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

Newcomer to this list
by Amybeth Hale 14 Jul '06

14 Jul '06

Hi everyone - I am a new subscriber to this list, and I just wanted to find out how the activity level is here, and what kinds of topics are typically covered? Thanks! Amybeth Hale Manager of Internet Research SearchPath International ahale(a)searchpath.com

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Re: [Air-l] commodification of online spaces
by Sara M. Grimes 13 Jul '06

13 Jul '06

Hi Rebekah - At the risk of tooting my own horn, I've been involved in a couple of projects on children's online games that you might be interested in: Grimes, Sara M. & Shade, Leslie R. (2005). "Neopian Economics of Play: Children's Cyberpets and Online Communities as Immersive Advertising in Neopets.com." International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics 1(2): 181-198. Chung, Grace and Sara M. Grimes (2005). "Data Mining the Kids: Surveillance and Market Research Strategies in Children's Online Games." Canadian Journal of Communication 30(4): 527-548. I also have a chapter in Patrick Williams and Jonas Heide-Smith's upcoming book "The Player's Realm" on TOS contracts in children's online games, which deals with commodification: Grimes, Sara M. (Forthcoming). "Terms of Service, Terms of Play in Children's Online Gaming." In Williams, Patrick and Jonas Heide Smith (Eds.) In, The Players Realm: Studies on the Culture of Video Games and Gaming. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Betsy Book also has a paper on advertising in online games that includes HabboHotel. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=536422 Leslie Regan Shade has a chapter on gURL.com called "Gender and the Commodification of Community: Women.com and gURL.com" in Community in the Digital Age. Eds. Darin Barney and Andrew Feenberg, Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. Seth Grossman has a great article in the Yale Law Journal on the regulating advergames called "Grand Theft Oreo: The Constitutionality of Advergame Regulation" Good luck with your search! Sara M. Grimes PhD Candidate/School of Communication Research Assistant/Applied Communication + Technology (ACT) Lab Simon Fraser University On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 18:35:40 +0100 air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org wrote: > Hi all, > > Is anyone doing work or can anyone suggest work that's been done > around the commodification of spaces for children and young people > such as MySpace, Neopets, Habbohotel or Flickr? I'm particularly > interested in spaces that are for designed youth > participation/production. I've found one reference to Neopets > (Harris) and one to Habbohotel (Seiter). Thanks! > > Rebekah Willett > > Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media > Institute of Education, University of London > _______________________________________________ > 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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commodification of online spaces
by Rebekah Willett 13 Jul '06

13 Jul '06

Hi all, Is anyone doing work or can anyone suggest work that's been done around the commodification of spaces for children and young people such as MySpace, Neopets, Habbohotel or Flickr? I'm particularly interested in spaces that are for designed youth participation/production. I've found one reference to Neopets (Harris) and one to Habbohotel (Seiter). Thanks! Rebekah Willett Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media Institute of Education, University of London

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Help with blogpost search
by Ana Keshelashvili 13 Jul '06

13 Jul '06

Dear Aoir Colleagues, I'm trying to research what were the US bloggers saying about publication of Muhammad cartoon for the first 6 months of this year. I was trying to collect data through Technorati, but it doesn't return results from the beginning of January, also as I'm aware, it doesn't necessarily give results from some of A-list bloggers (not sure if that's true). I turned to BlogPulse search. I was wondering, if anyone could give an opinion about BlogPulse searcher, how representative it is or how it collects and returns blog posts. Thanks, Best, Ana Keshelashvili, Faculty Member, Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management, Tbilisi, Georgia

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New - E-Democracy and E-Government Researchers Network - Join the Online Information Exchange
by Steven Clift 11 Jul '06

11 Jul '06

E-Democracy and E-Government Researchers Network Over the years I've invited researchers I'd meet to join a niche information exchange on serious e-democracy related research. The Do-Research YahooGroup (with over 100 members) is moving to http://groups.dowire.org. It is the largest and most active international online group for researchers on the topic. I invite you to join us. The purpose of E-Democracy and E-Government Researchers Network is to connect e-democracy and e-government researchers around the world. Register and join here: http://groups.dowire.org/groups/research If you are already a member of DoWire Groups, please login first then join the forum (and other groups including the 2500 member announcement-only "Newswire" with my blog posts: http://groups.dowire.org/groups/newswire ). When you register with the site, be sure to fill out as much of your member profile as possible. It is the foundation of a dynamic "who's who" that includes fields for you to mention your relevant recent publications. You can view the "who's who" of e-democracy/e-government research who have moved to the new server already (must login to read profiles): http://groups.dowire.org/groups/research/members A few rules: Participants in E-Democracy and E-Government Researchers Network agree to: * as a condition of membership, all members agree to fill out form * most of their member profile and to update it at least once a year * messages may not be forwarded to other public forums without the express e-mail permission of the author Sincerely, Steven Clift http://publicus.net Democracies Online http://dowire.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Steven Clift - clift(a)publicus.net Web: http://publicus.net Blog: http://dowire.org/notes NGO: http://e-democracy.org Replies to slc@ may be missed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Two presentation spots available on AoIR 7.0 panel, Brisbane 27-30 Sep 2006
by Marcus Foth 11 Jul '06

11 Jul '06

Challenges and Opportunities of Internet Technologies to Support Social Networks of Urban Residents Two panel members had to cancel their submission and I'm looking for two presenters to fill these spots. Organised panel proposals present a coherent group of papers on a single theme. Please find the panel outline below. If this panel captures your interest, you are attending AoIR 7.0 in Brisbane and are interested to be a member of this panel, please send me an abstract (500-750 words) by 31 July 2006 to m.foth(a)qut.edu.au thanks marcus Panel Proposal Developers and governments around the world are struggling to achieve socially sustainable neighbourhood communities in master-planned residential developments. This panel will bring together leading researchers from a variety of disciplines to debate the challenges and opportunities of internet technologies to facilitate and support meaningful social interaction between residents in urban neighbourhoods. Focusing on the network qualities of social interaction in communities of place, the panel will discuss the panelists’ research findings that have the potential to inform the design of innovative new media and ICT systems for use in master- planned residential developments: peer-to-peer publishing, tools for vernacular creative expression, social networking applications, ambient technologies and locative media. Some of these studies are informed by urban sociology, ethnographic work, rapid prototyping, evaluation cycles, participatory design and sociocultural animation. Some of the key questions to be discussed include: What are the implications of networked individualism on internet technologies? How do urban residents connect with each other to create and maintain social networks and how can new media and ICT systems better support the interaction in those networks? How does private peer-to-peer interaction between urban residents differ from collective community interaction and what impacts does that have on new media and ICT design, social capital, local innovation and community efficacy? How can new media and ICT systems, devices and applications be designed to negotiate a balance between the opportunities of interactive services and locative media on the one side and issues of access, trust and privacy on the other? What is the role of locally relevant content (personal and community images and narratives) in the establishment and sustainability of meaningful social networks? How can new media and ICT systems be designed to inform social spaces for residents – private and public, and online and offline – towards facilitating social networking as well as civic engagement and local socio-economic innovation? Sustainability is pursued by working across community, business and government stakeholders to encourage social and economic innovation. The hypothesis to be tested by the panel is the claim that by careful attention to cultural and social assets in the community, innovations will be engendered which enhance economic and social development locally. This in turn will lead to greater social inclusion, fair access to and smart use of information and services, urban sustainability and healthier local economies. Understanding the opportunities afforded by digital augmentation of social networks will help urban residents negotiate the complex web of daily choices, access a greater social safety net and participate in the socio- cultural and socio-economic life of their neighbourhood and city. Panel members (TBC): Marcus Foth (Chair), Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia Michael Arnold, Christopher Shepherd, & Martin Gibbs, University of Melbourne, Australia Peter Day, School of Computing, Mathematical and Information Sciences, University of Brighton, UK Steven McEachern, Helen Thompson, Centre for Regional Innovation and Competitiveness, University of Ballarat, Australia -- Dr Marcus Foth BMultimedia BCompSc(Hons) MA PhD m.foth(a)qut.edu.au - http://www.vrolik.de/ Australian Postdoctoral Fellow Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation Queensland University of Technology (CRICOS No. 00213J) Creative Industries Precinct, Brisbane QLD 4059, Australia Phone +61 7 3138 8772 - Fax 8195 - Room Z6-511 http://ici.qut.edu.au/

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'Fine grained' weblog tracking software
by David Brake 10 Jul '06

10 Jul '06

There are a number of sites that attempt to catalogue the most popular weblogs overall, based on inward links (I have catalogued the ones I know of here: http://www.netvouz.com/davidbrake?tags=weblog +search) but none that I know of that let you know the most popular on a given topic or keyword over time (you can use some to search for a keyword then show you the top-ranked blogs within that but that again favours the most popular overall not the most popular within a given subject domain). I would also be interested in a search engine that could tell you which blogs are the most popular in a given country or region - or better still an engine that does both, telling you which blogs are, for example, the most popular blogs about the Iraq war based in the UK. I don't suppose there are any search engines that let you search by the (expressed or inferred) demographics of the poster either. If anyone knows of a specialist search engine which does any of the above could you let me know? (And if any of you have the ear of one of the search engine providers could you encourage them to provide these tools?) --- 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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Young women and the Internet: the self-perception gap
by Christian Sandvig 10 Jul '06

10 Jul '06

Dear aoir colleagues, I noticed this interesting new study by Hargittai & Shafer is out, and it is getting some great press. Aside from the research value, this is also a great item for classroom discussion. I quote: "[M]en and women do not differ significantly in their abilities to find...information online. However, young women are less likely to perceive themselves as skilled...[this] may affect significantly the extent of their online behavior and the types of uses to which they put the medium." (p. 444) The cite: Differences in Actual and Perceived Online Skills: The Role of Gender Eszter Hargittai & Steven Shafer. 2006. Social Science Quarterly. 87(2):432-448. http://eszter.com/research/a17-genderskills.html The press: <http://eszter.com/research/a17-genderskills.html> "Gender differences non-existent when it comes to surfing skills" Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0607070132jul07,1,152691.colum… (FREE REGISTRATION REQUIRED) Minnesota Public Radio segment: http://download.publicradio.org/podcast/futuretense/mpr_20060707_futuretens… I hope this is helpful, Christian -- http://www.niftyc.org/

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Wikimania 2006 early registration still open
by Phoebe Ayers 07 Jul '06

07 Jul '06

A quick notice that early registration is still open for Wikimania 2006, the 2nd annual international meetup and conference of the Wikimedia Foundation (http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org) It will be held August 4-6th, 2006, on the Harvard Law School campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The conference will feature presentations from Jimmy Wales, Larry Lessig, Brewster Kahle, Eben Moglen, Yochai Benkler, and Clay Shirky; along with some of the most active contributors to Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, and the MediaWiki platform. Presenters and attendees will discuss the present and future of Wikimedia Projects (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource and more); the dynamics of Wikipedia and related communities; publishing and verification of information; and technical updates and Mediawiki hacking. Wikimania will be a chance to meet the people behind one of the extraordinary successes of the Internet - a multilingual volunteer community of a hundred thousand people who are passionate about creating high-quality free knowledge for the world. For community members, it will be a chance to meet fellow Wikimedians, learn about what's happening today, and discuss current issues and the future of the projects. For others, Wikimania 2006 will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to participate in shaping the future of Wikipedia and collaborative knowledge production generally. Early registration prices are good until July 9th. Register online : http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org Send questions to: wikimania-info(a)wikimedia.org. -- phoebe s. ayers http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org

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Web survey reuse question
by 'Gail Taylor 06 Jul '06

06 Jul '06

I have been following the discussion related to the use of the Opinio survey software product. Multiple questions came to mind related to the reuse of online questionnaires in support of research studies. Do you know of any research studies where online questionnaires have been reused by researchers other than those who developed and validated a particular questionnaire? Do any of you know validity issues are being addressed by researchers when questionnaires that were developed and validated using a particular software product are migrated to another product? Do any of you know whether researchers are charging a fee for the reuse of their questionnaires? Does the software producer also benefit monetarily from the resale of the questionnaire? Do any of you know of any Internet research methodology books that directly address these questions? In doing readings in this area, I am finding these questions tend to be overlooked as the methodologies tend to present information related to doing original research as opposed to extending research through the replication of previous studies. ~ Gail ***************************** Gail D. Taylor, M.Ed. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant "We can't just have mainstream behavior on television in a free society. We have to make sure we see the whole panorama of human behavior." -- Jerry Springer

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