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

Re: [Air-l] Taxonomy of Content on the Internet
by Sal Humphreys 21 Sep '06

21 Sep '06

>Nancy Baym wrote: > >Matthew Allen wrote: > > >I wonder if the problem is the word content itself (which has too many, > >contested uses). > > > >Firstly, on a technological basis might I suggest we separate "channel > >media" (print, radio, TV, film, videos, nonnetworked games) vs > >"environmental media" (telephone, CB radio). >... > >I just ran across this quote which I thought encapsulated the issue nicely: > >"As Hirsch and Silverstone (1992) argue, information technology poses >unique challenges because it is both a set of artifacts to be >consumed as well as a medium within which social relations are >conducted." (from Nafus and Tracey "Mobile Phone and Concepts of >Personhood" in Katz & Aarkhus Perpetual Contact, p.208) > I think Matthew and Nancy are raising some very interesting issues about content here. I think redefining content to include both texts (of whatever form) AND social relations is crucial to an adequate understanding of the internet and its applications. I see this task as requiring an interdisciplinary approach that brings the social scientists among us into a more direct conversation with textual analysts and others focused on media content, such as legal scholars involved with issues of IP and copyright. There's a lot of great work by social scientists on networked relations and online sociability, and equally, a lot of great work on content - its form and it's production and consumption in these new networked environments. But there's a lot less work that examines and adequately theorises the relationship between content and social relations - the affective and immaterial elements of content that is also textual, creative, aesthetic (in whatever way). Thinking this stuff together, redefining what content is, will mean reorganising large institutional practices like copyright, media content regulations regimes, and so on. Establishing metrics will be even more complex than it already is. Sal Dr Sal Humphreys Post Doctoral Fellow Faculty of Creative Industries Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, Australia Mob. 0414 456 078

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iTunes 7.0
by Stephanie Jo Kent 20 Sep '06

20 Sep '06

Ok. Here's the deal. I'm really dumb about a lot of this stuff. I just updated iTunes to 7.0. Did a Party Shuffle. I'm wondering about the "randomness factor". Specifically, the chances that a sequence of several songs would fall into sync? I'm interested in qualitative answers as well as any quantitative results. For instance, is there some snoop software that reads my measurable statistics in relation to online music? steph http://www.reflexivity.us

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iTunes 7
by andrea baker 20 Sep '06

20 Sep '06

Dominique and all-- I agree with Sam--you wouldn't be boring us at all! If you'd rather not say about Apple data here, please write to me. Thanks for the info! Also, I thought someone said Tunes 7 had a place to calibrate how many repeats we wanted of artists, etc. I don't see it. Help? cheers, andrea

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Re: [Air-l] Taxonomy of Content on the Internet
by Bob Rehak 20 Sep '06

20 Sep '06

Hi -- I'm not sure this went out correctly the first time I sent it, so I'm trying again. Apologies for the double post if it is one. -------------------------- On Sun, September 17, 2006 07:32, Muhammad Abdul-Mageed wrote: > Although I do not have an answer for the question you raised, I guess an > important point is the one related to the criterion upon which we label > anything as being metadiscursive. As far as I can see, two main > perspectives can emerge. First, it can be said that anything that is not > related to the propositional content--which Christy seems to call the > 'actual thing,' is metadiscursive. Second, anything related to > 'writer-reader' interaction can be taken as being an example of > metadiscourse. Again, as far as I know, this will depend upon the > perspective from which we strike the distiction between discourse and > metadiscourse. Taking the question in a slightly different direction, I'm curious as to what percentage of internet "content" is pornographic -- a term, of course, with its own fraught definitions, but one that is frequently invoked in "moral panic" characterizations of online information. Do folks here know of any statistical breakdowns of the internet focusing specifically on adult/taboo material? -- Bob Rehak Visiting Assistant Professor Film and Media Studies Swarthmore College

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Re: [Air-l] Taxonomy of Content on the Internet
by William Bain 20 Sep '06

20 Sep '06

Bob Rehak wrote: "Taking the question in a slightly different direction, I'm curious as to what percentage of internet "content" is pornographic -- a term, of course, with its own fraught definitions, but one that is frequently invoked in "moral panic" characterizations of online information. Do folks here know of any statistical breakdowns of the internet focusing specifically on adult/taboo material?" I'd also be interested in statistical breakdowns of that sort. Cite-u-like gives an article that's of some interest, "Associations between pornography consumption and sexual practices among adolescents in Sweden," Häggström-Nordin, E. et al., published in _International Journal of STD & AIDS_, Vol. 16, No. 2, February 2005. I've only seen the abstract & don't know if the article examines the Net. Cheers, Will William Bain PhD Student Comparative Literature Department of Spanish Philology Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona --------------------------------- Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com

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Online marketing research curricula
by Michele Sohn 20 Sep '06

20 Sep '06

Hi all I am running a two day executive course for marketers on online marketing research. This focuses on using the Internet (and other connected networks like mobile and RFID) as a marketing research tool, and not research about the Internet. Problem is.... now I have to develop the course material. And I have to do it by Monday. I have developed the following course outline, and would really like your input. Also, really interested in any case studies that you may be able to point me towards. I am very happy to share these lecture notes with all of you once they are completed. Top-level outline . What is online research . When to take research online . Developing effective questionnaires . Online focus groups . Netnography o Content analysis o Semiotic clustering . All about sampling . Recruitment and incentives . Data mining and integration . Dealing with dirty data . Designing ongoing studies Any input is appreciated. Thanks in advance. Michele Sohn

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iTunes 7
by D.M.Lazanski＠lse.ac.uk 20 Sep '06

20 Sep '06

I worked at iTunes and I know exactly what kind of data Apple collects. Would be happy to talk offline about it - don't want to bore everyone! Dominique M. Lazanski PhD Candidate Dept. of Management, Information Systems Group London School of Economics Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE UK d.m.lazanski(a)lse.ac.uk Mobile: +44 (0)7783 431 555 Fax: +44 (0)20 7955 7385

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Re: [Air-l] Taxonomy of Content on the Internet
by richard-seyler.ling＠telenor.com 20 Sep '06

20 Sep '06

Hello all, All of this brings up another issue, namely how do you sample the web? What is the universe and what technique would you use to derive a generalizable sample? At one point I thought that if you randomly generated a set of, for example 4 letters such as "SFRW" and put them into google and then took the Nth entry in the list you would get a random sample of web content. It turns out that SFRW turns up things like: SEACOAST FEDERATION OF REPUBLICAN WOMEN Skype Feature Request Workflow Santa Fe River Watershed Etc. In thinking about it, the use of random letters would result in a lot of acronyms for groups (and thus miss, for example porn pages). Another technique would be to use a random word generator (open the dictionary to a random page and point at a word and then use it). Here you would get a lot of interesting words, but the search would depend on the language of the dictionary. Thus, neither of these approaches would work. Does anybody have any other approaches? Rich Ling

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Re: [Air-l] iTunes 7.0
by R.Mabry-Hubbard (UMC Student) 19 Sep '06

19 Sep '06

> . . . just updated iTunes to 7.0. ... I'm wondering about > the "randomness factor". Apparently, a number of people are interested in the algorithm for randomizing the playlist, too; a GOOGLE search for [iTunes "party shuffle" algorithm"] produced 477 results and 9,620 results for [iTunes "shuffle" algorithm randomness]. Here are few of interest. HOW MUCH DOES ITUNES LIKE MY FIVE-STAR SONGS? Article explores the algorithm iTunes uses to pick what comes next in a Party Shuffle playlist. http://www.omninerd.com/2005/08/25/articles/34 INFINITE LOOP: A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ITUNES PARTY SHUFFLE Brian E. Hansen was curious about the exact algorithm iTunes used to select tracks during its "Party Shuffle" mode http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2005/8/28/1066 IPOD SHUFFLE: RANDOMNESS iTunes' shuffle algorithm chooses songs "without replacement." This means that, until every song has been played - or the shuffle algorithm is otherwise http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/ipodshuffle/topic2959.html IS AN IPOD ON SHUFFLE TRULY RANDOM? | Ask MetaFilter It's truly random, but they know that's a problem -- the new iTunes also you to ... There are some interesting theories about the shuffle algorithm in the ... [19 comments] http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/23813 ------ 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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iTunes / Pandora
by Marj Kibby 19 Sep '06

19 Sep '06

Pandora tells you why it's playing the particular song: "It features folk influences, a vocal-centric aesthetic, major key tonality and other similarities with your nominated artist identified by the music genome project" 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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