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

predominantly urban focus in internet research
by Barry Wellman 21 Jul '09

21 Jul '09

No one was able to point to an article that did a meta-analysis showing (or not) a predominantly urban focus in internet research. So Jess Collins & I changed our sentence a bit. We did get many pointers to folks doing urban-rural comparisons or rural focused internet research. Which was not what we were asking about, but as they were copied to these lists, may well have been useful to some -- as well as to us. I do wish people would relabel their subject lines if they are responding to a somewhat different query. Anyway, our paper is done, and goes up on my website/publications - Connected Lives -- by Monday. Look for "Small Town in Internet Society: Chapleau Is No Longer an Island" Cheers, Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________

2 1

The Internet and Politics: Key Readings
by William Dutton 21 Jul '09

21 Jul '09

Dear AoIR Colleagues, I have agreed to edit a 4 volume set that will reprint journal articles and book chapters that are core to the study of the Internet and politics. In a very open-ended fashion, I would be very grateful for your nominations of work that should be included in such a set. I plan to include work that predates the Internet as we know it today, which has helped to shape and inform academic perspectives on the political role of computing and telecommunications, but also be as contemporary as book publishing allows. Here is an opportunity to assembly the key works in an increasingly significant area, so please do take the time to provide me with your recommendations. I will acknowledge those who provide me with their considered views on this, as it will be important for the field to get this list as strong as possible. Many thanks in advance. It might be best to reply only to me, but whatever you think best for fostering thoughtful nominations. Regards, Bill Professor William H. Dutton, Director Oxford Internet Institute University of Oxford One St Giles Oxford OX1 3JS United Kingdom Tel +44 (0)1865 287 210 Fax +44 (0)1865 287 211 Mobile +44 (0)7768 823 906 Personal Webpage <http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/dutton/>

1 0

what sources do you use for a "history of the Internet"?
by Sam Ladner 21 Jul '09

21 Jul '09

Hello all, I have run into this problem, yet again, and am still looking for a solution. I'm writing a (very brief) history of the Internet for an article. I have the following sources, which a) seem outdated and b) not sufficiently scholarly. Leiner, B. et al. 1997. ""The Past and Future History of the Internet." Communications of the ACM, February 1997. Berners-Lee, Tim. 1998, "The World Wide Web: A Very Short Personal History", Retrieved July 9, 2009, 2009 ( http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/ShortHistory.html) World Wide Web Consortium. 2007, "A Little History of the World Wide Web", Retrieved February 19, 2007 (http://www.w3.org/History.html) Can anyone point me in the direction of either more recent or more scholarly sources? I wrestle with using Wikipedia (as many have discussed on this list in the past). I would prefer, at the very least, a pre-press paper from a scholar. Any help much appreciated. s. -- ~~~~~ Sam Ladner, PhD Sociologist Toronto

8 10

Re: [Air-L] Free Culture <FAIL > Research Workshop 2009
by suely＠unisinos.br 21 Jul '09

21 Jul '09

Mary has made some relevant points but I strongly disagree that 'not counting' (the number of women involved in a certain academic endeavour) can be equated to 'not knowing', 'not thinking about' and/or 'not caring about' gender inequalities. Also, the discussion has changed from the representation of women in one specific workshop to sexism and discrimination in general. I will try to make my point clearer in more general terms: earlier messages asked for quantitative positive discrimination on the basis that 'women are under-represented in techno-culture' (a discussion about whether there is such a thing as a non-technical culture could be interesting, but I will leave that aside for now to avoid changing the subject even further). My opinion is that under-representation of women (or other minority) is not a quantitative problem and cannot be solved on a quantitative basis. In other words, the matter is not that there aren't enough women involved in x or y and therefore it is necessary to make sure an extra 'n' women will be included, but *why* the proportion of women (or other minority) in such and such is small, whether there is reason to believe that this should not be the case and what can and should be done to overcome this situation. Quantitative positive discrimination does not address the central points that create/reproduce discrimination and therefore can at best be adopted as a palliative while the really important issues are taken care of. If positive discrimination is seen as a solution, nothing will be done to make sure it will not be needed in the long term - and this is, indeed, a sad scenario. Summarising: the fact that I disagree about the "need to keep counting" does not mean that I disagree that "we need to keep thinking about practices that produce equality and practices that reproduce inequality" (I am quoting Mary's last message). On the contrary, my previous manifestation intended to stress the need to be careful that attention is not diverged from the latter (discriminatory practices) in favour of the former (counting how many of a certain minority are included in every specific endeavour). Suely >>> "Mary K. Bryson" <mary.bryson(a)ubc.ca> 19/07/09 21:29 >>> Thanks to the folks who responded to my recent post concerning the gap between the theme and goals of the Free Culture Research Workshop (e.g., democratization), and the significant under-representation of female scholars (one in ten) in the Organizational and Academic committees of the Free Culture Research Workshop, 2009. Various people asked some good hard questions to which I have responded, briefly, here. >>>>> http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/5486 What's the Story? Suely argues that: " counting the number of females involved in academic endeavours is insulting" and further suggests that "this way of thinking" (focusing on gender) is "sad". As it turns out, we have, here, a case study in ³not thinking² -- Free Culture organizer, Giorgos Cheliotis responds that in fact, vis a vis gender, very much in line with Suely's recommendation, "we just didn't think about that". Since in the case of the Free Culture Research Workshop organization, what we got when thinking about gender was foreclosed, is an inclusion rate for women of 10%, perhaps the most clear implication for those of us who are committed to a version of a ³free culture² that is inclusive and that directly contends with persistent inequalities, is that we need to keep counting, and we need to keep thinking about practices that produce equality and practices that reproduce inequality. A recent blog entry by Henry Jenkins, in conversation with Dayna Cunningham, about race and networked publics, does a good job of highlighting some of the complexities attendant to these issues -- http://henryjenkins.org/2009/03/can_african-americans_find_the_3.html Eve Sedgwick -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_Kosofsky_Sedgwick * maybe better than anyone else, wrote so eloquently about what she called, ³the epistemological privilege of unknowing². And for me, that¹s what I take from this kind of scenario. To not count - To not know - To just not think about it -- these are active practices of unknowing that constitute power and privilege and that perpetuate inequality. So What Can be Done? In the nineties, when more academics <than at present> were working on equity and technology projects with an explicitly interventionist praxis, my research team interviewed Sandy Stone, and her words are ringing in my ears thinking about these issues more than a decade later and under very different conditions -- http://sandystone.com/ Sandy Stone ended up a very sophisticated analysis of the difficulties of gender/technology issues by saying that "I, we, are making it up as we go along" and then said that nonetheless, "And when the guns start being fired, I promise to keep sending postcards from the front". I took two things from that moment - First - We have to act even when we aren't sure what to do, or as Courtney Cazden put it much more eloquently, we need to invoke a developmental model that puts "performance before competence" -- http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521558239 And secondly, working on equity issues in technoculture will continue to be unpopular, not a career-maker, and all too frequently re-framed as evidence of a personal shortcoming, weakness or basically, ³Just Being Difficult² - there will be backlash... And if you want a recent example of backlash in the face of a public discussion of the problems of sexism and misogyny in the Free Culture community vis a vis Richard Stallman's keynote at the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit * read the responses to a staid attempt by a conference participant simply to raise the issues at all --- http://mdzlog.alcor.net/2009/07/13/backlash-feminism-considered-harmful/#com ments So yes, to be engaged in social change vis a vis media is extraordinarily complex. Counting is not a solution, nor is it a practice that is neutral or unproblematic. As academics, we have a very solid foundation of at least fifty years of rigorous scholarship to draw on that pertains to the various divides within techno-culture * how to think about difference/s and what are the kinds of institutional and organizational tactics and strategies to intervene in relation to inequalities. And so it is likewise heartening to learn that several of the scholars involved in the Free Culture Workshop, most notably, Gabriella Coleman and Elizabeth Stark, have tackled the problem of the under-representation of women directly, and systemically. ³I am not sure whether Mary truly believes that we actively discriminated against female scholars² Giorgos Cheliotis It¹s likely also important to state the obvious, which is that I do not, of course, imagine that something as complex and persistent as gender inequalities and technoculture reproduced within a single setting, as in the Free Culture Research Workshop, is the by-product of something like ³active discrimination² or bad faith, or any individual failing. Equity problems are, of course, longstanding and persistent and will simply reproduce themselves across any setting without, and in many cases, in spite of, diligent and well meaning attempts to produce a ³free culture² that contests bias and inequalities. All of our universities provide endless evidence of the persistence of inequality despite manifest good intentions. Could you have just contacted the organizers about this privately? Why go public? Well as a matter of fact, I did contact the organizers about this, and got no reply. And so I then contacted the only other person on the Workshop website, to get the numbers data which then framed my email to the list. And I sent this email to the AoIR list because it is my firm belief (and it is a belief), that in the ongoing struggle to ³Free Culture² that networked publics and public deliberation matter * literally, ethically, and in every other sense of the notion of ³mattering². Inequality is not, for me, a private issue. And the AoIR community bills itself as ³a member-based support network promoting critical and scholarly Internet research.² That¹s, ³critical and scholarly² and not, ³critical or scholarly² -- http://aoir.org/?page_id=2 * So it seems quite appropriate to occasionally do something on the list in addition to ³Read my recent paper on X² or ³Please send me a bibliography on Y². Kind regards, Mary -- Dr. Mary K. Bryson, Professor and Director, Network of Centers and Institutes in Education (NCIE) & Center for Cross-Faculty Inquiry (CCFI), Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia CCFI: Innovation Works Here http://ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/ Twitter @CritInternet -- Esta mensagem foi verificada pelo sistema de antivírus e acredita-se estar livre de perigo.

1 0

what sources do you use for a "history of the Internet"
by Jay Hauben 20 Jul '09

20 Jul '09

Hi Sam, There is an early but important book that demonstrates the essentially scientific and democratic origin of the Internet. It is "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet" IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos Calif 1997 by Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben. It can be seen online at: http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120 The strength of this history is the serious research the authors did to trace the early vision and its roots. See especially "Part II The Past: Where has it all Come From." Hope that helps. Take care. Jay

1 0

Re: [Air-L] what sources do you use for a "history of the Internet"?
by Guillaume Latzko-Toth 20 Jul '09

20 Jul '09

Here are my two favorite references about Internet history: Abbate, J. (1999). Inventing the Internet. Cambridge (Mass.): The MIT Press. Salus, P. H. (1995). Casting the Net : from ARPANET to Internet and Beyond. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. The following is a shorter, interesting text reproduced in several publications and languages; you will find some PDF versions of it quite easily on the Web by searching its title: King, J. L., Grinter, R. E., & Pickering, J. M. (1997). The Rise and Fall of Netville: The Saga of a Cyberspace Construction Boomtown in the Great Divide. In S. Kiesler (Ed.), Culture of the Internet (pp. 3-33). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Guillaume Hello all, I have run into this problem, yet again, and am still looking for a solution. I'm writing a (very brief) history of the Internet for an article. I have the following sources, which a) seem outdated and b) not sufficiently scholarly. Leiner, B. et al. 1997. ""The Past and Future History of the Internet." Communications of the ACM, February 1997. Berners-Lee, Tim. 1998, "The World Wide Web: A Very Short Personal History", Retrieved July 9, 2009, 2009 ( [1]http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/ShortHistory.html) World Wide Web Consortium. 2007, "A Little History of the World Wide Web", Retrieved February 19, 2007 ([2] http://www.w3.org/History.html) Can anyone point me in the direction of either more recent or more scholarly sources? I wrestle with using Wikipedia (as many have discussed on this list in the past). I would prefer, at the very least, a pre-press paper from a scholar. Any help much appreciated. s. -- ~~~~~ Sam Ladner, PhD Sociologist Toronto _______________________________________________ The Air-L(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers [3]http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: [4]http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: [5]http://www.aoir.org/ References 1. http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/ShortHistory.html 2. http://www.w3.org/History.html 3. http://aoir.org/ 4. http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org 5. http://www.aoir.org/

2 1

Re: [Air-L] what sources do you use for a "history of the Internet"?
by Guillaume Latzko-Toth 20 Jul '09

20 Jul '09

Here are my two favorite references about Internet history: Abbate, J. (1999). Inventing the Internet. Cambridge (Mass.): The MIT Press. Salus, P. H. (1995). Casting the Net : from ARPANET to Internet and Beyond. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. The following is a shorter, interesting text reproduced in several publications and languages; you will find some PDF versions of it quite easily on the Web by searching its title: King, J. L., Grinter, R. E., & Pickering, J. M. (1997). The Rise and Fall of Netville: The Saga of a Cyberspace Construction Boomtown in the Great Divide. In S. Kiesler (Ed.), Culture of the Internet (pp. 3-33). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Guillaume Hello all, I have run into this problem, yet again, and am still looking for a solution. I'm writing a (very brief) history of the Internet for an article. I have the following sources, which a) seem outdated and b) not sufficiently scholarly. Leiner, B. et al. 1997. ""The Past and Future History of the Internet." Communications of the ACM, February 1997. Berners-Lee, Tim. 1998, "The World Wide Web: A Very Short Personal History", Retrieved July 9, 2009, 2009 ( [1]http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/ShortHistory.html) World Wide Web Consortium. 2007, "A Little History of the World Wide Web", Retrieved February 19, 2007 ([2] http://www.w3.org/History.html) Can anyone point me in the direction of either more recent or more scholarly sources? I wrestle with using Wikipedia (as many have discussed on this list in the past). I would prefer, at the very least, a pre-press paper from a scholar. Any help much appreciated. s. -- ~~~~~ Sam Ladner, PhD Sociologist Toronto _______________________________________________ The Air-L(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers [3]http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: [4]http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: [5]http://www.aoir.org/ References 1. http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/ShortHistory.html 2. http://www.w3.org/History.html 3. http://aoir.org/ 4. http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org 5. http://www.aoir.org/

1 0

References on social activism and web 2.0
by Anastasia Kavada 20 Jul '09

20 Jul '09

Dear all, Please see below for the referenes on social activism and web 2.0 suggested by members of the list (which also includes some references from my own database). For any further suggestions please contact me at kavadaa(a)wmin.ac.uk. Best wishes, Anastasia Kavada Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) School of Media, Arts & Design University of Westminster Harrow Campus, Watford Road, Northwick Park, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 3TP United Kingdom tel: +44 20 7911 5000 email: kavadaa(a)wmin.ac.uk *Journal articles and conference papers* Chadwick, A., 2009. Web 2.0: New Challenges for the Study of E-Democracy in an Era of Informational Exuberance. /J/S: Journal of Law and Policy For the Information Society/, 5(1), 1-32. Gueorguieva, V., 2008. Voters, MySpace, and YouTube: The Impact of Alternative Communication Channels on the 2006 Election Cycle and Beyond. /Social Science Computer Review/, 26(3), 288-300. Hargittai, E. & Walejko, G. 2008. The Participation Divide: Content Creation and Sharing in the Digital Age. /Information, Communication //and Society/.11(2):239-256. Jansen, B. J., Zhang, M, Sobel, K, and Chowdury, A (Forthcoming) Twitter Power: Tweets as Electronic Word of Mouth. /Journal of the American Society for Information Sciences and Technology./ //Karpf, D. 2009. Macaca moments reconsidered… YouTube effects or Netroots effects? Submitted for consideration for the YouTube and the 2008 Election Conference. Leurs, K. 2009. “Be(co)ming cyber Mocro’s: Digital Media, Migration and Glocalized Youth Cultures.” Presented at the Race, Ethnicity, and (New) Media Symposium, May 2, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA. Leurs, K. 2009 "Migrant youth & online hypertext: multiple modes of becoming/belonging." Presented at the 7th European Feminist Research Conference, June 6, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Lilleker, D.G. & Jackson, N., 2008. Politicians and Web 2.0: the current bandwagon or changing the mindset? Paper presented at Politics: Web 2.0: An International Conference, Royal Hollloway, UK. Available at: http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/politics-web-20-paper-download/ [Accessed December 30, 2008]. Preece, J. and Shneiderman, B., The Reader-to-Leader Framework: Motivating technology-mediated social participation, AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction 1, 1 (March 2009), 13-32, available at http://aisel.aisnet.org/thci/vol1/iss1/5/ <https://webmail.wmin.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://aisel.aisnet.or…> Williams, C.B. & Gulati, G.J., 2007. Social Networks in Political Campaigns: Facebook and the 2006 Midterm Elections. Paper presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, USA. Available at: http://www.bentley.edu/news-events/pdf/Facebook_APSA_2007_final.pdf [Accessed November 26, 2008]. *Bibliographies* McNutt, J. Electronic Advocacy Bibliography: Web 2.0. Available at http://www.policymagic.org/web2_0.htm *Conferences* Politics: Web 2.0: An International Conference. New Political Communication Unit, Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London, April 17-18, 2008. Programme and papers available at http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/politics-web-2-0-conference/ 4^th International Conference on Communities and Technologies. The Pennsylvania State University, June 25-27, 2009. Programme available at http://cct2009.ist.psu.edu/program.cfm * * *Case Studies* **Peer-to-Patent. http://www.peertopatent.org/

1 0

Judging privacy violations
by minav＠luminainteractive.com 20 Jul '09

20 Jul '09

-- Apologies for posting again but webmail formatting can be unforgiving-- Dear all We are running a study to understand how everyday situations (both offline and online) that may pose privacy concerns are appraised. We hope to discover the types of judgments most prevalent in privacy infringements. This survey takes at most 20 minutes to complete and your responses are anonymous. I would be grateful if you would consider participating and forwarding to others who could assist us. http://luminainteractive.com/questionnaire.htm Thank you Mina Vasalou Post-doc researcher School of Management University of Bath

1 0

Judging privacy violations
by minav＠luminainteractive.com 20 Jul '09

20 Jul '09

Dear allWe are running a study to understand how everyday situations (both offline and online) that may pose privacy concerns are appraised. We hope to discover the types of judgments most prevalent in privacy infringements.This survey takes at most 20 minutes to complete and your responses are anonymous. I would be grateful if you would consider participating and forwarding to others who could assist us.Thank you Mina VasalouPost-doc researcherSchool of ManagementUniversity of Bath

1 0