June 2004 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

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11 Jun '04

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Call for Papers: Interface Panel at CAA
by Alec MacLeod 11 Jun '04

11 Jun '04

Call for Papers New Media Caucus Open Session Panel at the 93rd Annual Conference of the College Art Association Atlanta, Georgia, February 16-19, 2005. INTERROGATING INTERFACES Alec MacLeod and Laurie Beth Clark, chairs Interface is the meeting place between human and computer. For this panel we wish to emphasize the notion of interface through graphics and the underlying structures through which we access and manipulate electronic media. How do interfaces structure and mediate our access to and experience of net browsers, portals & web sites, games, virtual communities, and other software applications? Designers emphasize transparency and the “intuitive” qualities of the interface. The implicit—and sometimes explicit—language employed is highly metaphoric. Initially concepts of “navigation” and “files and folders” pointed to familiar (to some people) “real world” references. Increasingly, there are emerging conventions for the interface which make use of now familiar, though arbitrary, symbolic iconography. In talking with designers and reading about interface design, we detect (or imagine) a longing for a universal visual language. That said, almost everyone seems to concede that verbal descriptions are necessary to make an interface usable. While icons may become conventional signs, there is no way to make one that is likely to evoke a widely shared intuitive comprehension on first sight. This panel will provide a much needed opportunity to interrogate the desire for and feasibility of transparency, universality, and the intuitive nature of interfaces, acknowledging the ways in which the designs of interfaces encode narrow (and dominant) modes of thought. An underlying issue is the role of the tools that create the interfaces. We encourage presentations that reveal the implicit assumptions that seem to make an interface transparent and intuitive. A discussion of possible tools and methods for deconstructing the cultural assumptions in interface design would be one approach. Alternatively, inquiry into the metaphors used in different interface conventions and designs might be a direction to go. We would like to see the panel include those who are actually involved in making interfaces not just deconstructing them. Questions to raise on this panel include: •Does the ubiquitous use of western perspectival representation reinscribe the problematics of the gaze? •What are the dominant and emerging metaphors and in what histories are they embedded? •What are the aesthetics and politics of normalized interface experiences such as those users have while reading email or generating documents using commercial operating systems and software? •How much of what gets created is the product of the logic of the team that designed the software that even high end designers use to create the interfaces? •To what extent does the nature of the code which is used determine the bias and premise of these visual products? •How do the logics used by design applications dictate linearity and menu orientation? •What different issues result from the extensive use of hyperlinks? •Has the wide dissemination of computer interface iconography initiated a true disjunct between earlier studies of iconographic systems such as those from the visual arts? How might it be read as in a continuum with these? Please submit proposals to lbclark(a)education.wisc.edu and amacleod(a)ciis.edu by August 1, 2004.

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How Many Sites on Web?
by Maura Conway 11 Jun '04

11 Jun '04

AoIRers, I'm looking for an up-to-date reference for how many sites are on the Internet. I've tried Clickz, Pew Internet, etc., but with no success. I've seen a figure of 1 billion Websites, but do not know where this figure came from. Anybody got hard info.? All the Best, Maura Maura Conway Teaching Fellow School of International Relations University of St. Andrews St Andrews KY16 9AL Scotland Tel.: +44 (0)1334 462939 Fax.: +44 (0)1334 462937 E-mail: mc52(a)st-andrews.ac.uk

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ISPs as regulators
by Sandra Braman 10 Jun '04

10 Jun '04

Folks interested in the article mentioned below may also want to read "Advantage ISP: Terms of Service as Media Law," in NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY, 2003. In this piece Stephanie Lynch and I looked at ISP terms of service and acceptable use agreements from the perspective of their impact on multiple legal matters, including importantly freedom of speech and intellectual property rights. Sandra Braman >Since the topic of censorship on the net seems to be of interest to >this list you might be interested in a neat piece of research we >recently published: > >How Liberty was Lost in Cyberspace >http://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/liberty.pdf > >And in addition: >http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA553.htm > >Best >--Ch

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Reminder - Invitation to participate in a survey of internet use
by Steve Jones 10 Jun '04

10 Jun '04

[A reminder that if you have not taken this survey to please do so, and to forward the message below to colleagues and/or faculty email lists as you determine appropriate. Thank you. -Sj] Greetings: You are invited to participate in an on-line survey and be part of a research project to explore various aspects of Internet use by college instructors. The survey will take about 10 - 15 minutes to complete. All of your answers are completely confidential. Responses are analyzed only in the aggregate, and are never linked to the individual completing the survey. No identifying information is required to complete this survey, other than basic demographic characteristics. Most questions give you response categories from which to choose. Others are followed by a blank text area where you can write your answers. If you have any questions about this survey, or concerns about confidentiality, please contact the Principal Investigator, Steve Jones, at sjones(a)uic.edu. The research protocol has been approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The URL for the survey is http://info.comm.uic.edu:8080/001survey/ If you know of colleagues who might also take this survey, or of faculty email lists to which you would feel comfortable informing subscribers of it, please forward this email and include this message. Thank you. Steve Jones Professor of Communication University of Illinois at Chicago and Senior Research Fellow Pew Internet & American Life Project _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l(a)aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l

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broadband use in the US
by Sue Cranmer 10 Jun '04

10 Jun '04

Hi Jay (and for the list) PEW's Feb 2004 survey give the following: - 39% of adult internet users - or 24% of all adult Americans have high speed access at home (and increase of 60% sinc eMarch 2003) It's the home figures I'm interested in but there's more in the full report at: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/121/report_display.asp Best wishes Sue Sue, Would you summerize for the list what is a likely reasonable estimate to the % of broadband use in the US. Thanks. Jay

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Re: When I'll be in jail....
by Antonio Roversi 09 Jun '04

09 Jun '04

Dear Aoirs far from me the idea to start a flame in the list with my previous post. But let me please, now, add just two words and try to answer to Lee Salter and Maura Conway (thank you for the references, first of all) 1. In my post I quoted two _random_ links (I have a bookmark full of three hundred sites at least, which is a good sample i think) only to give a general idea of the work I have planned. Of course I have bookmarked "Israeli hate organisations" too. To name one, Internet Haganah, where you can find a sentence like that: "I have suggestion for what to do with Zarqawi in the event he is taken alive. It has to do with a couple of tractors and some long chains. I leave it as an exercise for the readear to figure out the details". 2. Please believe me that I will "try balance", as Lee wrote and a researcher should always do. "This smacks of one-sidedness", Lee said. Well, Lee, let's take for granted that we both and all the members of this list are trained researcher and do the best to publish "sine ira ac studio" results (to quote the old Max Weber). 3. I call the groups fighting in Middle East "terrorist". Ok. Maybe it's a mistake (too value-oriented term). "Groups which have individualized war" (I borrow this term from Ulrich Beck) is acceptable ? Hope so. 4. As I wrote in my previous post, I am _starting_ a new research. I omitted to say that I have planned to study Hooligans' Web Sites too (there are a lot over here in Europe). Do have Hooligan's, Neonazi's and Groups which..ect' s Sites something in common ? I would say: yes. They share the language of violence. Is it enough to say that ? No, of course. The scientific question (at least to me) is: why these Sites and the people who run them speak the language of violence ? Now: when you ask "Why ?" you have two choices. You can try to answer looking at the causes. Or you can try to answer looking at the aims. I am a sociologist. I am not a political scientist nor a political activist. So I have only a choice: looking at the aims. From this point of view - this is to answer to Maura - it's enough to spend a couple of hours "diving" through the three kind of sites to see that they are absolutely different (as you said: "in terms of appearance, functioning, effectiveness, etc"). But: shall I repeat that I am at the first step of my research, that I use the label "Hate on the Net" only to give a general idea of what i am doing, I didn't want to post a whole essay about the research design, and just asked about some references ? That's all. Regards to all Ciao Antonio -- "I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous" David Bradley, 'Ctrl+Alt+Delete' inventor.

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About the Internet, Free Speech and Censorship in Islamic nations
by Peder Are Jensen 09 Jun '04

09 Jun '04

My name is Mr. Peder Jensen. I am a Master student at the University of Oslo, Norway. I am currently engaged in writing a thesis about the Internet and Free Speech vs. Censorship in Iran, with a special emphasis on weblogs. I am planning to do a PhD in the USA in the same field, focusing on the political and religious implications of the Internet and Free Speech in Islamic nations like Iran. I notice that many of those dealing with Internet Censorship are mainly preoccupied with China and Southeast Asian countries. Are there any institutions in the US dealing with these issues specifically in relations to the Islamic world? Yours sincerely, Mr. Peder Jensen. Ny versjon av Yahoo! Messenger Nye ikoner og bakgrunner, webkamera med superkvalitet og dobbelt så morsom

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Call for Participation: Social Informatics Workshop
by noriko hara 08 Jun '04

08 Jun '04

A Social Informatics Workshop for Library and Information Science Research A Workshop at the American Society for Information Science and Technology Annual Meeting November 12-17, 2004 Providence, Rhode Island http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM04/ *Workshop time and location: Sunday November 14th *8:30am to noon. Location TBA within conference hotel* Social Informatics (SI) is a label for the study of the design, uses and consequences of information and communications technologies (ICT) that specifically takes into account ICT interaction with institutional and cultural contexts. Carrying on the work of the late Dr. Rob Kling- a leading proponent of social informatics within LIS - this half-day workshop is intended to encourage development of new social informatics research within LIS. The workshop will have three goals: 1. To provide a friendly writers' workshop environment to help improve draft research and forward ideas. 2. To encourage social networking among workshop participants. 3. To collaboratively produce a workshop report summarizing contemporary issues in social informatics research within LIS. This report will be made available on the Web and will attribute authorship to all workshop participants. Through a combination of small group work and interactive discussions, the workshop will explore the following aspects of social informatics research including: * Conceptual issues * Methods * Funding and research site access Participants' research interests will drive the sessions, and an experienced SI scholar will facilitate each group and provide examples from their own research. Scholars, both beginning and established, who would like to learn more about how to conduct SI research, who want to better understand what to expect from SI work, or who want to network with other SI researchers are encouraged to attend. All participants will be engaged in the group work and larger discussion sessions: this is a hands-on and heads-in workshop. The workshop is charging a fee of $50 cover room, AV, and refreshment costs. The organizers are currently applying for grant money to subsidize the costs for PhD students who wish to attend. Please indicate if you are a current PhD student on your abstract, so we can contact you if we receive the grant to subsidize costs. INSTRUCTIONS: To register and pay for the workshop, see the general registration for the ASIST conference (we are listed as a pre-conference seminar): http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM04/registration.html In order to facilitate organization of the workshop, and to better promote social networking among attendees, please should send an up to 500 word abstract of the ideas you will bring to the workshop to organizer Noriko Hara <nhara(a)indiana.edu> by October 1. Late abstracts will be considered on a space available basis. Abstracts will be published on the Web and advertised to all registered participants. DUE DATES: Registrations due by October 1 2004 to qualify for early registration rate of $50. http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM04/registration.html Please send abstracts in to Noriko Hara by October 1th 2004. Maximum 500 words. If you are a PhD student and seeking subsidized workshop fees, it would be helpful to know of your intent to attend prior to the October 1 registration deadline. All other questions, email Kristin Eschenfelder at eschenfelder(a)wisc.edu Workshop organizers (in alphabetical order) Kristin R. Eschenfelder School of Library and Information Studies University of Wisconsin-Madison eschenfelder(a)wisc.edu Noriko Hara School of Library and Information Science University of Indiana nhara(a)indiana.edu Roberta Lamb College of Business Administration University of Hawaii rlamb(a)HAWAII.EDU Howard Rosenbaum, School of Library and Information Science University of Indiana hrosenba(a)indiana.edu Steve Sawyer School of Information Sciences and Technology The Pennsylvania State University sawyer(a)ist.psu.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Noriko Hara, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Information Science SLIS, Indiana University 1320 E. 10th Street, LI Room 011 Bloomington, IN 47405-3907 (812) 855-1490 - phone (812) 855-6166 - fax http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~nhara e-mail : nhara(a)indiana.edu

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RE: When I'll be in jail....
by Maura Conway 08 Jun '04

08 Jun '04

AoIRers, Meant to mention in my last post that I'm delivering a paper entitled 'From FARC to the Far Right: A Comparison of Hate and Terrorist Web Sites' at the forthcoming AoIR conference! So if you're interested in these issues, keep your eyes open for this panel--I don't yet know who the other presenters are, but hopefully we'll all be addressing the same sorts of issues--come along and we can pow-wow. All the Best, Maura Maura Conway Teaching Fellow School of International Relations University of St. Andrews St Andrews KY16 9AL Scotland Tel.: +44 (0)1334 462939 Fax.: +44 (0)1334 462937 E-mail: mc52(a)st-andrews.ac.uk

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