January 2009 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

New Positions at the Oxford Internet Institute
by William Dutton 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) is advertising for 1-2 new Research Fellows to join the OII in October 2009. These positions could be filled by a recent post-doc or a more mid-career researcher. The position descriptions are posted at: <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/ people/newpositions.cfm> Any help in passing this information along to relevant colleagues would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Bill Dutton Professor William H. Dutton, Director Oxford Internet Institute University of Oxford 1 St Giles', Oxford OX1 3JS United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1865 287 210/ 212 direct Fax: +44 (0)1865 287 211 Mobile-Cell: +44 (0)776 882 3906 Web: www.oii.ox.ac.uk http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/dutton/

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A typology of internet forums?
by Nils Löber 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

Dear list members, in the course of researching for my master's thesis on image board culture (think 4chan, LOLcats, Rickrolling etc.) I have been trying to find literature describing a typology of internet forums and forum- like precursors (BBSes/USENET/...) with respect to formal properties such as moderated vs. unmoderated, anonymous vs. pseudonymous vs. real names, distributed vs. centralized and so on. Even though I put quite some effort into finding literature, I couldn't find anything even closely approaching a comprehensive overview/typology. In fact, the wikipedia article on internet forums was as close as I came. Can anyone here help me out and point me to relevant sources? Many thanks in advance! Best regards Nils Loeber

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Re: [Air-L] Virtual sex -- from Second Life to online sites
by Trudy Barber 04 Feb '09

04 Feb '09

Please contact me - I can certainly help you on this one... See my profile - am working on a book - Cheers Trudy Dr. Trudy Barber FRSA Senior Lecturer in Media School of Creative Arts, Film and Media University of Portsmouth Room 3.19 St. George's Building 141 High Street Portsmouth PO1 2HY United Kingdom Trudy.Barber(a)port.ac.uk T: +44 (0)23 9284 5307 F: +44 (0)23 9284 5372 http://www.port.ac.uk/research/ceisr/members/title,69965,en.html Ongoing current project see: http://www.cdpt.info >>> "CarrieLynn D. Reinhard" <carrie(a)ruc.dk> 27/01/09 8:28 AM >>> Does anyone know any good sources to read from people who are looking into virtual sex and virtual pornography, from CGI pornography to sex games to sexual acts in virtual worlds? _______________________________________________ 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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Re: [Air-L] virtual ethnography
by Pearse Stokes 03 Feb '09

03 Feb '09

Hi, Just to respond to a couple of points - "sorry but i don't see how "webnography" as laid out by Puri has anything to do with ethnography; nor does it sit in the same arena as Hine's virtual ethnograhy. Puri's text sits in the realm of market research--the goal (to sell more product) comes before the observation. it's hardly social science. -robert" I agree completely Robert, Puri's "webnography" is most definitely a market research endeavour, but since it is so prolific, and since so many ethnographers may be employed in this arena, I would imagine an awareness of Puri's work would be a good part of a syllabus. "About the "graphy" part of "virtual ethnography", i can't agree with your statement of impossibility." I don't think the 'graphy' part of 'virtual ethnography' is impossible (I don't think I said that did I?) but it's very rare that good virtual ethnography is performed in its complete sense. I don't think it is a very robust method in terms of validity and generalisablity. I hope that clears up my stance on virtual ethnography. Also, if people have any good examples I'd love to read them! Pearse

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Re: [Air-L] virtual ethnography
by Pearse Stokes 02 Feb '09

02 Feb '09

Hi, I just thought I'd add the following. Firstly, I'm not sure Miller & Slatter perform any kind of 'virtual ethnography' in the strict sense in 'The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach' and generally I think it's massively dated. The key text from the 90s would be Hine's Virtual Ethnography and Hakken's Cyborgs@Cyberspace. I consider Hine's to be way ahead of its time in terms of the other books that were emerging at the time and actually still pretty current. My problem with Virtual Ethnography is that it commits the cardinal sin of bad ethnography; It takes a preconceived notion and attempts to graft that method onto a new research site. Also, I believe the dichotomy of virtual and real is a false one. Furthermore, it retains the anthropological stance of the researcher, and 'the other'. It places the web firmly 'in there' (inside the box or across a 'network of networks') and I argue that it most definitely does not exist in there and that the term virtual is nothing more than a convenience. More recently Virtual Ethnography or Netnography or webnography, are performed primarily in the commercial arena, with Puri's Web of Insight as a sort of handbook (available here: http://lk.nielsen.com/documents/WebofInsightsPaperMay07.pdf) Further, if you consult recent articles that claim to perform virtual 'ethnography' generally they perform 'participant observation' without actually 'writing the culture' (the 'graphy' in ethnography). An example would be boyd's 'Why Youth (heart) Social Networking sites' ... an extended period of 'deep And for the most part virtual ethnography is just interviews and qualitative analysis. Which isn't ethnography. I think cyber anthropology is a better direction than virtual ethnography. Anyway, thats just my feed back, Good luck! Message: 1 Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:25:51 -0600 From: scott(a)scottmacleod.com Subject: Re: [Air-L] virtual ethnography To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org, mathias.fuchs(a)creativegames.org.uk Message-ID: <S362488AbZA2XZv/20090129232551Z+60567(a)ams10.chi.affinity.com> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1" Here's a MIT OCW "Ethnography" course - http://tinyurl.com/dg32zg (also http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Science--Technology--and-Society/STS-360Ethnograph ySpring2003/Calendar/index.htm) - but not on virtual ethnography. In a related vein, I'm looking for a "Virtual Ethnography" syllabus from MIT, Cal, Stanford, Cambridge, Ivy League schools, the Sorbonne, University of Munich, University of Chicago, etc. Are there any syllabi out there that you know of on "Virtual Ethnography" vis-a-vis MIT's above? Scott scottmacleod.com

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A new "new media index"
by Steve Jones 31 Jan '09

31 Jan '09

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has a new "New Media Index." Details are at http://journalism.org/node/14356. The methodology is described here: http://www.journalism.org/commentary_backgrounder/new_media_index_methodolo… . Sj

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new reviews in cyberculture studies (february 2009)
by David M Silver 30 Jan '09

30 Jan '09

Dear list members, (nearly) each month, RCCS publishes a set of book reviews and author responses ( http://rccs.usfca.edu/booklist.asp ). books of the month for february 2009 are: Double Click: Romance and Commitment Among Online Couples Author: Andrea J. Baker Publisher: Hampton Press, 2005 Review: M. Carmen Gomez-Galisteo Author Response: Andrea J. Baker Living on Cybermind: Categories, Communications, and Control Author: Jonathan Paul Marshall Publisher: Peter Lang, 2007 Review: Alan Sondheim Author Response: Jonathan Paul Marshall enjoy. there's more where that came from. david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com

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CFP: EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
by ettore bolisani 30 Jan '09

30 Jan '09

Apologies for cross-postings ------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS 10th ECKM - European Conference on Knowledge Management Universtity of Padua, Italy - 3-4 September 2009 http://www.academic-conferences.org/eckm/eckm2009/eckm09-home.htm ---------------------------------------------------- In particular, I would like to invite you to consider a submission to the MINITRACK entitled "FORMAL MODELLING FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT" Details about abstract sumbission can be found at http://www.academic-conferences.org/pdfs/ECKM09-Bolisani_MT-2page_cfp.pdf Thank you for your attention Kind regards .............................. Ettore Bolisani, PhD Associate Professor DTG Department of Management and Engineering UNIVERSITY OF PADUA Stradella San Nicola, 3 36100 VICENZA ITALY Phone (direct): +39.0444.998725 or +39.049.8277825 Fax: +39.049.998888 or +39.049.8277825 Mobile: +39.320.1830815 e-mail: ettore.bolisani(a)unipd.it personal website: http://www2.gest.unipd.it/labtesi/eb-homepage.htm

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CFP: Porn Cultures: Regulation, Political Economy, and Technology
by Steve Jones 30 Jan '09

30 Jan '09

The Centre for International Communication Research (CICR) the Media Industries Research Centre (MIRC) and the Institute of Communications Studies at the University of Leeds are inviting you to a conference on Porn Cultures: Regulation, Political Economy, and Technology Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th of June in Leeds. The pornography industry is an under-researched culture industry. Its links to mainstream media and to the sex industry are intensifying. The mainstreaming of certain aspects of the industry in global popular culture raises questions about the adequacy, efficiency or appropriateness of existing policy. Other aspects of the industry, such as its labour conditions, its geographies of production and consumption practices associated with it have largely fallen under the radar of scholarly analysis, while much more attention has been paid to the potential for emancipatory uses of aspects of sexually explicit cultural expression. Meanwhile, technological aspects of the industry's operation are challenging our assumptions about 'choice' 'privacy' and 'freedom'. With the proliferation of the pornographic product embedded in everyday life now more than ever before existing and new questions require our urgent attention about human rights, migrants, workers and communication rights, media literacy, media ecology and the public sphere, global production and consumption cultures as well as underlying politics of gender, class and 'race'. This conference aims to bring together scholars, policymakers and activists to discuss the global pornography complex. It is the second of two conferences organised within the British Academy funded project Socialisation of the global sexually explicit imagery: challenges to regulation and research. The project has given birth to an international Porn Cultures and Policy Network, which involves scholars from a number of countries, engaged in comparative studies with an emphasis on policy. We are inviting colleagues to take part in this debate and colleagues who would be interested in working with the existing network to join us. Information on this and our first conference can be found on http://sgsei.wordpress.com. Please send your 200 word abstract, along with a 50-word bio and contact details to Steven McDermott (cssem(a)leeds.ac.uk) by March 15th or earlier. There will be a small fee to cover catering and room facilities. Please let us know if you require an earlier decision regarding your paper. If you would like to discuss a panel/round-table proposal and /or your paper please contact Katharine Sarikakis (K.Sarikakis(a)leeds.ac.uk) Speakers include Prof Alison Beale Co-Director, Centre for Policy Studies on Culture and Communities, Simon Fraser University Vancouver Dr Karen Boyle Glasgow University Dr Marcus Breen Northeastern University Boston Prof Gail Dines Professor of American Studies, Wheelock College Boston Dr Valentina Marinescu University of Bucharest Romania Prof Clare McGlynn Deputy Head of Law School, Durham Law School, Durham University Murray Perkins Senior Examiner (18 and R18 Categories) British Board of Film Classification Prof Karen Ross Liverpool University Dr Rebecca Sullivan University of Calgary Dr Liza Tsaliki University of Athens Prof Ian Walden Acting Chair of Internet Watch Foundation, Institute of Computer and Communications Law Centre for Commercial Law Studies Queen Mary, University of London Dr Rebecca Whisnant University of Dayton Again - Please send your 200 word abstract, along with a 50-word bio and contact details to Steven McDermott (cssem(a)leeds.ac.uk) by March 15th or earlier.

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Research on the social process of DIY broadband & (home) network installation?
by Ben Anderson 30 Jan '09

30 Jan '09

Searching all the usual places & journals turns up very little. Self- installation is often noted but seems to be rarely actually researched as a 'consumer experience' or social process in the context of the 'work' one has to do to get it to work. Does anyone know of any either complete or in-progress research on this? Research done in organisational settings (especially small businesses) or by market researchers isn't excluded. I'll send a summary in due course. Many thanks ---- Dr Ben Anderson Director, Technology & Social Change Research Centre University of Essex http://istr.essex.ac.uk/tasc/

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