology," 400 p. By Valentin Goujon
Minxin PEI, The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 336 p. By Pierre Sel
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