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

ABSTRACT: identities and relations in the webchats
by VELKOVSKA Julia FTRD/DIH/ISS 08 Aug '02

08 Aug '02

Hi, I think that abstract posting is a very good idea. So here is my contribution - a brief abstract of an article on the webchat interactions to be published in Sociologie du travail N°2, 2002( http://www.elsevier.fr/html/detrevue.cfm?code=STR) The article is in French and is based on the works of Simmel, Schutz, Goffman and Garfinkel. Any comments, questions and references to related work are wellcome. The Anonymous Intimacy of Electronic Conversations in Webchats Julia Velkovska Abstract Using ethnomethodology and phenomenological sociology, this paper analyses identities and relations arising through real time written interactions in webchats. How do users constitute identities based only on electronic writing? How can relations form, develop and last in this context? What is specific about such electronic relations? Two kinds of data are analysed: interviews with active webchat users and discussions recorded in the chats. First of all, the paper establishes the link between the space-time framework of the communication device and the form of interactions taking place. Then, the typifications used by participants to construct their identities and relations are examined. In conclusion, the relations in the chats are characterized by a tension between intimacy and anonymity. Keywords: Internet, Webchats, Computer-Mediated Interactions, Social Relations, Identities, Intimacy, Anonymity, Ethnomethodology, Phenomenological Sociology. ----- Julia Velkovska PhD Candidate Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales - Paris & France Télécom Recherche et Développement Direction des Interactions Humaines Laboratoire UCE 38-40, rue du Général Leclerc, 92 794 Issy les Moulineaux cedex 9 France tél. + (33) (0)1 45 29 53 18 fax. + (33) (0)1 45 29 01 06 julia.velkovska(a)francetelecom.com

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Abstract: Measure of Discussion Activity in Threaded Discussion Spaces
by David Wiley 08 Aug '02

08 Aug '02

I've been lurking on this list long enough, I suppose. David Wiley, Dept. of Instructional Technology, Utah State University. How do you do? This paper in progress describes a manner of calculating a measure of discussion activity (*not* quality) in threaded discussion spaces. Based on an operationalization of discussion activity in which deeper reply levels suggest more intense discussion activity, a primitive formula for calculating mean reply depths for discussion archives is presented, together with methods for adjusting the measure to account for misthreaded messages and non-discussive messages in the archive. Sample calculations are shown and discussed for six month archives of two mailing lists relating to open source software. http://wiley.ed.usu.edu/docs/discussion08.pdf I would love to receive any comments anyone has on this work, especially pointers to related work. I would also be happy to share the software we used if people are interested. It currently runs the calculation on Mailman mailing list archives (and, incidentally, converts these archives into either edge lists or adjacency matrices for other kinds of analysis), though we're expanding it to handle webboards like Slashdot and kuro5hin. Theoretically it could be extended to process any archive with a consistent presentation format, as long as you aren't afraid of regular expressions <g>. Anyway, pleased to meet you. Here's to more AoIR fun, David

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Abstract (work in progress) from Lisa Nakamura
by Lisa Nakamura 08 Aug '02

08 Aug '02

Having just seen Mark Warshauer's abstract, I think I will post one of my own. Unlike his, mine is not a finished paper, so any feedback or help is appreciated. Also, please note new email address and affiliation. There's no title yet. Abstract: Postcolonial thinkers have long differed in their stance towards "imperialist" literary forms. Ngugi wa Thiongo and Salman Rushdie represent two opposed positions in this debate, with Thiongo asserting the indispensibility of native languages in the creation of an "authentic" postcolonial literature and Rushdie claiming that the "language of the departed imperialists" can and has been successfully repurposed for postcolonial writers. Indeed, Rushdie claims that "English has become an Indian language. Its colonial origins mean that, like Urdu and unlike all other Indian languages, it has no regional base, but in all other ways it has emphatically come to stay." Rushdie's position has elicited much controversy among postcolonial writers. His assertion that the best writing to come out of India has been in English, the language of the colonizer, has infuriated many, firstly because it seems self-promoting (Rushdie's own writing is in English) and secondly because it seems to deny the importance of an authentically Indian voice. The mediation between English literary forms and language use and native ones arouses uneasiness among scholars who wish to assert the independence of formerly colonized cultures. While these concerns seem somewhat removed from questions of new media, the fear that the adoption of an "imperializing" media form and language may replicate old colonial power relations is still very much in evidence now. This paper will assess the extent to which new media forms have "come to stay" in the context of postcolonial culture, and the challenge to notions of cultural authenticity that accompany that arrival. In light of current debates regarding the best ways to close the digital divide, it may be that, at least to media critics sympathetic to Ngugi's views such as Ziauddin Sardar, the question is moot since the divide works to preserve native cultures from colonizing media incursions from the West. Indeed, for them the salient question may be how best to widen this divide. I intend to begin this paper by a review of the debate regarding language appropriation in the context of postcolonia literature and theory because these ideas have been in play in that arena for several years. I then intend to retrofit them onto the case of new media, paying careful attention to instances where it is profitable and strategic to apply them as well as instances in which they do not map well.

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2002 Media Ecology Association Awards
by jeremy hunsinger 08 Aug '02

08 Aug '02

Geert posted these to nettime-l, so i'm sending them on. Congratulations to everyone involved, and special congrats for those members of AoIR in the awardees:) Announcing the 2002 Media Ecology Association Awards: The Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology to Douglas Rushkoff for Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say The Walter Benjamin Award for Outstanding Article in the Field of Media Ecology to Erik P. Bucy and Kimberly S. Gregson for "Media Participation: A Legitimizing Mechanism of Mass Democracy" The Susanne K. Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Symbolic Form to Kevin G. Barnhurst and John Nerone for The Form of News: A History The Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics to Jack Lule for Daily News, Eternal Stories: The Mythological Role of Journalism The Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Culture to Susan B. Barnes for Online Connections: Internet Interpersonal Relationshipsand to Stuart Biegel for Beyond Our Control? Confronting the Limits of Our Legal System in the Age of Cyberspace The John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in the Field of Media Ecology to William Bly and John McDaid for Media Ecology Unplugged (Audio music recording, available on CD and as downloadable MP3 files at infomonger.com) The Harold A. Innis Award for Outstanding Thesis or Dissertation in the Field of Media Ecology to Janet Sternberg for Misbehavior in Cyber Places: The Regulation of Online Conduct in Virtual Communities on the Internet The Louis Forsdale Award for Outstanding Educator in the Field of Media Ecology to Edmund Carpenter The Jacques Ellul Award for Outstanding Media Ecology Activism to Parry Aftab ------------------------------ -- Jeremy Hunsinger http://www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy cddc/political science http://www.cddc.vt.edu 526 major williams hall 0130 http://www.dromocracy.com virginia tech -under construction blacksburg, va 24061 540-231-7614 jhuns(a)vt.edu this email was sent from my office --- () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Re: [Air-l] validity of the research
by david_eddy_spicer＠harvard.edu 08 Aug '02

08 Aug '02

Aurelija raises a question that echoes the "paradigm dialogue" over the past quarter century--debates among qualitative and quantitative researchers about what counts for truth, what it means to know. [Up on soapbox] Questions of validity are fundamental to the logic of your research, which points to what you're asking and how you set about to answer it. There's no one right answer (i.e., validity = "triangulate"); validity is the mortar of your overall approach. There are also different kinds of threats to validity, ranging across whether you captured what you thought you captured to whether you've considered alternative explanations to understand what you found. [Down from soapbox] "...just trust..." isn't enough, but what _is_ ? Especially when you've given up on notions of objective truth, as I assume you have if you're doing some kind of interpretive analysis of online exchanges. Here's what educational researcher Joe Maxwell has to say: "[T]he idea of objective truth isn't essential to a theory of validity that does what most researchers want it to do, which is to give them some grounds for distinguishing accounts that are credible from those that are not." (Qualitative Research Design, p. 87). So then, what's credible? The answer lies in the integrity of your design--how different facets--theory (and the epistemology that implies) and methodology--come together to form a whole. David -------------------air-l-admin(a)aoir.org------------------- To:air-l@aoir.org CC: Subject:[Air-l] validity of the research hello :) Introducing qualitative research in the seminar, I was asked a question about the validity of online researches: how may we trust the results, when we don't get non-verbal information and how can we be sure whether the respondent says the truth or lies... I usually use additional methods for validation, such as observation or interviews IRL, but in some cases I (and possibly other researchers too) just trust, what my respondents say and build my conclusions on their words... so I wanted to ask, how do you deal with the question of validity doing the research online? Regards Aurelija Dagilyte _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l(a)aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l

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Re: Air-l digest, Vol 1 #459 -Posting abstracts
by Michel J. Menou 07 Aug '02

07 Aug '02

Hi, I too support posting of abstracts of both published and working papers, with due identification ay the beginning of the subject line (a discipline hardly observed). But cannot we think further in compiling these into an on-going bibliography? Michel

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NO BOUNDARIES FOR JOURNEYS OF THE MIND
by Arun Kumar Tripathi 07 Aug '02

07 Aug '02

Dear Internet Researchers, NO BOUNDARIES FOR JOURNEYS OF THE MIND by Arun Kumar Tripathi (Ubiquity: An ACM IT Magazine and Forum, vol. 2, issue 27, September 11-17, 2001) "What makes the new technologies worth embracing? Why should institutions of higher education undertake the major investments that are involved? What makes the Internet more than just the latest in a long chain of technological innovations--including radio and television--that have fallen short of inflated expectations in the realm of advanced learning?" The essay is a preview from a forthcoming anthology on digital education. The article is available on the Web at <http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/a_tripathi_1.html> Your feedback is welcome! Thank you in advance. Best regards, Arun

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Ideas in Cyberspace Education: registration
by Arun Kumar Tripathi 07 Aug '02

07 Aug '02

Dear Internet Researchers, ((Forwarded via VIRTUAL-UNIVERSITIES Listserv)) Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 19:14:44 +0100 From: Ray Land <rayl(a)EDUCATION.ED.AC.UK> [--] * with apologies for cross posting * --------------------------------------------------- Ideas in Cyberspace Education Symposium Higham Hall, Lake District, England UK 30 October to 1 November 2002 Registration for the ICE symposium is now open. You can register online at: http://mcdept.qmuc.ac.uk/ice The emergence of the internet has introduced some fundamental challenges to the ways in which we understand notions of identity, community, knowledge itself. Cyberspace theory of recent years has provided fascinating insights into the changes we are experiencing culturally, socially and politically as a result of our shift online. These insights tend, however, to be under-represented in our explorations of the effects on education of using the new technologies. The aim of the symposium is to provide an opportunity to engage in a re-examination of educational experiences in cyberspace. The keynote speaker will be Mark Poster, author of 'The Information Subject' and 'What's the Matter with the Internet?' Further details are available from the symposium web site. Numbers are limited, so please book early! With thanks, Ray Land ----------------------------------------------------- ICE Symposium email: ice(a)ed.ac.uk web: http://mcdept.qmuc.ac.uk/ice/ phone: 0131 651 6668 fax: 0131 651 6664 ____________________________________________ Dr Ray Land Director, Centre for Teaching, Learning & Assessment University of Edinburgh Paterson's Land, Holyrood Road Edinburgh EH8 8AQ tel: 0131-6516668 (direct line) 0131-651 6661(Office) fax:0131-651 6664 email: ray.land(a)ed.ac.uk http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/rayland/ray.htm ----

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Air-l digest, Vol 1 #460 - 10 msgs
by msrdssg＠fs1.ec.man.ac.uk 07 Aug '02

07 Aug '02

Sarah Green currently checks her email approximately once per week. Apologies in advance for any delays in response. For urgent queries, please call +44 (0)161 275 4000 Sarah

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RE: [Air-l] Chat Room Study
by Rachel Harris 07 Aug '02

07 Aug '02

Hi Marj I'm currently working with a group as part of SCROLLA investigating means of characterising online learning communications. We are treating messages posted to online conferences as indicators of online behaviours, although other terms are also used, such as 'moves' which bring in other research, for example, associated with turn taking in groups. ( A couple of recent conference papers are available on the web at http://www.shef.ac.uk/nlc2002/proceedings/symp/04.htm#04a Chappel et al "Fast Coding of On-line Learning Behaviours using an 'Elements' Approach" and McAteer el al http://www.shef.ac.uk/nlc2002/proceedings/symp/04.htm#04b "Characterising On-line Learning Environments", if you're interested.) I suspect the conclusions that can be drawn by your student will depend on how she intends to analyse the chat room data. This could be the critical discourse analysis that Jeremy referred to, which might seek to categorise incidences of different kinds of communication behaviours, or references to behaviours outside of the chatroom. Any conclusions from this would be based on assumptions made by the researcher, which may be off the mark, especially given the nature of the study. One technique that we will be developing to address this, is that of situated participant recall. This involves interviewing, possibly online, contributors to discussions to first ask for their views on the discussions under study, and then to comment on the researcher's interpretation of parts of these communications. This approach has the advantage of reducing the chance of quoting out of context and changing the original author's intent, while checking the interpretation of others' comments. It also links to the importance of gaining permission and maintaining confidentiality. Other techniques that might be useful to investigate could be social networks analysis. Depending on how much background detail you have, this could be interesting in terms of who refers to whom, or who pays attention to whom within the chat room, and could lead on to work that is more related to the impact of the discourse. My focus is in online learning, but one paper in this area that may be useful is Murphy, K. L., & Collins, M.P. (1998). "Development of communication conventions in instructional electronic chats." Journal of Distance Education 12(1/2): 177-200 Available online at: http://disted.tamu.edu/aera97a.htm Best wishes 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 0141 330 2878 r.harris(a)udcf.gla.ac.uk www.scrolla.ac.uk -----Original Message----- From: air-l-admin(a)aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin@aoir.org]On Behalf Of Marj Kibby Sent: 07 August 2002 06:02 To: air-l(a)aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] Chat Room Study Hi all, A PhD student is doing research into Enjo Kousai or teenage prostitution in Japan. Her primary source of personal information is chat room archives. Our review board has said that we can do a study of the chat room but "The research can only be about chat room discourse and not about how Japanese teenagers behave" Can tentative 'conclusions' be drawn about attitudes and behaviours from online conversation? Does anyone know of published work along these lines? Cheers, Marj Dr Marjorie Kibby, Senior Lecturer in Communication & Culture The University of Newcastle, Callaghan NSW 2308 Australia Marj.Kibby(a)newcastle.edu.au +61 2 49216604 << File: Marj Kibby.vcf >>

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