February 2002 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Major Online Communities Report from Pew Internet and American Life Project
by Steven Clift 14 Mar '02

14 Mar '02

This time with a subject line ... P.S. I would be interested in the results of similar studies in other countries. - SLC *** Democracies Online Newswire - http://www.e-democracy.org/do *** The Pew Internet and the American Life Project <http://www.pewinternet.org> has released one of the most important studies about the "two-way" Internet to date - "Online Communities: Networks that nurture long-distance relationships and local ties." Below is the press release. Access the full report from: http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=47 For my full Democracies Online commentary visit: http://mail.tc.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0110&L=do-wire&D=1&H=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=3 265 The report states that most people find local online groups in the off-line world. I also see tremendous potential for online efforts which make it easier to find, evaluate, and join online communities based on geography and other key factors. This happens to tie extremely closely with the proposed Open Groups standards effort that I am promoting <http://www.publicus.net/opengroups/>. To receive notice of the pending release of a major technical draft, send an e-mail to <open-groups-announce-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com>. With support, Open Groups could help increase online group interactivity many times over. Read on for the press release and pass this on to others. Steven Clift Democracies Online Newswire http://www.e-democracy.org/do Provided to DO-WIRE by: http://www.pewinternet.org FOR RELEASE AT 6 P.M., OCTOBER 31, 2001 CONTACT: Lee Rainie or John Horrigan at 202-296-0019 http://www.pewinternet.org/about/about.asp?page=5 90 million have participated in online groups Many use the Internet to connect with online communities that embrace their hobbies, their professions, their passions, and their beliefs 28 million go online with church groups, sports leagues, and social organizations in their home towns WASHINGTON- The Internet allows tens of millions of Americans to participate in a thriving social world where they enjoy serious and satisfying contact with online communities. Some 84% of Internet users have contacted an online group. That means that more Americans have used the Internet to contact a group than have gotten news online, or searched for health information, or bought a product. Many of these online groups are far flung and allow Internet users to connect easily with others around the world who share their passions, beliefs, hobbies, and lifestyles. At the same time, 26% of online Americans use the Internet to intensify their connection to their local community by planning church meetings, organizing neighborhood gatherings, arranging local sports league operations, coordinating charity activities, and petitioning local politicians. These findings represent some hopeful news that the Internet can be a tool for vigorous social engagement, rather than a technology that spurs isolation and alienation among users. · 50% of those who participate in online groups say the Internet has helped them get to know people they would not otherwise have met. · More than a third (37%) of those who participate in online groups say the Internet has helped them meet others from different generations than their own. · More than a quarter (27%) of those who participate in online groups say the Internet has helped them connect with people from different racial, ethnic, or economic backgrounds than their own. These results come in a survey of Internet users by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a research organization that examines the social impact of the Internet. They are contained in a report entitled, "Online Communities: Networks that nurture long-distance relationships and local ties." "For vast numbers of Americans, use of the Internet simultaneously expands their social worlds and connects them more deeply to the place where they live," says Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. "Online groups are comfortable places for people to congregate and get to know organizations and people they might never have encountered." Many online Americans are using the Internet to connect to traditional groups that exist in the offline world such as professional and trade associations, hobby enthusiast organizations, religious groups, ethnic and racial fraternal organizations, and political groups. A surprisingly large number of those contacting online groups (56%) say they became active in a group -- even traditional, offline organizations -- after they began communicating with it over the Internet. At the same time, millions of online Americans now use the Internet to connect to groups to which they belonged before they began using the Internet - and they report that their use of the Internet has helped them become more involved with those groups. One other encouraging sign is that use of the Internet is drawing new kinds of people to groups. In particular, young adults and minorities are using the Internet to participate in all kinds of online clubs and organizations and this is leading to new forms of civic involvement. "The network of networks has become a collection of communities," said John Horrigan, senior researcher at the Pew Internet Project and principal author of the report. "Many actively engage in cyber groups through email and bulletin boards that are lively forums for sharing ideas, hashing out issues, and making new friends." The Pew Internet Project study identifies 9 different types of Internet users who are attracted to online groups. Many belong to several types: On average, a Cyber Groupie (or someone who has checked out an online group) has visited 4 different online groups at one time or another. The different types are: · The Getting Ahead group - 51% of Internet users who have checked out trade and professional associations or labor unions. They are more likely to be college-educated men. · The Getting By group - 43% of Internet users who use Internet groups to mange day-to-day responsibilities, such as parenting or medical conditions. Women, especially those in the 35-44 age bracket, gravitate to this group. · Belief groups - 56% of Internet users who go to religious online groups or those relating to spiritual beliefs. Those in Belief groups value making personal connections more than the average Cyber Groupie. · Lifestylers - 28% of Internet users who go to online groups to contact people with similar lifestyles. Lifestylers tend to be men under age 34 and are among the very active emailers of other online community members. · Ethnic and racial groups - 15% of Internet users who have contacted an ethnic group online. This is the most racially diverse set of Cyber Groupies; this group is also younger and more urban than other categories of online communitarians. · Civic Engagement group - 45% of Internet users who have contacted an online group such as a neighborhood association or local charitable group. This group is older than average, and active in emailing online groups close to home. · Political Groupies - 22% of Internet users who have contacted a political group online. This group is mostly educated white males, and they are among most active emailers of others in online groups, and report that online groups have deepened their involvement in groups to which they already belong. · Entertainment groupies - 60% of Internet users who go to online groups about TV shows or fan sites of particular performers. This Cyber Groupies are younger than average, and have been online longer than others who go to online groups. · Sports Junkies - 42% of Internet users go to online groups about their favorite sports teams or local teams in which they participate. These users fit a perhaps predictable profile: they tend to be suburban men between the ages of 35 and 44. Here are some other key findings from the survey: · Men tend to be drawn to online groups involving professional activities, politics, and sports. · Women tend to be drawn to online medical support groups, local community associations that are online, and cyber groups relating to entertainment. · Lurking is not prevalent among Cyber Groupies; fully 60% email their group, 43% several times a week. · 35% of all Internet users go online for news about their local community or community events. · 30% of all Internet users go online to get information about their local government. · 11% of Internet users know of a local issue in which the Internet played a role in organizing citizens to communicate with public officials. · 51% percent of all Americans know of a place in their community where the Internet is publicly available. Overwhelmingly, these places are public libraries. African-Americans are the most likely to say that their community lacks public access to the Internet; 42% of African-Americans say their community does not have publicly available Internet terminals somewhere, compared with 29% of whites and 33% of Hispanics. The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a nonpartisan, independent research organization funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts to study the impact of the Internet on families, communities, health care, education, civic and political life, and the work place. ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: clift(a)publicus.net Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - - ICQ: 13789183 *** Please send submissions to: DO-WIRE(a)TC.UMN.EDU *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: listserv(a)tc.umn.edu *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To unsubscribe instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please forward this post to others and encourage *** *** them to subscribe to the free DO-WIRE service. ***

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rhetorical analysis on SCMC
by shufang 13 Mar '02

13 Mar '02

Dear all I'm going to do a literature review on synchronous CMC research that takes a rhetorical or discourse analysis approach. If you happen to come across any relevant articles/resources, please advise. Thank you. Shufang Shi shishufa(a)msu.edu.

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Re: synchronous/asynchronous
by Sherri Condon 04 Mar '02

04 Mar '02

I've enjoyed the discussion of synchronicity because our work suggests that it is a powerful factor in the communication strategies that people adopt. The complexities that you all have been describing have led us to define synchronous communication as interaction in which messages are produced with the expectation that they will be processed and responded to immediately vs. asynchronous communication in which it is anticipated that there will be unpredictably long delays between the exchange of messages. A factor that seems to account for many of the differences we observe in these environments is the contiguity of context in synchronous communication, where people can rely on a common ground and can alert each other reasonably quickly if there are any relevant changes in the context. In contrast, asynchronous communication opens up the possibility that massive changes can occur in the context between exchanges, and we have been struck by the fact that many epistolary conventions such as dating letters and indicating the writer's location are also providing contextual features. Even the choice of a salutation is not only reflecting the relation between writer and receiver, but also reassuring that this relation still holds. Of course, there is still much to be said about the differences among communication environments that are all synchronous according to our definition. I thought you folks might enjoy this quotation from an especially perceptive participant in a study (cited below): "the line-by-line nature of MOO communication smoothes out most minor lags in communication that can be a major part of the impression you form of somebody. A MOO friend whom I've known face-to-face for a number of years tends to be very soft-spoken and thoughtful in real life, but on MOO this is invisible; there's no volume control and, given typing speeds, multitasking and other factors, the pauses for thought are buried amidst the delays of the medium. On occasion I've been on conferencing systems (like UNIX "talk") that are character-by-character. There's definitely a different impression in this sort of communication; the lags in your typing are visible and apparent, and if you're a decently fast typist you have no opportunity to reflect on your words before sending them, no opportunity to see them on the screen and reconsider them." Jacobson, David. (1999. Impression Expectations and Offline Experiences in Text-based Virtual Communities. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 5 (1). Available: http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol5/issue1/jacobson.html Meanwhile, the poor fellow who started all this discussion still needs some sources, and the problem is that there are so many places to look, but this bibliography of chat studies definitely focuses on a synchronous environment: http://www.chat-bibliography.de/ Finally, people who are interested in a study that compares people solving the same problems in face-to-face, synchronous cmc, and e-mail can write to me or wait until the book comes out: Condon, Sherri and Claude Cech. "Discourse Management in Three Modalities." In Herring, Susan, ed. Computer-Mediated Conversation. Hampton Press. Cheers, Sherri -- Sherri L. Condon, Ph.D. The MITRE Corporation 11493 Sunset Hills Road Reston, Virginia 20190-5214 Phone: 703-883-5522 E-mail: scondon(a)mitre.org

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Fw: [Air-l] Policy on e-health in European countries
by antonio 28 Feb '02

28 Feb '02

----- Original Message ----- From: "antonio" <aviedma(a)poli.uned.es> To: <air-l(a)aoir.org> Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 10:02 AM Subject: Re: [Air-l] Policy on e-health in European countries Hello Mónica: I am also very interested in the e-communities of health, my work field is the groups of consumers of medications, in short (Prozac and depression), my interest is centered in how these communities of supports serves like means to homogenize the vision of the medication and of the illness. I would like to know the documentation and to continue in contact to help you if I wish. Antonio Viedma UNED Department Sociología I Madrid, Spain > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <Monica.Murero(a)MERIT.unimaas.nl> > To: <air-l(a)aoir.org> > Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 6:59 PM > Subject: [Air-l] Policy on e-health in European countries > > > > >

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neat indexing system
by Zunt＠aol.com 28 Feb '02

28 Feb '02

I've not run across this method before, and thought folks on this list might enjoy puzzling over it. http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~harel/lyrics.html The website contains a collection of texts (popular song lyrics). Having made a selection from the contents, you can click on various linked words within the text (not all possible words are linked). That action triggers (a) enumeration of the texts in the library that contain the target word, and (b) a hyperlinked index connecting you back to those available texts. Each instance of target word use appears in the index list. It looks to me like quite a bit of HTML page generation is done automatically via scripting on the server side. Cheers, Bob Briggs Westport, MA

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RE: [Air-l] Policy on e-health in European countries
by Sarah Stewart 28 Feb '02

28 Feb '02

Hi Monica i am a midwife in New Zealand and interested in e-health. please send me any references etc you find. thanks a lot sarah Sarah Stewart Midwifery Lecturer School of Midwifery Otago Polytechnic Dunedin Tel: 03 4793642 sarahs(a)tekotago.ac.nz

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RE: [Air-l] Policy on e-health in European countries
by Steve Fox (NLG) 27 Feb '02

27 Feb '02

Thomas/Monica, It seems we're all at the crossroads of e-health in some capacity...I've done some research with cancer patients (children who reside at Ronald McDonald House) and will be looking at the relationship between online communities and physical communities. (Found some interesting results in the choices that these youths made during the recovery process.) I'm also planning to do more extensive research over the course of the next 3 years...it'd be great to work together in some capacity. Steve -----Original Message----- From: Thomas Burg [mailto:burg@donau-uni.ac.at] Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 11:04 AM To: air-l(a)aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] Policy on e-health in European countries Monica, an interesting project. It touches my PhD projects on medical online communities insofar as I intend to work on the ways how knowledge is created and shared online and its relevance for offline real practice. Thomas N. Burg, ______________________________________ Zentrum fuer Neue Medien http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/newmedia Donau Universitaet Krems Dr. Karl Dorrek Strasse 30 A-3500 Krems, Austria Fon +43-2732-893-2520, Fax -4500 Mobil: +43-699-11656971 >>> Monica.Murero(a)MERIT.unimaas.nl 26.02.02 18:59:10 >>> Hi Folks: I am working on a comparative research project on "policy and e-health" in Europe. As a starting point, I wish to find out if national governments or private associations within European countries have already introduced policies on this matter. URLs, articles, references and suggestions are very welcomed. Anyone? Monica Murero P.S.: I will collect and send the results of this search to those of you interested in the subject. ------------------------------------- Monica Murero, PhD International Institute of Infonomics and University of Maastricht (NL) Telephone +31 45 570 7696 _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l(a)aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l(a)aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l

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Re: [Air-l] Policy on e-health in European countries
by Thomas Burg 27 Feb '02

27 Feb '02

Monica, an interesting project. It touches my PhD projects on medical online communities insofar as I intend to work on the ways how knowledge is created and shared online and its relevance for offline real practice. Thomas N. Burg, ______________________________________ Zentrum fuer Neue Medien http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/newmedia Donau Universitaet Krems Dr. Karl Dorrek Strasse 30 A-3500 Krems, Austria Fon +43-2732-893-2520, Fax -4500 Mobil: +43-699-11656971 >>> Monica.Murero(a)MERIT.unimaas.nl 26.02.02 18:59:10 >>> Hi Folks: I am working on a comparative research project on "policy and e-health" in Europe. As a starting point, I wish to find out if national governments or private associations within European countries have already introduced policies on this matter. URLs, articles, references and suggestions are very welcomed. Anyone? Monica Murero P.S.: I will collect and send the results of this search to those of you interested in the subject. ------------------------------------- Monica Murero, PhD International Institute of Infonomics and University of Maastricht (NL) Telephone +31 45 570 7696 _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l(a)aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l

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WHAT IS AN INTERNET COMMUNITY? HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE TO ADDRESS THIS QUESTION AT SYMPOSIUM
by Randy Ringen 27 Feb '02

27 Feb '02

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE NEWS RELEASE Office of College Relations, Claremont, California 91711-5990 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Randy Ringen FEB. 27, 2002 (909) 607-7924 WHAT IS AN INTERNET COMMUNITY? HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE TO ADDRESS THIS QUESTION AT SYMPOSIUM Scholars will examine the role of the "virtual community" in the Internet age CLAREMONT, Calif.-Community in the Digital Age: Philosophy and Practice, an interdisciplinary symposium on virtual communities, will be held on the Harvey Mudd College campus in Galileo Hall, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., on March 9. The symposium's aim is to discuss the impact of the Internet on the philosophy and practices of community. The event is free and open to the public. "This event gathers several of North America's leading thinkers on the social implications of technology to debate an issue of concern to all of us-the shape of public life in the digital age," said Darin Barney, Hixon-Riggs Visiting Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Harvey Mudd College and one of the conference organizers. "It is rare to have such a high-caliber group of scholars together in the same room for an entire day. It should be very exciting." Among the questions to be addressed at the symposium are the following: Do digital technologies threaten community, or do they enable and enrich it? How, and to what ends, are existing communities using these new technologies? Are new forms of community emerging on the Internet? What is the meaning of "virtual community"? Among those who will speak at the conference are Andrew Feenberg, also a Hixon-Riggs Visiting Professor at HMC and professor of philosophy at San Diego State University; Albert Borgmann, Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Montana; Doug Kellner, George F. Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education at UCLA; Hubert Dreyfus, professor of philosophy in the graduate school at UC Berkeley; and Steve Jones, professor and head of communications, University of Illinois, Chicago. The conference is sponsored by the Hixon Forum for Responsible Science and Technology and the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of Harvey Mudd College. The conference organizers are Barney and Feenberg, and professors Dick Olson and Tad Beckman of Harvey Mudd College co-directors of the Hixon Forum. Harvey Mudd College is a coeducational institution of engineering, science and mathematics that also places strong emphasis on humanities and the social sciences. The college's aim is to graduate engineers and scientists sensitive to the impact of their work on society. HMC ranks among the nation's leading schools in percentage of graduates who earn Ph.D. degrees. It is the pioneer of the internationally known Clinic Program, established in 1963. Harvey Mudd College is a member of The Claremont Colleges Consortium, the first consortium of colleges in the United States, which offers students the expansive physical facilities and wide selection of courses, faculty, student services and extracurricular activities of a university, and the small classes and personalized education of a small private college. The Consortium includes Pomona College (established in 1887), Claremont Graduate University (1925), Scripps College (1926), Claremont McKenna College (1946), Harvey Mudd College (1955), Pitzer College (1963), and the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Science (1997).

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Re: Air-l digest, Vol 1 #313 - 6 msgs
by Michel J. Menou 27 Feb '02

27 Feb '02

Hi Like Robert Tynes I wonder what is primary in Lachlan's note :-) [Yes I hear you Lachlan you like provocation; me too] Early introduction of networked ICT in Africa dates back the 70's with the linking of academic research units through the EARN network. Later on APc, Rio, Cabeca all offered store and forward messaging capabilites to academic, research, NGO and other groups. For more on email use in Africa see for instance http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/proj/conn.htm & ~findings.htm I am not sure what is more shameful use of ICT: these ridiculous spams or the systematic routing of US based porn sites through all sorts of external relays. One may further wonder if the attention of a group like AoIR about ICT use in Africa could not be focused on more substantive aspects than spam. Michel Wednesday, February 27, 2002, 6:01:02 PM, you wrote: alrao> Message: 2 alrao> From: "Lachlan Brown" <lachlan(a)london.com> alrao> To: air-l(a)aoir.org alrao> Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 13:50:24 -0500 alrao> Subject: [Air-l] re: The West African Scam alrao> Reply-To: air-l(a)aoir.org alrao> The experience of western technology in alrao> West Africa seems to be mediated by multinational mining corporations, alrao> personal and corruption, killings, and desperate pleas. It is little wonder that alrao> one of the primary uses of email from alrao> West Africa is variation on this dreadful alrao> tale.

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