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

RE: [Air-l] Lachlan Brown
by Steve Fox (NLG) 21 Mar '02

21 Mar '02

I don't share this sense of unease. While I believe that there is room for scholarly debate in many things, I felt that what Lachlan brought to the table often fell beyond not only a level of debate, but sometimes a level of basic understanding. One thing out of this that I find extremely interesting, though, is how the online community governs itself? How does this governance work through our collective perceptions of the community, and can online communities "survive" without a structured model of governance? Steve -----Original Message----- From: Monika Merkes [mailto:M.Merkes@latrobe.edu.au] Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 6:02 PM To: air-l(a)aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] Lachlan Brown I share Robert's feelings of unease mainly for two reasons: freedom of speech is more important to me than being exposed to some inappropriate or even offensive comments, and secondly issues around process: what _is_ the process for being kicked off the list? Is it a fair and transparent process? Regards Monika Monika Merkes http://member.melbpc.org.au/~monika/ "robert m. tynes" wrote: > > I find it a bit troubling. I'm not sure exactly why, but I do have a few > reflections. > <snip> _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l(a)aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l

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Re: Internet research/Sub-saharan Africa
by Bram Dov Abramson 21 Mar '02

21 Mar '02

rtynes(a)u.washington.edu: >My research involves Africa and the Internet. I've scoured many a journal, >looking for research on the subject, but haven't come up with much. And, >most of the studies that I have seen look at policy or IT infrastructure, >such as the new book: > >"Beyond Boundaries: Cyberspace in Africa", by Melinda >Robins and Robert Hilliard (2002). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. > >Any suggestions regarding African Internet research that I may be >missing? Maybe it's a question of narrowing down the topic to something more specific? Here are some random thoughts. In the area of diffusion of Internet access, there has been rather a lot written to document telecentre experiments and initiatives, for example published by IDRC through their Ottawa and South Africa offices. Maybe telecentres is an "African Internet" topic you'd be interested in researching. Maybe in specific locales, even. WorldSpace would be an interesting initiative on which to do a case study imho. On similar topics, I remember seeing quite a lot of journalistic accounts -- less scholarly -- on the lack of submarine and, to a certain extent, terrestrial trunking to Africa. While I was at TeleGeography I remember seeing requests come in from time to time on Africa-to-Africa tromboning of phone calls through Europe because of lack of intra-African infrastructure, similar to the airplane problem that Air Afrique was to address. This is very much the case with Internet, and there's been a shift from U.S. to Europe as the centre of African country-to-country Internet infrastructure. Submarine-cable-wise, the Africa One project was recently back on the books after years of on-again, off-again, but this time Global Crossing is involved, and last time I looked, they weren't doing so well ... More generally there is a fair bit of work on telecom policy in sub-Saharan Africa's many jurisdictions, especially South Africa, and that work has begun to look at encouraging Internet diffusion. Studies on things like the licensing of Internet access providers and backbone providers; their relationship with the PTT; existence of Internet exchanges (where IAP sector is liberalised); initiatives on all-country-local-dial numbers for Internet access, often through special area codes. The ITU has published a fair bit on statistical indicators to get a sense of just what we're talking about. Of course, all that is about access and connectivity. Usage, applications, Web-specific studies are another ballgame. I remember seeing some things about this in First Monday (firstmonday.org I think); South African government bodies have in recent years commissioned a little bit on it; there's bridges.org who have set up an office in Capetown to pitch in for e-commerce; and so forth. But it's hard to talk about such a wide variety of topics for such a wide geographic area and do it succinctly! cheers Bram

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More Internet research/Sub-saharan Africa
by Daniel Pare 21 Mar '02

21 Mar '02

Hello again, Forgot to mention, those interested in this subject may also want to visit <http://www.balancingact-africa.com> which puts out regular newsletters about Internet-related matters in Africa. Be well, Dan -- *************************************************************** Dr. Daniel J. Paré, Research Fellow Media@LSE/Department of Sociology The London School of Economics & Political Science Houghton Street London, WC2A 2AE Tel: 44-0207-955-7695 Fax: 44-0207-955-7405 ***************************************************************

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Internet Research - Africa
by Daniel Pare 21 Mar '02

21 Mar '02

Hello Robert, An excellent bit of research on this matter is: Maitland, Carleen. 2001. Institutional Assets: Shaping the Potential for Electronic Commerce in Developing Countries. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Economics of Infrastructure, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. This dissertation contains an excellent case study of the state of e-commerce in Tanzania. Also, I am currently involved in a DFID funded research project that is looking at e-commerce use/up-take in the garments/apparel and horticulture sectors in South Africa, Kenya, and Bangladesh. We will be having some country specific outputs in the very near future. In the meantime, you may want to check out the following site: <http://www.gapresearch.org/production/ecommerce.html>. I also recommend that you take a look at the work of Mike Jensen, his status reports on the state of the Internet are probably amongst the best availible <http://demiurge.wn.apc.org/africa/afstat.htm> and <http://www3.sn.apc.org/africa/afrmain.htm>. Finally, you may want to check out some of the work that is being done at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Natal, South Africa. Be well, Dan -- *************************************************************** Dr. Daniel J. Paré, Research Fellow Media@LSE/Department of Sociology The London School of Economics & Political Science Houghton Street London, WC2A 2AE Tel: 44-0207-955-7695 Fax: 44-0207-955-7405 ***************************************************************

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african internet research
by Lokman Tsui 21 Mar '02

21 Mar '02

> Any suggestions regarding African Internet research that I may be > missing? Hi Robert, check out http://www.infonomics.nl/globalequality/reports.htm it has a link to an article about Internet, Development and Education in Africa by Nyaki Adeya and Banji Oyeyinka there is also forthcoming: Internet, Development and Education - A Comparison Between Africa, Asia and Latin America By Myriam Diocaretz and Jeroen de Kloet [forthcoming] cheers, Lokman Tsui - currently in the process of applying for ph.d National Taiwan University / Leiden University

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trolls, histories & sub-Saharan AFrica
by Sally Wyatt 21 Mar '02

21 Mar '02

I've been a lurker on this list for a while, and was on the point of un-subscribing during the recent trolling incident. Perhaps prompted by that, I've decided to abandon my lurker status and try to contribute something. First - bit short notice, especially for those of you in the US, but next week there is a conference in Maastricht called 'Global E-quality, Rethinking ICTs in Africa, Asia and the Latin America', organised by the Infonomics people (also hosting the AoIR conference later this year). The conference marks the end of a project about the Internet, development and education in the regions already mentioned. more details: http://www.infonomics.nl/globalequality Second - Internet histories - Janet Abbate's book is very good, especially on the ARPAnet years. Castells new book _The Internet Galaxy_ has a chapter on the history which draws quite extensively on her work. Other sources: K Hafner and M Lyon (1996) _Where Wizards stay up late: The origins of the Internet_ New York: Simon & Schuster - journalistic but a good read The Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org) maintains lots of relevant stuff, especially from technical point of view sorry for self-promotion: G Thomas & S Wyatt (1999) 'Shaping cyberspace - interpreting and transforming the Internet' _REsearch Policy_ 28,7: 681-98 - looks at history of Internet focusing on changing relationship between producers and users; alternatives to Internet which didn't succeed - why they didn't whereas Internet did... Sally **************************** Dr Sally Wyatt Communicatiewetenschap Universiteit van Amsterdam Kloveniersburgwal 48 1012 CX Amsterdam The Netherlands tel: +31 (0)20 525 3178 fax: +31 (0)20 525 3681 *****************************

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RE: [Air-l] Internet research/Sub-saharan Africa
by Rachel Harris 21 Mar '02

21 Mar '02

Hi Robert I think it might be useful to look at the imfundo project. This is an initiative funded by the UK government's DfID (department for international development) that is bringing partnerships to improve education in Africa through IT. The web site (http://www.imfundo.org/) includes a 'KnowledgeBank that is designed to share information about the use of ICT for enhancing education across Africa'. May give some pointers, if not in depth research? Regards, Rachel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dr Rachel A Harris Scottish Centre for Research into On-Line Learning and Assessment University of Glasgow Florentine House 53 Hillhead Street Glasgow, G12 8QQ www.scrolla.ac.uk -----Original Message----- From: air-l-admin(a)aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin@aoir.org]On Behalf Of robert m. tynes Sent: 21 March 2002 16:14 To: air-l(a)aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] Internet research/Sub-saharan Africa Hello all, My research involves Africa and the Internet. I've scoured many a journal, looking for research on the subject, but haven't come up with much. And, most of the studies that I have seen look at policy or IT infrastructure, such as the new book: "Beyond Boundaries: Cyberspace in Africa", by Melinda Robins and Robert Hilliard (2002). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Any suggestions regarding African Internet research that I may be missing? -Robert _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l(a)aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l

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Fw: [Reader-list] CFP: IT in regional areas
by K.S.O-Riordan＠sussex.ac.uk 21 Mar '02

21 Mar '02

<apologies for cross-posting> This seeemed to tie into the rurality thread..... Kate O'Riordan University of Sussex, UK -------------------------------------------------------------- The Faculty of Informatics and Communication at Central Queensland University is pleased to call for case studies for its ITiRA 2002 Conference at CQU Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, 27 - 29 August 2002. The overall purpose of the ITiRA 2002 Conference is to examine strategies, research and applications for the introduction and use of Information Technology in Regional Areas (details can be found at: http://itira.cqu.edu.au ). "Expressions of Interest" (abstracts) for the presentation of Case Studies or Posters will be accepted until 10 May 2002, accepted case studies will be notified by 24 May and completed case study papers due 5 July.

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online psychotherapy/supervision
by Ben Davidson 21 Mar '02

21 Mar '02

Hi all, This is to announce the creation of the 'Psychotherapy & Clinical Supervision Online' Internet forum, specifically for those with an interest or involvement in the practice, research, development or theory of Online Psychotherapy and Online Clinical Supervision. The forum is unmoderated, but membership is by approval of the listowner. The forum currently comprises an e-mail discusson list (PSYCHOTHERAPY-ONLINE(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK) a videoconferencing and instant message facility, and a website. As membership grows, perhaps we will be able to develop these resources further. You are invited to join by visiting the following URL, clicking the 'join' button and supplying the required details (name and e-mail address): http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/psychotherapy-online.html Hope to see you there. Best wishes, Ben

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Re: [Air-l] Learning from Lachlan
by radhika gajjala 21 Mar '02

21 Mar '02

Having been on and off and on Joan's list (great control, btw:)) and done my own listing - where "trolls" often come from a strange mixed subjectivity of privilege (implicitly assuming that "the Internet" is a "free" and "democratic" space...haha - and buying into certain culturally - situated in hierarchies of race, gender, geography, class, langauge...you name it) specific notions of no-censureship - in a sense, pretty naive, I would say, about the possibility for a lack of power wielding and hierarchy in internetworked spaces... i could go on in loops of hyphens, semicolons and paranthesis... but...) and a lack of privilege in the specific context - if "privilege" can be taken to mean a lack of nettiquette and knowledge, cultural capital within the specific context (whether of internet research as a body of knowledge or women's studies or postcolonial theory as defined within certain epistemologies or engaging specific contexts inaccessible to varieties of Other people - or creative writing by so-called and percieved-as "Others" - here i refer to my own various interestingly failed attempts in listing and ethnographing - etc). In my managing of various lists (a couple of which got parallyzed into silence because of the dilemma regarding who speaks and who doesnt), I've done my own share of gatekeeping so I am not criticizing anyone else's - but I'm always fascinated at the issues and discussions that emerge. r > >For what it's worth, I might note that in the eleven years I've been >responsible for WMST-L (a large academic list for discussion of >women's studies teaching, research, and program administration), I've >seen a number of trolls follow a pattern similar to the one Michael >Gurstein describes. At first, they tend to seem interested, engaged, >sincere. Soon, though, their postings become increasingly off the >wall and disruptive. Eventually, it becomes clear that they're >interested primarily in creating chaos and being the center of >attention. > >I for one am very pleased that Lachlan has been removed from AIR-L. > > Joan > > Joan Korenman, Director > Center for Women & Information Technology > University of Maryland, Baltimore County > Baltimore, MD 21250 USA > korenman(a)umbc.edu > http://www.umbc.edu/cwit/ > > >_______________________________________________ >Air-l mailing list >Air-l(a)aoir.org >http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l > >

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