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

RE: [Air-l] Re: road warriors
by Bunz, Ulla K 25 May '02

25 May '02

In organizational communication, there is a body of research on teleworking (defined as being not physically in the office at least three days a week while being connected to the office through electronic means). It has, of course, examined issues such as isolation (no more water cooler conversations) and the decrease of organizational identification, issues of career pathing, technological dependence, and the all important (and over the long term disintegrating) relationship between supervisor and subordinate. There's also been some research on space - both physical and virtual - in the organization. As Barry pointed out, teleworking or being a road warrior is not a new phenomenon. Instead of selling brooms, now our virtual busy-bees deal with digitized work. I do think it might be interesting to study this not from an organizational/management/work perspective, but from a technological perspective. I bet many technological developments and social adjustments have been driven by the need to work from the road. As to community forming among these road warriors - this reminds me of a message I posted last October when I wondered about relationship forming and maintenance among long term backbackers. I think the issue Barry brought up is extremely multi-facetted. Maybe worthy of a workshop at AoIR in Toronto? ulla ************************* Ulla Bunz University of Kansas Starting summer 2002: Rutgers University bunz(a)scils.rutgers.edu *************************

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International Journal on Media Management
by Bunz, Ulla K 25 May '02

25 May '02

CFP: The International Journal on Media Management Dear list members, feel free to circulate this CFP. Call for Papers Focus Theme: New Media Impact on the Development of Traditional Media Management Dear Colleagues: JMM - The International Journal on Media Management (http://www.mediajournal.org/) Guest Editor: Prof. Dr. Axel Zerdick - Professor for Economics and Communication at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany The purpose of this issue is to provide a forum for new research on the interrelationship between traditional media and "new media" and/or the Internet. Papers on media management issues as well as papers on issues particularly relevant for media management are particularly welcome. Papers dealing with (but not limited to) the following topics are invited: * driving forces * changes in media products and companies * changes in the media industries * changes in regulation * changes in society (consumers and citizens) Papers are subject to a double-blind review process. JMM- The International Journal on Media Management accepts short papers up to 3000 words, or long papers up to 6000 words. Please refer to the Contributors Section at http://www.mediajournal.org for our templates and additional specifications. Important Deadlines: Submission: 15 June 2002 Editorial Decision: 26 July 2002 Publication: Summer 2002 If you have any questions regarding acceptable topics please contact media.editors(a)netacademy.org or the guest editor: Prof. Dr. Axel Zerdick - axel(a)zerdick.de For questions regarding the journal, the review process,or to submit your paper: media.editors(a)netacademy.org Sincerely, Editorial Team JMM - The International Journal on Media Management Editorial Office: mcm institute for Media and Communications Management University of St.Gallen Blumenbergplatz 9 CH-9000 St.Gallen Switzerland Editor-in-Chief: Prof. Beat F. Schmid, Co-Editors: Prof. Peter Glotz, Prof. Peter Gomez Executive Editor: Bozena Izabela Mierzejewska Phone +41 71 224 30 27 Fax +41 71 224 27 71 email: media.editors(a)netacademy.org http://www.mediajournal.org/

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Global Civil Society 2001
by Rafal Rohozinski 25 May '02

25 May '02

Some of you may not have seen the excellent report published last year by the Centre for Study of Global Governance (LSE) entitled "Global civil Society 2001". Apart for making the case for the emergence of global civil society, the report contains two excellent chapters that would be of interest to member of this group; Chapter 3: The New Anti-Capitalist Movement: Money and Global Civil Society (Authors: Meghnad Desai and Yahia Said); and, Chapter 6: Contested Space: The Internet and Global Civil Society. (Author: John Naughton). The entire report (or chapters thereof) can be downloaded from the following address: http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Yearbook/outline.htm For those of you looking for a hard copy at your university library, the bibliographic reference is as follows: Anheir, H., M. Glasius, et al., Eds. (2001). Global Civil Society 2001. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

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Re: road warriors
by Bram Dov Abramson 24 May '02

24 May '02

wellman(a)chass.utoronto.ca: >These are managers, professionals and technicians who spend a good deal of >time traveling, either between organizational offices, or to other >organizations or conferences. Modally, 2-4 days per week. They live by >computer-supported and 800-number contact back to their home base. If you >get into business lounges, you can see them pounding their laptops, >checking their emails, and talking via 800 numbers to their colleagues >elsewhere. They spend a lot of time in corporate hotels (e.g., the >misnamed Holiday Inn), bars, medium-priced restaurants, and airport >lounges. > >Has anyone seriously studied such folks? Two thoughts: 1) To the extent that this is pretty much standard operating procedure for large accounting and "consultancy" (management, strategic, process, IT, engineering etc) firms today, I would be surprised if studies hadn't been done on specific aspects of this aspect of the professions either in sociology of labour/work or, especially, by academics in business school contexts. 2) Again in terms of the nature of these professions themselves -- but not the specific microstructures of interaction and materiality that sustain the geographic nature of how these professions operate -- Saskia Sassen comes to mind, and I suppose that she would cite most of the more grounded studies that had been done. From what I have read, which isn't much, that area of research looks at the presence of Big-5 accounting firms, of global consulting firms, etc as an indicator of "global city"-ness, on which see specifically <http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/in_resea.html>. (The latter work also lumps lawyers in with accountants and consultants, which I think makes sense from the standpoint of the world-city, but less from the standpoint of geographic mobility. To the extent that advertising firms operate on a global network/local affiliate relationship, they may stand somewhere in between these two poles.) >What is their community, with work colleagues and friends -- and household >members? Might be worth spending a bit of time on thevault.com for flavour. I think that in the U.S.-Europe context there are magazines explicitly geared towards people in these professions; they'd have had the occasional feature article addressing these issues very specifically. My experience is that very large proportions of the travel apparatus -- airflight, hotels, car rentals, etc -- is specifically geared toward this customer base precisely because it is both relatively large and relatively inelastic as a customer group. It would be interesting to know the extent to which that targetting affects the shape of the travel apparatus at large, and what are the implications of that ... cheers Bram

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DVD encryption vs. source code
by Sherri Condon 24 May '02

24 May '02

I happened across this story on the CMU website and thought that folks on this list who are interested in intellectual property and free speech issues would want to take a look. The press release is at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/hot/2001/05/gallery.html Here are a few quotes: The question of whether computer code can be defined as speech is at the heart of a debate brewing in U.S. Courts, as well as in academic and research institutions. A computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon is helping to make U.S. legal history by presenting a compelling argument to the courts and to the public at large. The backdrop for this legal drama began in January, 2000, when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed a lawsuit against the hacker magazine 2600, charging that the online publication had violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by posting code for decrypting DVDs.... Carnegie Mellon Principal Research Computer Scientist David Touretzky testified as an expert witness for the defense. At the trial, Touretzky argued that computer code has expressive content that conveys ideas just like other forms of speech... The Carnegie Mellon computer science faculty member is now presenting his argument to the public on the World Wide Web with his "Gallery of CSS Descramblers," a scholarly publication that demonstrates there is no difference between ideas expressed in a computer language or in the English language. Touretzky created the site to raise important questions about legal opinions on whether or not source code is subject to First Amendment protection against prior restraint of speech. The Gallery of CSS Descramblers is at http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/index.html You can even get a t-shirt with one of the descrambling algorithms printed on it, but be careful: the t-shirt vendor is being sued... Cheers, Sherri --- Sherri L. Condon, Ph.D. The MITRE Corporation 7515 Colshire Dr. McClean, Virginia 22102-7508 Phone: 703-883-5522 E-mail: scondon(a)mitre.org NOTE: Fortunately, my words and actions are entirely my own and do not reflect the views or endorsement of The MITRE Corporation.

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road warriors, clarifications
by Barry Wellman 24 May '02

24 May '02

Just to clarify some things: 1. I am fascinated by the "road warrior" life. In part, because as some on the list said yesterday, I've been doing it myself. However, it is not my fulltime lifestyle. (TG). I see several distinct areas of interest: a) the mobile work culture and social organization b) relations with family and community c) the transient, lite community of people on the road who are temporarily in the same locale (hotel lounges, airport lounges). 2. However, I am not going to do this research myself. I have too much on my plate already. So if you have something to share, please share it with the list as well as with me. 3. The "road warrior" situation is not new. See "Salesman, Death of" by Arthur Miller, tales of itinerants, and country songs about truckers. 4. What is new-ish I believe is: a. gone far beyond salespeople, etc to involve a much larger number of technical, professional and managerial folks. Who are on the "road" (actually in the air) 2-4 days/week, almost every week. b. The use of multiple means of communication to keep strongly tied to home base: 800 numbers, cellphones, email, web, etc. c. The growth of higher-end (than truck stops) services to support these people: if you ever get into a business class lounge, there is usually a world of support in there: internet connections, printers, meeting rooms, phones, rebooking of flights, drinks, reading material (and meagre food). Barry ___________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman(a)chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 ___________________________________________________________________

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feedback, overload, and equilibrium in online nets
by Ronald E. Rice 24 May '02

24 May '02

I hesitate to resurrect such an old publication, but my dissertation developed and tested a mode of equilibrium among the network relations of users and groups of the EIES computer conferencing system: Rice, R.E. (1982). Communication networking in computer-conferencing systems: A longitudinal study of group roles and system structure. In M. Burgoon (Ed.), Communication yearbook, vol. 6. (pp. 925-944). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. It made a similar argument, that there is both a basement level of interaction required to maintain online groups, and a ceiling of interaction beyond which people can't process more messages. Groups must evolve toward the middle range, and reciprocity within and across groups is the feedback mechanism. I know that Lin Freeman also applied Q-analysis to the maximum carrying capacity of online conferences, but don't know if he ever published it. ============================================================ Ronald E. Rice Professor, Chair of Department of Communication School of Communication, Information & Library Studies Rutgers University 4 Huntington St., New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1071 w: 732-932-7500, ext. 8122; f: 732-932-6916 e: rrice(a)scils.rutgers.edu; http://scils.rutgers.edu/~rrice ============================================================

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case studies of mailinglists
by geert lovink 24 May '02

24 May '02

Dear Air-l, for my PhD at the University of Melbourne I have recently written a few case studies of mailinglist communities. Now I am winding up this project and for the introduction and conclusion I would like to refer to a few similar case studies, but I can't find all that many of them. Does anyone have a suggestion? It could be studies about virtual communities but that's perhaps a bit too broad. I am in particularly interested in internal dynamics and issues of sustainability. Any reference is most welcome. BTW. I do like the (new) afterword Howard Rheingold wrote for his Virtual Community book which MIT Press reprinted recently. I am not sure how welknown this text is. It's a good and honest reassessment of his passions. Yours, Geert Lovink (Sydney)

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Re: Air-l digest, Vol 1 #392 : case studies of mailinglists
by Uwe Matzat 23 May '02

23 May '02

Dear Geert, I conducted an analysis of mailing lists that includes an analysis of their internal dynamics, although it is not a case study, but rather a large-scale analysis of a variety of academic mailing lists. Two papers might be of interest to you: *Matzat U. (accepted for publication). "Academic Communication and Internet Discussion Groups: Transfer of Information or Creation of Social Contacts?" in: Social Networks see http://www.ppsw.rug.nl/~matzat/2000b.htm for the abstract *Matzat, U. (1998). "Academic Communication and Active Participation in Internet Discussion Groups: Different Models of the Collective Good Problem." Unpublished manuscript, University of Groningen. see http://www.ppsw.rug.nl/~matzat/1998c.htm The second paper is about the internal dynamics, whereas the first one is about some outcomes of mailing list use. The results belonging to the second paper can be found in my Ph.D. thesis on "Social Networks and Cooperation in Electronic Commuities" which is also online available at http://www.ub.rug.nl/eldoc/dis/ppsw/u.matzat/ regards, Uwe Matzat > > Message: 5 > From: geert lovink <geert(a)desk.nl> > To: air-l(a)aoir.org > Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 12:23:21 +1000 > Subject: [Air-l] case studies of mailinglists > Reply-To: air-l(a)aoir.org > > Dear Air-l, > > for my PhD at the University of Melbourne I have recently written a few case > studies of mailinglist communities. Now I am winding up this project and for > the introduction and conclusion I would like to refer to a few similar case > studies, but I can't find all that many of them. Does anyone have a > suggestion? It could be studies about virtual communities but that's perhaps > a bit too broad. I am in particularly interested in internal dynamics and > issues of sustainability. Any reference is most welcome. > > BTW. I do like the (new) afterword Howard Rheingold wrote for his Virtual > Community book which MIT Press reprinted recently. I am not sure how > welknown this text is. It's a good and honest reassessment of his passions. > > Yours, > > Geert Lovink (Sydney) > > http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l ################################################################### U. Matzat Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut / Social Science Institute Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet Duesseldorf / University of Duesseldorf Universitaetsstr. 1 40225 Duesseldorf Germany email: matzat(a)uni-duesseldorf.de http:/www.uni-duesseldorf.de/~matzat #########################################################

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Re: [Air-l] case studies of mailinglists
by radhika gajjala 23 May '02

23 May '02

I dont know if these would work (and excuse my self-promotion...) for you but based on my work related women-centered email lists I have the following (I can also email you drafts of other stuff if you like - please feel free to browse www.cyberdiva.org) Gajjala, R (forthcoming November 2002) Interrogating Identities: Composing Other Cyber-spaces - International and Intercultural Communication Annual, Volume 25. Gajjala, R (forthcoming July 2002) An Interrupted Postcolonial/Feminist Cyberethnography: Complicity and Resistance in the "Cyberfield" - Feminist Media Studies Gajjala, R. (2001) Studying Feminist E-Spaces: Introducing Transnational/Postcolonial Concerns in S. Munt (Ed), TechnospacesLondon:Continuum International. Gajjala, R. (2001) Cyborg Diaspora E Comunita Virtuale: SAWNET in AVATAR, rivista di antropologia e comunicazione, n.2, roma, 2001 (translated from English to Italian by Cristiana Nicotera). Gajjala, R. (2000) Internet constructs of identity and ignorance: "Third-world" contexts and cyberfeminism, in Pagnucci, G., & Mauriello, N. (Eds.) (1999-2000). The future of narrative discourse: Internet constructs of literacy and identity. Works and Days,17/18 (33-36). ___________ Radhika Gajjala Bowling Green State University http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik http://www.cyberdiva.org http://lingua.utdallas.edu:7000/4425/ "I am not erudite enough to be interdisciplinary, but I can break rules" - Spivak, 1999. "Just bear in mind, darling: Write Mortal. Think Witch" - Endora from "Bewitched" _____

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