July 2007 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

New Media Position at University of Michigan
by Nancy Baym 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Assistant/Associate/Full Professor of Communication Studies-University of Michigan (Roberta Saling) -------------------------------------------------------------------- From Roberta Saling (<mailto:rsaling@umich.edu>rsaling(a)umich.edu) The University of Michigan Department of Communication Studies Faculty Openings Beginning Fall 2008 Assistant/Associate/Full Professor of Communication Studies The University of Michigan, Department of Communication Studies seeks applicants for tenure track/tenured positions. Expanding department emphasizes interdisciplinary study of the mass media and encourages applications from a broad range of methodological perspectives. We anticipate filling two positions, pending authorization. All areas will be considered, with a special interest in the following areas: Political Communication, including the societal and individual effects of media on politics and public policy; the news media and politics; public opinion and civic engagement; interplay between polls, politicians and the media; political advertising; politics, race and the media; media and voter behavior; new media and political behavior. New Media, including emerging media and information technology; new media practices; media convergence; wireless and mobile communications; effects of new media on behavior; media law and policy; media institutions; human-computer interaction; new media and the workplace; new media and social change; new media and politics; children and adolescents; new media and health; comparative applications and diffusion; globalization; identity (race, class, gender, sexuality; new media and advertising. Anticipated starting date for all positions is September 1, 2008. Applicants should identify the position and their primary area of interest as one of the two listed above or another area of specialization in communication studies and send a vita, evidence of teaching excellence, a statement of teaching philosophy and experience and a statement of current and future research plans. Junior applicants should send three letters of recommendation; senior candidates should send names of suggested reviewers. Evaluation of applicants will begin October 1, 2007 and continue until positions are filled. Some positions are pending authorization. Send applications to: Search Committee, Department of Communication Studies, The University of Michigan, 1225 South University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2523. The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. The University is supportive of the needs of dual career couples. ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Poll on annoying Internet neologisms
by Derek McMillan 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Actually I think calling a URL "earl" is rather endearing. None of the top "annoying" neologisms annoy me however. It's a free country, people will develop the language the way they find most convenient and we can't lay down what words will or will not become current. Tell pupils a particular turn of phrase particularly annoys you and you are asking to hear it at every turn. McDonalds know this to their cost. They have tried to have the term McJob (a low-paid non-union job) removed from the Oxford English Dictionary (and forced their employees to circulate petitions). They only attracted adverse publicity and ridicule for their pains. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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community and technology conference
by Barry Wellman 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

I'm just back from the Communities & Technologies conference (in beautiful East Lansing MI), and I want to congratulate Chip Steinfield and his posse for running what I think is the best Internet-Society conference I've ever attended. Almost all of the papers were good. Well-prepared, and had systematic evidence, qual, quant, or (even better, often) both. Mediating on why it was good: 1. Somewhat of a focused theme, altho "community" has at least 57 meanings (and many of them were used). 2. Papers prepared ahead of time. 3. Pretty tight refereeing. My only complaint: Michigan State Uni's catering couldn't get the concept of providing alternatives to ultra hi carb breakfasts. And others may rightly point out the inadequacies of American airline service, 24-36 hours after a storm. (The Toronto/London Ont folks drove, and just had a chance to compare/contrast US immigration -- [hyper macho] and Cdn immigration [sweet]. I'm looking forward to the next one, 6/09, in beautiful Penn State Uni Happy Canada Day! Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman For fun -- updating songs, movies and history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php Elvis wouldn't be singing Return to Sender these days _______________________________________________________________________

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Re: [Air-l] community and technology conference
by Kano Tamale 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

At 14:16 2-7-2007 -0400, you wrote: >o congratulate Chip Steinfield and his posse >for running what I think is the best Internet-Society conference I've ever >attended. Any Links ? greetz, Kano Tamale (SL), sociologist in SL

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Re: [Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
by Eszter Hargittai 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Hi, It just occured to me that I had neglected to include an important piece of information in my post about our study. The data I reported on here were collected in February and March, 2007. Curiously, no one wrote to me for clarification even though this piece of info is important. (I just hope people read updates about various data sources critically and with care.) On a related note, I find the dynamics between the following two issues intriguing on this list. On occasion we see people expressing hostility/ambivalence/skepticism toward quantitative work. At the same time, there are quite a few messages asking for baseline information about the demographic breakdown of users of various services. I hope people realize that without the former, the latter's hard to achieve. And what may seem like a quick figure can take considerable resources (time, labor, money) to compile. Of course, thoughtful and constructive criticism of work is always welcomed, however, outright dismissal of entire methodological approaches does not seem helpful. And of course, the role of quan work is way more than to provide baseline figures, but it's a helpful component. Eszter http://www.eszter.com On 6/26/07, Eszter Hargittai wrote: > > Hi, > > I have some quantitative data to address the issues raised by danah thanks > to the MacArthur-funded project we're undertaking in my Web Use Project > group. (See below for details about the data set.) > > Based on a sample of 1,236 very diverse college students, there is a > statistically significant positive relationship between use of Facebook and > the parental education level of students (a standard proxy for > socio-economic status). We also find a statistically significant negative > relationship between parental education and use of MySpace. > > The data also suggest statistically significant differences in use by race > and ethnicity, but I'll have to report on specifics later since I just > cleaned the data set and am still working on some recodes. > > Although unfortunately I cannot be there, several students (Soo An, Dan > Li, Gina Walejko) from my research group will be at the C&T2007 meeting at > Michigan State this week presenting at the workshop on social software. > Although they won't be talking about this specific issue, they will be > discussing all sorts of findings from our study. > > Regarding the data set, just to clarify, this is in not a convenience > sample of college students. We administered a paper-pencil survey to > students in the one class at the University of Illinois, Chicago that is > required of all students thus posing no selection bias as to who was in the > sampling frame from the university. We have a 98% response rate of the 85 > course sections, and an 82% response rate of all students enrolled in the > class. I could go on and on about how the sample is diverse, but regarding > the above-mentioned variable of parental education, over a third of fathers > and almost half of mothers have a high school education or less, while about > 42% of fathers and 40% of mothers have a college or graduate degree. About > 77% of the sample reported using Facebook sometimes or often, while that > figure is 54% for MySpace. > > Also, as additional information, the focus of this study was not SNS use > per se, these questions make up a very small portion of the entire data set. > > More later as we make progress in analyzing the data. > > Eszter > > Eszter Hargittai > Assistant Professor > Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology > Northwestern University > > 2006-2007 Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, > Stanford > > http://www.eszter.com

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CFP: Workshop: From HCI to Media Experience
by T.L. Taylor 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Might be of interest to some folks. TL * * * * * * CALL FOR PARTICIPATION WORKSHOP: From HCI to Media Experience: Methodological Implications DATE: Tuesday, 4th September 2007 CONFERENCE: HCI 2007 Lancaster, UK CONFERENCE WEB SITE: <http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/hci2007/>http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/hci2007/ <http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/hci2007/> WORKSHOP OVERVIEW The landscape of interactive technology design and evaluation is expanding. In the past, usability and task efficiency were the main focus for research in human computer interaction; evaluation methods worked from single user data over constrained tasks. This kind of work remains central to our discipline. However, these methods were never intended to inform or underpin the design and evaluation of media-rich, social technologies. They are not aimed at designing for quintessentially elusive concepts like "experience" and "engagement". Especially when that experience is not individual, but social, where data and performance are spread across many people, platforms and devices, and many settings, and where the lab test cannot shed light on ways that experience unfolds over time. In this workshop we invite discussion of approaches and methods aimed at the design and measurement of interactive, social media experience. The workshop will center on approaches methods that are used in the design of short-term engagement and experience, but also those that are aimed at consideration of engagement and experience over longer durations - from watching a 3-minute, socially tagged video online, to massively multiplayer games like World of Warcraft that take months to unfold, to plug-ins for social networking sites like Facebook, to social simulations like Second Life, to social and community media-archiving projects. What do these emerging experiences tell us about the methods we currently use, and the methods we need to develop? WHO SHOULD ATTEND For this workshop, we invite contributions from a diverse range of disciplines, including HCI, design, cultural studies, cognitive science, psychology, film and media studies, game studies, and anthropology, among others, to explore how interactions with technology become experiences, and in particular, social and/or intimate experiences. Participants are to explore questions such as the following: * What is an experience? * What are the ways in which qualitative and quantitative measures can weave together? * How can we operationalize critical categories into nuanced yet verifiable scientific methods? * How do we make sense of data that are gathered into meaningful reflections of people's experience? * What skills are needed for "experience design"? The workshop will be a full-day event and will be open to a maximum of 15 participants. Please note that registration to the HCI2007 conference is required, at least for the day of the workshop. For details about conference registration, please visit <http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/hci2007>http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/hci2007 <<http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/hci2007>http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/hci2007> WORKSHOP FORMAT This is a full-day workshop. The morning session will consist of short presentations and discussion of participants' position papers - where participants will be asked to raise questions that are central to their current work in designing and evaluating experiences. Participants will be encouraged to bring examples of their work, or of others' work that has either eluded analysis from traditional methods, or has inspired the development of new methods of design and analysis that more effectively reflect people's experiences. We encourage participants to think broadly, from games to fairground rides to immersive learning contexts to psychotherapeutic environments - any experiences that can inform approaches that lead to deeper understanding of online and embodied media experience. In the afternoon session, participants will break into small groups depending on their main interest and discuss topics. At the end of the workshop, the small groups will report back, which will form the basis for a plenary discussion. ORGANIZERS Elizabeth Churchill (Yahoo! Research) Jeffrey Bardzell (Indiana University School of Informatics) SUBMISSIONS 4-page position papers should be submitted to Elizabeth Churchill (elizabeth.churchill(a)yahoo-inc.com) by July 25th, 2007. Please mark the subject header "HCI 2007 Workshop Submission". For the position paper, please use the Word Template that can be found on the workshop website. <http://disc.brunel.ac.uk/HCI2007elearningworkshop/>http://disc.brunel.ac.uk/HCI2007elearningworkshop/ <http://disc.brunel.ac.uk/HCI2007elearningworkshop/> Acceptance notifications will be sent by August 2nd, 2007, in time for the early bird registration for the conference. DATES ----- 25 July 07 - position paper deadline 02 Aug 07 - notification of acceptance 05 Aug 07 - early bird registration deadline conference 25 Aug 07 - presentation slides deadline 04 Sept 07 - workshop -- _____________________________________________ Please make sure to use <mailto:tltaylor@itu.dk>tltaylor(a)itu.dk (not my GMail account) for correspondence.

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Re: [Air-l] audio/video at IR conferences
by Ken Cousins 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

I suspect that the problem becomes somewhat more tractible as the importance of maintaining control over the recordings recedes. While the actual recording itself would still require hardware and at least one person to man a microphone / camera, hosting the resulting files via one of the online vid services could externalize that cost. To the degree that slides are critical for understanding, it also seems tractible to set up a screencast recorder - tied to live audio - during each panel. This would require some expertise, and doubtlessly some experimentation, but again seems quite tractible. Just a thought. Ken Cousins, PhD Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda Department of Government and Politics University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/kcousins http://augmentation.blogspot.com "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." Albert Einstein >>> elw(a)stderr.org 06/26/07 3:05 PM >>> > usual annual question: > will there be audio/video recordings at an Internet Research conference? > usual annual response: > 'no' usually phrased as 'the conference group/exec will discuss it', > which usually means 'how much will it cost?', which resolves into, > 'well, yes it can be done, but only if you donate a large sum of > money, and or do it yourself', which usually resolves into 'no, it > will not happen.' folks who're interested in videoing IR should spend a couple of hours reading the blogs of the folks who have been doing the video of the Debconf series of conferences. [starting point - http://layer-acht.org/slides/20070122_debian-meetings-archive_SLUG.pdf ] they've invested SERIOUS time, hardware, and resources into making it work. it is a *hard* problem - completely nontrivial. I like video as much as the next person - probably more - but this would be a huge committment. > Personally, I'm against recording any session other than keynotes. I > think photographs, blogging, and a back-channel are great additions, but > public recording of session stifles the communal atmosphere where people > can be frank and collegial. Pretty much on-board with what jeremy just said. The backchannel is particularly useful, IMHO.... --e _______________________________________________ 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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another interesting SNS / Facebook article on the BBC
by Martin Garthwaite 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Busy people paying a proxy to manage their second life. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6260210.stm -- Martin Garthwaite PhD candidate, London Knowledge Lab www.lkl.ac.uk +447957 764819 Skype id mgarthwaite1330 MS IM marting(a)gmail.com

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Re: [Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook andMySpace
by Jason Wilson 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Hi Andy and all, Thanks for the question. First I'd reiterate what I'm trying to account for: a specific, well-heeled, well-educated demographic is making the switch to Facebook, while other people stay where they are, and others still continue to join MySpace. In addition, other specific groups are heading to other services entirely, e.g. American teens to Xanga. I would argue that "tipping points" and "usability" arguments can't entirely account for this, and class and the desire to congregate with "people like us" plays a part. I guess that I'd defer to Bourdieu for the most basic theoretical underpinnings of what I'm arguing here. In Distinction he remarks that "Objectively and subjectively aesthetic stances adopted in matters like cosmetics, clothing, or home decoration are opportunities to experience or asset one’s position in social space, as a rank to be upheld or a distance to be kept." One of the central arguments in the work is that "taste" and cultural preferences mediate class distinctions, that taste is one of the primary ways in which class distance and membership are asserted. This informs my belief that design, "usability" and the contexts of social networking are never neutral, and are always inflected by issues around class (among others). I guess that for me, the problematic assumption would be that social networking, and the selection of an SNS, could take place in a way that somehow evaded, or was innocent of all of this. Why would I think of this specifically in relation to MySpace vs. Facebook? Well, to amplify on an earlier example, I think that the ways in which the two services can be personalised appeal to different taste formations. The often-"gaudy" nature of MySpace personalisation, arising from users' ability to insert large amounts of HTML into their profiles to create background images etc. presents a contrast with the essentially "modular" personalisation available with Facebook profiles, where users select from a range of options which do not disturb the given, "clean" colour schemes and layouts of Facebook profiles. The Facebook interface strikes me as very "designerly" - it is reminiscent to me in its look and feel of an OSX application, with all that connotes in terms of "funky"/creative professions, the blurring of work and/in play, and discernment (think of the Mac vs. PC ad campaigns). The use of whitespace, drop-down menus and a very "Web 2.0" set of icons allow it to be read as uncluttered, fresh and efficient. Personalisation for many Facebook users takes place by way of deferring to the expert knowledges of application designers. By contrast, MySpace personalisations often seem inexpert, distracting, ungainly - in short amateur, even where the "pimping" is outsourced. Coincidentally, both Danah Boyd and I (me in my blog post on the 22nd) are drawn to the metaphor of/comparison with Swedish furniture stores and their emphasis on modularity and design in thinking about Facebook. There are visual rhetorics in Facebook's presentation that connote a restrained minimalism which is not avant-garde but rational and "tasteful". This observation chimes with the excitement of those marketing high-end consumer goods about getting access Facebook's "elite" user base. Facebook's aesthetic of personalisation appeals to a certain kind of networked, linked-in, design-aware, educated, "mature" (non-emo :-) ) subject, in part because of the "distancing" it offers from messy old MySpace, which begins, by contrast, to resemble the chaos of a teenager's bedroom wall. In this sense, I think we can talk about class in relation to the design interface. That's an example - as I said in yesterday's post, I think the modes of networking Facebook offers as well as the narratives associated with it's success are appealing to a certain kind of contemporary, class-inflected sensibility. If you wanted specific examples of MySpace profiles that bear out the contrast, I'd hesitate to give them on a list, but could send you some off-list if you like. Cheers Jason ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo!7 Mail has just got even bigger and better with unlimited storage on all webmail accounts. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html

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Re: [Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
by nativebuddha 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Maybe this has already been said, but I find the framing by class problematic on a basic level--we are already focusing only on a certain "level" of class we we look at Facebook and MySpace users. On 6/29/07, Lois Ann Scheidt <lscheidt(a)indiana.edu> wrote: "Will the divide hold true now that Facebook allows access to anyone with an email address?" Yes, anyone with an e-mail can have access, but remember that only a certain "level" of class has an e-mail, and has/feels the desire to devote time to play via Facebook and MySpace. (Lois, pardon my lifting of your quote. I know that it was not pertinent for your discussion. It seemed like a good jumping off point for my thoughts.) I'm not statistically sure of this, but I would imagine that there are class distinctions (more inclusive, maybe) between cell phone users (more lower socio-economic groups included) and webpage users. This may seem like a trite over already explored discussion of class and the internet, but I think it still needs to frame the overall discussion of class. That's why Bourdieu's discussion of class and distinction might bear some fruit. Facebook and MySpace class differences are more like differences within a class grouping that already exist "above" other socio-economic distinctions. Again, maybe this is plain to see, but it is worhy of acknowledging if we want to untangle class on the internet. -robert

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