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

Open Source Software and Civil Society
by Eli Malinsky 30 Jul '06

30 Jul '06

Hi everyone, After years of lurking I finally have my first question: Is anyone aware of any research that addresses the experience of civil society organizations (aka nonprofits, NGOs, voluntary orgs, etc.) using open source software? Or perhaps deals with the putative alignment between the "values" of open source and the values of civil society? Much appreciated! Eli Malinsky

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conceptual lexicon
by John Postill 30 Jul '06

30 Jul '06

One key area that we haven’t yet discussed, in this interesting exchange on terminology, is social theory. In addition to having to keep up with technologies that have a tendency to become obsolete very quickly, we Internet researchers also need to keep abreast of developments in social theory – where things move, for better or worse, more slowly, but they still move. Over the past couple of years, in writing up my ethnography on Internet activism and local governance in a Kuala Lumpur suburb, I have found that the conceptual landscape on what we might call ‘Internet localisation’ (how local authorities and residents appropriate Internet technologies to pursue their own goals) is dominated by two good old sociological notions: community and network (a third influential notion is public sphere, esp. in connection to 'e-democracy' projects). That community as a theoretical concept has long been obsolete is well established (see MacFarlane 1977, Amit and Rapport 2002), and yet we still find it literally all over the place, in phrases such as ‘local community’, ‘community networks’, ‘community informatics’, ‘online community’, etc. Network has far more potential as a sociological term, as demonstrated by Barry Wellman and his colleagues, but in my view it still takes up far too much room in our conceptual universes. With Amit, who writes in a different context, I think we in Internet studies need to broaden our sociation lexicons beyond our current over-reliance on community and network, e.g. with concepts such as field, action-set, age-set, arena, sodality, committee, fellowship, etc (Postill forthcoming). I was wondering if others on the list had any thoughts on this? (BTW there’s a media studies conference on social theory coming up at Oxford University this 6-8 September), see http://www.cresc.man.ac.uk/events/sept06/Venue&Travel.htm Best wishes John Postill Sheffield Hallam University, UK References Amit, V. and N. Rapport (2002) The Trouble with Community: Anthropological Reflections on Movement, Identity and Collectivity. London: Pluto. MacFarlane, A. (1977) Reconstructing Historical Communities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Freely available online at: http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/reconstructing/contents.htm Postill, J. (forthcoming) Localising the internet: beyond communities and networks, submitted to New Media and Society (awaiting readers’ comments)

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Re: [Air-l] Reference on impact of resources going online
by Singer, Brooke 29 Jul '06

29 Jul '06

Caroline: I recommend the work of Dan Solove (http://www.law.gwu.edu/Faculty/profile.aspx?id=6017) And his blog: http://concurringopinions.com/ Also, a project of mine: http://www.we-swipe.us. Cheers, Brooke Singer Assistant Professor of New Media Purchase College, State University of New York School of Natural and Social Sciences 735 Anderson Hill Road Purchase, NY 10577 914.251.6644 http://newmedia.purchase.edu/~Brooke

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Re: [Air-l] Reference on impact of resources going online
by Caroline Haythornthwaite 28 Jul '06

28 Jul '06

And, given that I sent that to all air instead of just to Richard, let me recommend to all the trip to Vancouver Island as part of your trip to Vancouver (mainland)! / C ---- Original message ---- >Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 17:08:37 -0500 >From: Caroline Haythornthwaite <haythorn(a)uiuc.edu> >Subject: Re: [Air-l] Reference on impact of resources going online >To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org, smith(a)sfu.ca > >Thanks. Keep me updated on what you're doing. This is for a course, although >I've had a general interest and concern about this for a while. Don't know if I'll >have anything unique for a 2007 session, but I'd love to attend it. And, I am >really looking forward to the Vancouver AoIR. I have family there and in Duncan >and a trip to Vancouver means a dash over to the island as well. > >/C > > >---- Original message ---- >>Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:01:12 -0700 >>From: "Richard Smith" <smith(a)sfu.ca> >>Subject: Re: [Air-l] Reference on impact of resources going online >>To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org >> >>Caroline, >> >>I am doing a research study on this question at present, and although >>we don't have a lot of data back (yet), I'd be happy to share what we >>have and what we have collected in terms of references. I have a web >>site set up with preliminary information and if it looks like what you >>are interested in, I'll send you more details. >> >>http://arago.cprost.sfu.ca/citizen >> >>Warm regards from Vancouver (site of AIR 2007). Perhaps we should have >>a panel/session on this for the 2007 conference. >> >>...r >> >>On 7/28/06, Caroline Haythornthwaite <haythorn(a)uiuc.edu> wrote: >>> I'm looking for papers and/or discussion of the impact of governments >putting >>> information online, and who can then access that information. Can anyone >help >>> with reference(s) or author(s) on this topic? It may be with other discussions >of the >>> digital divide, or with e-government. I'd like something with data on who is >and is >>> not able to get this kind of informaton if possible, but also any discussion of >the >>> issue. >>> >>> Thanks. >>> >>> /Caroline >>> >>> ---------------------------------------- >>> Caroline Haythornthwaite >>> Associate Professor >>> Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at >Urbana-Champaign >>> 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820 >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list >>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org >>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/ >listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org >>> >>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers: >>> http://www.aoir.org/ >>> >>> >> >> >>-- >>Richard Smith, Associate Professor School of Communication >>Simon Fraser University, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, CANADA V6B >5K3 >>Phone: 604 291 5116 Web: http://www.sfu.ca/~smith/ >> >>New book!: http://arago.cprost.sfu.ca/smith/mawc >>_______________________________________________ >>The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list >>is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org >>Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/ >listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org >> >>Join the Association of Internet Researchers: >>http://www.aoir.org/ > >---------------------------------------- >Caroline Haythornthwaite >Associate Professor >Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign >501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820 > > ---------------------------------------- Caroline Haythornthwaite Associate Professor Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820

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Re: [Air-l] Reference on impact of resources going online
by Caroline Haythornthwaite 28 Jul '06

28 Jul '06

Thanks. Keep me updated on what you're doing. This is for a course, although I've had a general interest and concern about this for a while. Don't know if I'll have anything unique for a 2007 session, but I'd love to attend it. And, I am really looking forward to the Vancouver AoIR. I have family there and in Duncan and a trip to Vancouver means a dash over to the island as well. /C ---- Original message ---- >Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:01:12 -0700 >From: "Richard Smith" <smith(a)sfu.ca> >Subject: Re: [Air-l] Reference on impact of resources going online >To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org > >Caroline, > >I am doing a research study on this question at present, and although >we don't have a lot of data back (yet), I'd be happy to share what we >have and what we have collected in terms of references. I have a web >site set up with preliminary information and if it looks like what you >are interested in, I'll send you more details. > >http://arago.cprost.sfu.ca/citizen > >Warm regards from Vancouver (site of AIR 2007). Perhaps we should have >a panel/session on this for the 2007 conference. > >...r > >On 7/28/06, Caroline Haythornthwaite <haythorn(a)uiuc.edu> wrote: >> I'm looking for papers and/or discussion of the impact of governments putting >> information online, and who can then access that information. Can anyone help >> with reference(s) or author(s) on this topic? It may be with other discussions of the >> digital divide, or with e-government. I'd like something with data on who is and is >> not able to get this kind of informaton if possible, but also any discussion of the >> issue. >> >> Thanks. >> >> /Caroline >> >> ---------------------------------------- >> Caroline Haythornthwaite >> Associate Professor >> Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign >> 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820 >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list >> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org >> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/ listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org >> >> Join the Association of Internet Researchers: >> http://www.aoir.org/ >> >> > > >-- >Richard Smith, Associate Professor School of Communication >Simon Fraser University, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, CANADA V6B 5K3 >Phone: 604 291 5116 Web: http://www.sfu.ca/~smith/ > >New book!: http://arago.cprost.sfu.ca/smith/mawc >_______________________________________________ >The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list >is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org >Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/ listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > >Join the Association of Internet Researchers: >http://www.aoir.org/ ---------------------------------------- Caroline Haythornthwaite Associate Professor Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820

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The Education Summit and OPLC
by Dr. W. Reid Cornwell 28 Jul '06

28 Jul '06

All, The Education Summit is keynoted by Dr. Tim Manger, who is Assistant Secretary of Education for Technology. Dr. Robert Wisher secretary of defense for the "Advanced Distributed Learning initiative (ADL) and (SCORM) will participate as well. If education and the web is your cup of tea we are the place to be in October. OPLC is high on the agenda for all panelists. The nature, benefits and problems associated with "connected learning" as seen from diverse perspectives such as education, economic development, leadership, standardization, public policy, sociology and more are the fodder for this conference. See: http://education-2006.org <http://education-2006.org/> I encourage you to come and share your views. AOIR members and contributors are particularly welcome. Call or email me for questions. (below) Reid _____ Dr. W. Reid Cornwell The Center For Internet Research P.O. Box 6369 Breckenridge, CO 720.212.0719 (phone) 970.485.5109 (mobile) <mailto:wrc@tcfir.org> wrc(a)tcfir.org http://tcfir.org

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Reference on impact of resources going online
by Caroline Haythornthwaite 28 Jul '06

28 Jul '06

I'm looking for papers and/or discussion of the impact of governments putting information online, and who can then access that information. Can anyone help with reference(s) or author(s) on this topic? It may be with other discussions of the digital divide, or with e-government. I'd like something with data on who is and is not able to get this kind of informaton if possible, but also any discussion of the issue. Thanks. /Caroline ---------------------------------------- Caroline Haythornthwaite Associate Professor Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820

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IR7.0 Conference - Message to presenters about full papers
by Fay Sudweeks 28 Jul '06

28 Jul '06

I'm still having problems getting messages to everyone from the conference system, so apologies for using the list. This is just to clarify that submitting a full paper for the conference archive is optional. You do NOT have to submit a paper in order to present at the conference, but you MUST register for the conference. Obviously if you intend to submit your paper for the archive, then the sooner we get it the better. We have nominated a deadline of 31 July to give us time to organise the papers and get them uploaded. We can extend that to 21 August. However, we will accept full papers up to the time of the conference, even though it will be more difficult for uploading. Fay ----- Dr Fay Sudweeks School of Information Technology Murdoch University Murdoch WA 6150 Australia Tel: (08) 9360 2364 Fax: (08) 9360 2941 Web: www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks Co-Chair CATaC conferences: www.catacconference.org Program Chair, IR7.0 Conference: http://conferences.aoir.org

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Call for Papers: The Governmediality of Work, Welfare, and the Life Course: Regulating Lives in the Knowledge Society
by Christoph Engemann 28 Jul '06

28 Jul '06

*Call for Papers* Graduate School of Social Sciences | University of Bremen *‘The “Governmediality” of Work, Welfare, and the Life Course: Regulating Lives in the Knowledge Society’ * Workshop to be held at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study <http://www.h-w-k.de> Delmenhorst, Germany 7-8 December 2006 The organizers of the International Workshop ‘Governmediality of Work, Welfare, and the Life Course’ invite contributions that investigate the relations between life course, social welfare reforms, media technologies, and expertise/professionalism. The Workshop is supported by the Graduate School of Social Sciences and will be held at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study (HWK) near Bremen, Germany. The HWK will host all participants for the duration of the workshop. Some travel funding for international speakers is also available. The political as well as the economic and cultural regimes of governing one’s life are currently undergoing profound changes. Corporations, the state, and intermediary organizations are employing new modes of management that are frequently characterized as decentralized, flexible, and knowledge based. The individuals themselves are expected to be responsible and enterprising agents of their lives, acting as experts, maximizing personal benefits while minimizing their cost to society. Under these conditions, both institutions and individuals are required to develop new regimes of knowledge about themselves and their circumstances. The formation of such knowledge, its distribution and application is shaped by two interrelated factors currently underestimated in academic discussions: expertise and media. We propose the term ‘governmediality’ to analyse the media and formations of (self-) knowledge and their application in governing the social and the self. Currently, a triad of expertise, decentralized bureaucracy and new media forms a specific new ‘governmediality,’ whose emergence we can observe and which we aim to explore at this workshop. Experts and professionals such as consultants, coaches, therapists, welfare bureaucrats, social workers, and scientists appear wherever regimes of flexibilisation and networks emerge. Individuals are expected to become experts (of) themselves, while simultaneously a growing number of experts problematise lifestyles, reinterpret gendered working and caring habits, bear ambiguity, and guide decisions. Experts interpret situations and collect information, creating or employing technical and moral standards that increasingly aim at what is constructed as ‘life itself’. As ‘mediating’ actors, they govern potentially conflictual social practices and inequalities by linking social spaces, (social) technologies and subjectivities. The Internet, as the latest development in the history of media, plays a crucial role in transforming organizational structures, social relationships and regulations of the self. New forms of production and representation of knowledge about social groups and individuals are available and used by institutions, by social groups, and by individuals themselves. The private sector has pioneered Internet-driven realignments between individuals and organisations, while the public sector only recently has begun to actively embrace these technologies under the keyword Electronic Government. In European welfare states, the reorganised management of life events like unemployment, education or illness is closely tied into E-Government. The aim of the workshop is to explore the social relations, media regimes, and bodies of knowledge that constitute the contemporary governmediality of managing individual life courses. We invite both empirical and theoretical contributions discussing the following topics, among others: • The ambivalent role and agency of experts/professionals in the broadening psycho-social sector and their (re-)construction of gender, race, class, and self • The creation, application and legitimation of norms and standards in governing the social and the (enterprising) self • Current standards and their application in education, work, healthcare, and social insurance • Electronic Government, with special respect to welfare state reforms • Media regimes and knowledge regimes in education, work, healthcare and social insurance • Contemporary social theory, sociology of knowledge, and media theory – conceptual challenges and opportunities for the application of media theory to social thought and sociology We welcome submissions (2-page abstract and a CV) to: Christoph Engemann engemann(a)gsss.uni-bremen.de Boris Traue traue(a)kgw.tu-berlin.de Please submit your proposals no later than September 20. Pre- and postdoctoral researchers are especially encouraged to contribute. The Graduate School of Social Sciences <http://www.gsss.uni-bremen.de/> (GSSS) was founded in 2002 by the top-ranked sociology and political science departments at the University of Bremen. The GSSS offers interdisciplinary doctoral education in an international environment. The Hanse Institute for Advanced Study <http://www.h-w-k.de> (HWK) was founded in 1995 and supports the disciplinary and interdisciplinary collaboration of outstanding national and international researchers, offering the opportunity to concentrate on chosen research projects and to absorb ideas and inspirations from other disciplines and differing national traditions of science and scholarship. -- Christoph Engemann, Dipl. Psych. Graduate School of Social Sciences University of Bremen Postfach 330 440 28334 Bremen/Germany Telephone: ++049 179 1233 933 engemann(a)gsss.uni-bremen.de www.gsss.uni-bremen.de http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blogs/engemann/

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Re: [Air-l] India Rejects One Laptop Per Child
by J. J. 27 Jul '06

27 Jul '06

Wojciech, >I must say that the first argument is a perfect example of how people in >developed countries often lack the foresight and local knowledge required >to >adequately decide whether a technology truly is "appropriate". Forget the >merits to education or the potential for employability skills -- those are >secondary to the potentially negative health effects of the laptops. Responses of the Western civiliation to the needs of the "developing" countries abound. The Westerners have developed this keen "foresight" as to what the "other" countries really need. In the meantime, merits of access to computers in education are questionable. There does not seem to be any direct link between computers and raised student academic achievement. What constitues "academic achievement" is yet a different matter. Commercial use of the Internet is most prevalent and one may argue that it is the Western culture that is carried through the newest of technologies. Western thought imposed on other lands does not always bring the desired fruits of stability and prosperity, does it? I believe that the Indian government's actions deserve more of a dialogue, then outright condemnation. That only builds resentment. Best, Jarek >From: "Wojciech Gryc" <wojciech(a)gmail.com> >Reply-To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org >To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org >Subject: [Air-l] India Rejects One Laptop Per Child >Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:49:50 -0400 > >Hi, > >Keeping in mind the long discussion that was posted a few weeks ago with >regards to the merits (or lack thereof) of the One Laptop Per Child >project, >I thought this may interest subscribers of this list: > >HRD rubbishes MIT's laptop scheme for kids >http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1698603,curpg-1.cms > >So India has decided against the One Laptop Per Child Project (for now). >Two >arguments that stood out for me: > > 1. Poor rural children often have health problems that may be > exacerbated by laptop use, especially those affecting eyesight and > children's backs. > 2. No developed country has universalized laptops for children, so why > should India? > >I must say that the first argument is a perfect example of how people in >developed countries often lack the foresight and local knowledge required >to >adequately decide whether a technology truly is "appropriate". Forget the >merits to education or the potential for employability skills -- those are >secondary to the potentially negative health effects of the laptops. > >Thanks, >Wojciech Gryc > >-- > >Five Minutes to Midnight: >Youth on human rights and current affairs >http://www.fiveminutestomidnight.org/ >_______________________________________________ >The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list >is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org >Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: >http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > >Join the Association of Internet Researchers: >http://www.aoir.org/

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