October 2006 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Sean Cubitt
by Sam Tilden 04 Oct '06

04 Oct '06

If Sean Cubitt is still a member of this list would you please email me privately. I have several questions I would like to address to you. Sam --------------------------------- Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com

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New Report: Building Constituencies for Spectrum Policy Change
by Michael Maranda 04 Oct '06

04 Oct '06

*New Report:* *Building Constituencies for Spectrum Policy Change: * *Wireless Broadband and Public Needs* *Free download available now:* _http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/building_constituencies_for_… New wireless networks and technologies could improve the lives of all communities--rural and urban, low-income, young and old, Native, immigrant, disabled people and all those who are continually excluded or underserved by current systems. But there is no guarantee it will happen that way: * What kinds of policies are needed to make sure that all people can benefit from these new developments? * How can we best activate the public and persuade policy-makers to put the right policies in place? "Building Constituencies for Spectrum Policy Change: Wireless Broadband and Public Needs" brings together the insights of 14 advocates and organizers who work on behalf of communities around the US. The New America Foundation convened this "Stakeholder Strategy Committee" to engage these issues to help guide their own work and the work of other public-interest colleagues and allies. This first report is a capture of ongoing conversations, not a blueprint for action or a consensus platform. Rather, it is intended as a resource to public advocates, community organizers, nonprofit groups and funders who want to help ensure that the future of media and telecommunications is designed to meet the needs of all people and communities. To download "Building Constituencies for Spectrum Policy Change: First Report – Wireless Broadband and Public Needs," please visit the following link. You will be asked to fill out a short form about your interest in this report so we can learn more about how tools like this are useful. *DOWNLOAD NOW:* _http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/building_constituencies_for_… ~~~~~~~~~ For more information about *New America Foundation Wireless Future Program <http://www.newamerica.net/wireless_future>*, the Stakeholder Strategy Committee or this report, contact Naveen Lakshmipathy at NAF (lakshmipathy(a)newamerica.net <mailto:lakshmipathy@newamerica.net>).

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Two Laptops Per Child?
by R.Mabry-Hubbard (UMC Student) 04 Oct '06

04 Oct '06

TWO LAPTOPS PER CHILD? Reported by WIRED CAMPUS (Chronicle of Higher Education) October 2, 2006 "After Nicholas Negroponte unveiled a prototype of his One Laptop Per Child project's $100 computer (The Chronicle, November 25, 2005), officials with Intel were quick to dismiss the device as a none-too-useful novelty item. Mr. Negroponte played down the criticism as a case of sour grapes: He had, after all, chosen to line his laptops with processors from Advanced Micro Devices, one of Intel's competitors. But now Intel has stepped forward with the Classmate PC, its own challenge to the One Laptop Per Child model. Like the OLPC laptop, the Classmate PC has flash memory instead of a hard drive. But while Mr. Negroponte's machine runs Linux and comes with batteries that are recharged by a crank, Intel's computer runs Windows XP and has a standard lithium ion battery. The Classmate PC, which will be marketed to developing nations, will cost between $220 and $300 -- making it a great choice for "the poor and destitute with more discriminating tastes," according to Gizmodo. --Brock Read" [http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=1609] GIZMODO: Classmate PC: Intel's "Sub-$400" Laptop "This week Intel announced "Classmate PC" - a budget computer for emerging markets (translation: for the poor and destitute with more discriminating tastes than the MIT OLPC model). The laptop features the Celeron "eduwise" processor with 915GMS chipset, 7-inch WVXGA (800x600) screen, 256MB DDR2 SO-DIMM memory and 1gb of flash memory for storage. The system will run Windows XP and have a standard Lithium Ion battery. The "sub-$400" packaging is not as impressive as reality: these notebooks will range $220-$300, depending on foreign taxes. Nothing like a little philanthropic competition. Mark Wilson" [http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/announcements/classmate-pc-intels-sub400-lap top-204400.php] ------ Robin Y. Mabry Hubbard, MBA, EdS Rural Sociology Doctoral Student - Community Informatics Email: ryh352(a)mizzou.edu My Homepage: http://www.rrchubbard.org Murphy's Law: There is never enough time to do it right; but there is always time to do it over ~ Our Future arrived Yesterday! ~ [I am not inviting any postmodernist to my party!]

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suggestions?
by Charles Ess 03 Oct '06

03 Oct '06

Hi AoIRists, I've been asked by a local TV station to comment on a story they're doing titled "Techno Detox". They have one volunteer (so far) to engage in the following: > We are looking for individuals who are "addicted" to technology (iPod, cell > phone, texting, email, facebook/myspace, etc) > We would like to have those individuals tell us why they love their gadgets > and then have them go cold turkey for a few days. We'll check in to see how > they're doing and then wrap up at the end of the week as they are allowed to > once again use those coveted items. > Now, failure can also be part of the story. We just want people who are > willing to give it an honest effort, and candidly tell us about their > experience. 1. I know that someone(s) at AoIR in Brisbane mentioned a similar sort of process, but done (if memory serves - always a shaky assumption) as an academic study. If anyone on the list who was also at AoIR in Brisbane can remember this conversation - can you please contact me offlist with the details of the study? 2. I have a number of qualms about participating in the story as a local "expert" - but hope that by doing so I might be able to defuse some of the prevailing dichotomies that seem to shape reporting on media (beginning, in this instance, by using the disease model of addiction as the primary frame). Stated another way, I'm hoping to provide more informed and nuanced commentary that would help both the reporter and the audience move away from these sorts of notions of technology (good or bad? cure or disease? blessing or curse, etc.) - notions that fuel the sorts of "moral panic" reporting on new media (currently, e.g., connections between violent video games and recent episodes of violence in schools, etc.) So ... does anyone have good research relevant to these concerns and the phenomena in question that you would recommend as useful background reading as I prepare for the interview? Many thanks in advance - charles Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies <http://www.drury.edu/gp21> Drury University 900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230 Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435 Home page: http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html Information Ethics Fellow, 2006-07, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, UW-Milwaukee Co-chair, CATaC conferences <www.catacconference.org> Vice-President, Association of Internet Researchers <www.aoir.org> Professor II, Globalization and Applied Ethics Programmes <http://www.anvendtetikk.ntnu.no/pres/bridgingcultures.php> Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23

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Re: [Air-l] Reactions to PhD blogs at conference
by Pamela Rosengren 03 Oct '06

03 Oct '06

Mary, Denise and other AoIR-ers I was another one who laughed during Mel's presentation. I was also one who was interviewed for Jean's Flickr presentation and am glad she picked someone else's family room to illustrate how we Flickr folks live. ;) (She did take a photo of mine.) Knowing that was Jean's blog with the word count obsession post, knowing her sense of humour, and knowing she is due to submit her thesis shortly, I happily laughed and kept laughing even when she said "it's not funny". Jean is also an editor and would be enforcing word counts for other people all the time, so there is that side of it too. I agree with Denise's comment about the fonts. They can be so expressive. Clancy Ratliff's "Culture Cat" blog on Rhetoric and Feminism used to have a wonderful retro font called "Beauty School Dropout" for the title. (I'm into fonts so I know things like that.) I don't know why Clancy changed it. (Culture Cat is no longer a PhD blog so Mel didn't present it this time.) Mary it is a pity you had to catch that flight and couldn't be there for the whole session. It was the liveliest session of all that I went to, and afterwards as we broke up into conversational groups to leave the room, the pitch of the conversation was more like a party than a conference. I don't think there was any animosity. Pam Pamela Rosengren Graduate Student, Internet Studies, Curtin University of Technology

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The value of creative expression outside pedagogical contexts
by David Brake 03 Oct '06

03 Oct '06

One of the most interesting findings (for me at least) of the last Pew survey on weblogging was that the top motivation for it was the expression of creativity. I have been trying to find a literature that talks about the importance of being able to express one's self creatively that doesn't mainly relate either to education or to creativity as a way of gaining access to a group with status (eg fan creativity). It seems a lot of the work by scholars like Henry Jenkins agrees tacitly that the Internet is giving people who might not have other avenues for creativity a chance to be creative and this is good but I don't recall coming across anyone who elaborates on this except Willis, P. (1990). Common culture : symbolic work at play in the everyday cultures of the young. Buckingham, Open University Press and (in passing) Atton, C. (2001) "The Mundane and Its Reproduction in Alternative Media", Journal of Mundane Behavior, 2 (1). http://www.mundanebehavior.org/issues/v2n1/atton.htm There's also Rodríguez, C. (2001) Fissures in the Mediascape : An International Study of Citizens' Media, Hampton Press, Cresskill, N.J. and others writing about alternative media but they mostly concentrate on the political benefits of being able to express yourself. I am more interested in broader sociological issues. Anyway, any ideas? an --- David Brake, Doctoral Student in Media and Communications, London School of Economics & Political Science <http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/study/ mPhilPhDMediaAndCommunications.htm> Also see http://davidbrake.org/ (home page), http://blog.org/ (personal weblog) and http://get.to/lseblog (academic groupblog) Author of Dealing With E-Mail - <http://davidbrake.org/ dealingwithemail/> callto://DavidBrake (Skype.com's Instant Messenger and net phone)

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Second Life
by Bonnie Nardi 02 Oct '06

02 Oct '06

Hi, Does anyone know of research on using Second Life for work applications? Thanks. -- Bonnie Bonnie A. Nardi School of Information and Computer Sciences University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92697-3425 (949) 824-6534 www.artifex.org/~bonnie/

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Fwd: ::fc-announce:: CfP OURMedia 2007
by Barry Saunders 02 Oct '06

02 Oct '06

sorry for Xposting ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ellie Rennie <ERennie(a)groupwise.swin.edu.au> Date: Oct 3, 2006 10:02 AM Subject: ::fc-announce:: CfP OURMedia 2007 To: announce(a)fibreculture.org Call for Papers OURMedia VI International Conference Sydney, Australia, April 9-13 2007 'Sustainable Futures: Roles and Challenges for Community, Alternative and Citizens' Media in the 21st century' Until recently, media participation occurred almost exclusively within the sphere of community and alternative media. Now it is a widespread phenomenon. Online mainstream news sites encourage readers to participate through blogs while others, like OhmyNews in South Korea, are substantially written by readers. Rupert Murdoch purchased MySpace with the intention of turning 'a free social network into a colossal marketing machine' (Wired, Jul 2006). What is the future of community and alternative media within this landscape? For over five decades community media advocates have campaigned for access to media platforms and promoted media literacy as part of a strategy to give voice to underrepresented groups. With the rise of broadband Internet, the core community media philosophies of access and participation have been realised on a greater scale than ever before. Media participation has now spread beyond the community-based, not-for-profit realm and into the commercial and government sectors. The cultural transformation taking place has profound implications for audiences, practitioners and policy-makers alike. Is there a social benefit in the rise of user-led media? What becomes of alternative, or citizens' media when media participation is a 'mainstream' activity? Do we need community governance or will commercial models prevail? Research into 'citizens' media' (radical media, médias libres, participatory media, tactical media, community media, and grassroots media) can assist us to understand the cultural changes taking place and the implications for the public sphere. This conference will draw together expertise from theorists, policy-makers and develop viable pathways that ensure the sustainability of citizens' media. For a full CfP and other information visit the OURMediaVI webpage: www.ourmedia07.net or contact Juan Salazar: j.salazar(a)uws.edu.au Ellie Rennie: erennie(a)swin.edu.au Abstracts due October 31, 2006 Dr Ellie Rennie Research Fellow Institute for Social Research ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation +61 3 9214 5303 0404 808 900 Education is only the beginning. Let's get on with it. Swinburne University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code: 00111D NOTICE This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and intended only for the use of the addressee. They may contain information that is privileged or protected by copyright. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution, printing, copying or use is strictly prohibited. The University does not warrant that this e-mail and any attachments are secure and there is also a risk that it may be corrupted in transmission. It is your responsibility to check any attachments for viruses or defects before opening them. If you have received this transmission in error, please contact us on +61 3 9214 8000 and delete it immediately from your system. We do not accept liability in connection with computer virus, data corruption, delay, interruption, unauthorised access or unauthorised amendment. Please consider the environment before printing this email. _______________________________________________ ::fibreculture::announcements:: To subscribe or unsubscribe from fibreculture announce, please visit the List Info page: http://fibreculture.org/mailman/listinfo/announce_fibreculture.org Fibreculture website: http://www.fibreculture.org -- Barry Saunders QUT sessional academic http://creativeindustries.qut.com http://d-notice.net

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Reactions to PhD blogs at conference
by Mary-Helen Ward 02 Oct '06

02 Oct '06

Hi all I was in the session at the conference on Friday when Mel Gregg showed some screen shots of blogs that are kept by academics and by PhD candidates. I was quite surprised at the reactions in the room - a lot of people laughed at the things that were blogged by the PhD students, and even when someone sitting near the front called out "It's not funny!" the laughter continued. I also thought that I discerned some anger - or some other strong emotion - around me (near the back). I'm doing a PhD on the process of doing a PhD, with a group of blogging candidates (myself included), so I was very interested in these reactions. Unfortunately I had to leave to catch a flight before that group of papers had finished so I couldn't ask any of the people in the room why they had reacted that way to the screenshots. I'd be really interested if anyone who was there could reflect on those reactions - either here on the list or privately if you think that might be more appropriate. Thanks in advance M-H

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Conference Photos
by Marj Kibby 02 Oct '06

02 Oct '06

Hi all, My photos are on Flickr Conference - http://www.flickr.com/photos/marj_k/sets/72157594306926167/ Brisbane city - http://www.flickr.com/photos/marj_k/sets/72157594307011810/ Birds - http://www.flickr.com/photos/marj_k/sets/72157594308079187/ Flora - http://www.flickr.com/photos/marj_k/sets/72157594308228102/ A wonderful conference, held in a very beautiful part of the world. Cheers, Marj Dr Marjorie Kibby, Senior Lecturer in Communication & Culture Faculty of Education and Arts The University of Newcastle, Callaghan NSW 2308 Australia Marj.Kibby(a)newcastle.edu.au +61 2 49216604

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