Abstract Often, the practice of public engagement in digital environments with archaeological subjects is seen, from the professional perspective, as the need to attract presence, and the expectation that lay people are participating when they are simply being exposed to specific cultural information. Participation and consumption have become mercilessly conflated.
Whilst classical sociological theories can be bought to bear on the interactions and ‘social’ dimensions of the use of digital media between professional archaeologists and the non-professional lay person, digital interaction often moves beyond the theoretical possibilities offered to us by Marx, Weber, Durkheim or Törries. The work of Goffman, Bourdieu and other more recent theorists, and dramaturgy, the logic of practice and networked individualism are vital to our understanding of the potential for the replication of offline inequalities, the public display of expert knowledge, and the entanglement of social communication networks in the variety of digital environments provided by archaeological organisations.
This paper will explore the approaches that these sociologists can bring to an exploration of the digital turn in the archaeological profession, and examine what an in-depth understanding of digital sociology can offer the often ‘magpie’ discipline of archaeology.
