The Internet as a social institution: Rethinking concepts for family scholarship

Objective I evaluate multidisciplinary scholarship on the Internet, the family, and adjacent institutions, comparing their findings to Patricia Yancy Martin's (2004) 14 criteria of social institutions to demonstrate how the Internet represents a new social institution and how that impacts the institution of family in the digital age. Background Scholars have called for investigations into the effects of the Internet on family life. This study aims to show how reimagining the Internet as an institution better reveals its complexities and embeddedness in other institutional spaces that shape the family and how. Method Using Martin's descriptions of the 14 characteristics of a social institution, I reviewed 85 peer‐reviewed, cross‐disciplinary studies focusing on the Internet and the family for themes that indicated the presence or absence of each criterion. Results Data analysis revealed that the Internet functions as a social institution, which mutually influences and shapes the institution of family and its overlapping social dynamics. Fifty‐seven cases had all 14 criteria, and 19 cases had 13 criteria. Six had 12 criteria, and only three had 11 criteria. Conclusion The foundational qualities of the Internet as an institution center the digital space as an active site of social change, where the power dynamics, identities, and practices of “doing family” within digital communities extend beyond those present to others elsewhere. Implications This reconceptualization provides practitioners with new approaches and insights into how digital spaces impact family outcomes and influence the ways in which groups “do” and define family across other institutional areas, even when the Internet is not directly implicated.