February 2010 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

user generated content, motivation to post
by MARIA AMPARO LASEN DIAZ 04 Feb '10

04 Feb '10

Hi, A Mater student of one of my colleagues is researching about people's motivation to post, to share comments and evaluations about products and services, and about the social function of such activities. His hypothesis is that people augment their reality by being read and listened, that this activity would reinforce their existence as a subjects. He's looking for references and concepts about these questions. I would be grateful if you could help. Thank you very much, All the best Amparo Lasén Dpto Sociología I Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología UCM Campus de Somosaguas Pozuelo de Alarcón 28223 0034913942899 alasen(a)cps.ucm.es

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Free Online Training for the Public Comment Analysis Toolkit (PCAT) on Thursday, February 4, 2010 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM EST
by Stuart Shulman 04 Feb '10

04 Feb '10

Please register for Free Online Training for the Public Comment Analysis Toolkit (PCAT) on Thursday, February 4, 2010 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM EST at: https://student.gototraining.com/6gy79/register/6676687926493271808 The Public Comment Analysis Toolkit (PCAT) is Web-based, university-hosted software engineered for the specific task of reviewing public comments submitted via the U.S. Federal Docket Management System. However, PCAT is version 2.0 of the Coding Analysis Toolkit (CAT), therefore it is also useful for sorting all kinds of CAT-style 'text' datasets. If you have digitized text (not just public comments), you can form a team of peers, create a project, upload data, discover important themes and issues, classify text passages, and organize your analysis with a collaborative bookmark and memo system. Some reasons to try PCAT are: * The system is fast, secure and scalable. * This is currently a free service in beta testing * It is based on award-winning CAT research software. * It extends principles of efficiency, accuracy, reliability, validity, usability, and transparency. * It leverages a novel new approach to integrating credentials and distributed work flow. * It is equally useful to public and private actors and accessible to all. * It allows you to show or share your work with anyone on the system. * Auto-loading text deals a blow to the tyranny of carpel tunnel causing mouse-clicks. * It is very easy to learn and you can't break it. For more information: http://pcat-help.qdap.net/doku.php?id=home_page Or just visit: http://pcat.qdap.net You must register in advance to participate in the training. I will cover the basic operations of the system and take your questions about how to manage a project from cradle to grave. -- Dr. Stuart W. Shulman Assistant Professor Department of Political Science University of Massachusetts Amherst 200 Hicks Way Amherst, MA 01003 http://people.umass.edu/stu/ stu(a)polsci.umass.edu 413-545-5375 Editor, Journal of Information Technology and Politics http://www.jitp.net Director, QDAP-UMass http://www.umass.edu/qdap/

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This is pretty cool...
by Yosem Companys 04 Feb '10

04 Feb '10

Compare music interests in two different cities: http://rockitbaby.de/projects/mycityvsyourcity/

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Subject: Re: user generated content, motivation to post
by Sal Humphreys 03 Feb '10

03 Feb '10

I've been thinking about user generated content through the framework of exchange, and exploring the ways in which the different 'economies' of exchange interact within some social networking sites(eg. information, economic, social or affective, and reputation exchanges). It's interesting to look at motivations across a broad range of exchanges and how these may be interlinked in quite complex ways. I've written a conference paper about it available at http://eprints.qut.edu.au/26455/ Cheers Sal Dr Sal Humphreys Media Studies The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005 Ph : +61 8 8303 5227 Fax : +61 8 8303 5241 e-mail: sal.humphreys(a)adelaide.edu.au http:www.salhumphreys.org

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History of Nordic Computing - 2nd Call for Contributions
by Per Lundin 03 Feb '10

03 Feb '10

Dear Colleague, Please consider submitting a contribution to HiNC3 - 3rd IFIP WG9.7 Working Conference on History of Nordic Computing. The conference takes place in Stockholm 18 - 20 October 2010. Final submission date is February 28. Accepted papers will be published by Springer. Detailed information about solicited contributions and submission procedure is to be found at http://dsv.su.se/hinc3/. Please further this call to all those you think might be interested. Per Lundin and Benkt Wangler Program co-chairs ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ Per Lundin Div. of History of Science and Technology Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) SE-100 44 Stockholm Sweden Phone: +46 8 790 87 41 Fax: +46 8 24 62 63 http://www.teknikhistoria.se ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

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Berkman Center Summer Internships
by Amar Ashar 03 Feb '10

03 Feb '10

Hi All, The Berkman Center is looking for summer researchers -- if you know of students that might be interested, please feel free to pass this information along. The deadline to apply is Friday, March 5. Best, Amar Ashar Berkman Center for Internet & Society Harvard University http://cyber.law.harvard.edu -- *Summer Internship Program 2010 * For 10 weeks each summer The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University swings opens the doors of its big yellow house to welcome a group of talented, curious, and energetic full-time interns who are passionate about the promise of the Internet and issues related to media and journalism, civic engagement, policy, identity and privacy, education, technology, the developing world, law, and more. The interns team up with Berkman projects <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research> like Herdict, Cooperation, Digital Natives, Law Lab, Internet & Democracy, or the OpenNet Initiative, where they have an opportunity for deep and substantive involvement in project operation. Performing topic-based research; drafting and editing blog posts, papers and other written outputs; conducting outreach, developing partnerships, and maintaining relationships; exploring project and research design; and undertaking academic responsibilities of all kinds both independently and collaboratively are part of the Berkman summer intern experience. Specific tasks and experiences vary depending on interns' skills and project needs. In addition to contributing to project based work, summer interns participate in special events and lectures with Berkman faculty and fellows, engage each other through community experiences like the weekly interns discussion hours, and each year innovate for themselves new opportunities for fun and learning, like organizing debates, producing podcasts and other media outputs, and hosting book clubs and cookoffs (!). The word "awesome" has been thrown around to describe our internships, but don't take our word for it. Zack McCune <http://thames2thayer.com/>, a summer intern from 2008, had this to say <http://thames2thayer.com/blog/in-the-spirit-of-the-the-olympics-how-i-learn…>: "it has been an enchanting summer working at the berkman center for internet & society <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/>. everyday, i get to hang out with some of the most brilliant people on the planet. we talk, we write (emails), we blog, we laugh, we play rock band. and when things need to get done, we stay late hyped on free coffee and leftover food. it is a distinct honor to be considered a peer among such excellent people. and i am not just talking about the fellows, staff, and faculty, though they are all outstanding. no, i mean my peers as in my fellow interns, who are almost definitely the ripening next generation of changemakers." *Eligibility:* * Internships are open to students enrolled across the spectrum of disciplines; * Internships are open to students at different levels of academic study including undergraduate, graduate and PhD. programs; * Summer interns do not have to be affiliated with Harvard University; * We welcome summer interns from universities across the world, however we can not pay international students who have not yet received an undergraduate degree. *Time Commitment:* Summer internship positions are full time (35 hours/week), and the summer program runs for 10 weeks from June 1 to August 15. *Payment:* Interns are paid $11.50 an hour. Please be forewarned that stipends may not be sufficient to cover living expenses in the Boston area. No other benefits are provided, therefore interns must make their own housing, insurance, and transportation arrangements. *To Apply:* We know what you're thinking. /Yes please. I want that. That sounds magical. Did I mention I'm really good at "Rock Band"?/ / / Here's what you should do... */Law Students/ * If you are interested in working with the Cyberlaw Clinic over the summer, please read and follow the application instructions outlined here <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/getinvolved/internships/cyberlawclinic>. If you are interested in working with the Citizen Media Law Project over the summer, please read and follow the application instructions outlined here <http://www.citmedialaw.org/about/summer-internships>.* * */Students from other disciplines/ *To apply for a summer internship position, please send * a letter of interest describing your skills and interests, and indicating the area of research and the Berkman projects in which you have interest; * a current version of your resume; and * the contact information for two references (professional or academic) to Berkman's community coordinator, Becca Tabasky, at rtabasky(a)cyber.law.harvard.edu. *The application deadline for Summer 2010 is 11:59 p.m., ET, **Friday, March 5, 2010.*

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Re: [Air-L] user generated content, motivation to post (Zeynep Tufekci & others)
by Seda Guerses 03 Feb '10

03 Feb '10

with respect to why people/users generate content, it might be fun to look at how this topic was addressed in the pre-web2.0 and pre- ecommerce times. "cooking pot markets" for example was a concept explored by rishab ghosh which first appeared in 1996, in the years following many variations were reprinted and many conferences in europe picked up on the topic (the wizards of os conference (berlin) is one example where ghosh himself was a speaker). ghosh's own homepage provides the following listing of the article: Ghosh, Rishab Aiyer, 1998, Cooking-pot Markets: an economic model for the trade in free goods and services on the Internet, First Monday, vol 3, issue 3, translated into French and German and reproduced in multiple versions in several books, journals and other publications and with respect to anonymity: we have been informally discussing a similar topic, but from the perspective of those who design, research and develop anonymizers e.g., tor. we were asking the question if anonymity leads to less successful file sharing systems in comparison to file sharing systems with a identified participants, social network or community behind it (or maybe it is for other reasons that these systems do not pick up? but this could be one aspect). i believe though that this is a different concept of anonymity then what was meant by zeynep and others. if i would try to explain the difference from a technical point of view it would look likethis: when we say "anonymity", we are not referring to the use of pseudonyms (e.g., people using nick names) or the posting of contributions without an explicit logged in user under a pseudonym called "anonymous". rather, we are talking about certain tools which in addition to the use of such pseudonyms hide the ip address of the user/ source of information. now, it would be interesting to find out what for users count as anonymous? or, what was actually meant in the earlier contributions with anonymity? and, in any case, thank you for all the other references, very useful for the discussions we have been trying to have.... :) best, s. Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm

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user generated content, motivation to post
by nathan jurgenson 03 Feb '10

03 Feb '10

i think the "reinforce their existence as subjects" argument has precedent. try looking at Sunden's point that, online, individuals "type themselves into being" (3). danah boyd has stressed this point when discussing social networking sites. the argument might indeed follow for other online content creation, such as product reviews. boyd quotes an 18 year old stating “If you’re not on MySpace, you don’t exist” (119). in the same paper boyd states that “there is an ethos that if it is possible to access a public expression, one should have the right to do so” (138). seems very relevant. boyd, danah. “Why Youth [heart] Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life." Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Edited by David Buckingham. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 119–142. Sundén, J. 2003. Material virtualities: approaching online textual embodiment. Peter Lang Pub Inc. nathan jurgenson graduate student dept of sociology u of maryland ------------------- Hi, A Mater student of one of my colleagues is researching about people's motivation to post, to share comments and evaluations about products and services, and about the social function of such activities. His hypothesis is that people augment their reality by being read and listened, that this activity would reinforce their existence as a subjects. He's looking for references and concepts about these questions. I would be grateful if you could help. Thank you very much, All the best Amparo Lasén Dpto Sociología I Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología UCM Campus de Somosaguas Pozuelo de Alarcón 28223 0034913942899 alasen at cps.ucm.es <http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org> Sunden (2003) argues that in order to exist online, we must write ourselves into being. As the online dimension becomes more important, writing becomes central to existence in general. “If you’re not on MySpace, you don’t exist”, boyd (2008) quotes an 18 year old. Boyd (2008) discusses how SNS are sites where youth can write themselves and their communities into being. Boyd also states that “there is an ethos that if it is possible to access a public expression, one should have the right to do so” (138).

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Re: [Air-L] user generated content, motivation to post
by Murray Turoff 03 Feb '10

03 Feb '10

The rather old concept of human "exchange theory" which roxanne wrote up in "the network nation" was very good at expressing participation in discussion threads where when one wrote something the fact that they got replies encouraged them to contribute more comments. Exchange theory would also state that the reward of gaining status as an expert for the contributions made to dealing with problems would also be a coin of exchange. In networks of collaborative groups it is clear that a contribution will get payback based upon the number of other collaborators. We also found when in those days we could measure the time a person spent in a single conference or a message list that they would tend to sign on often enough to get like seven +- two new items. The more active the discussion the more frequent they would sign on. when there was much less they would wait to sign on for longer periods and this lead to the observation of critical mass needed to keep a discussion going. Also at some point information overload sets in when they cannot sign in often enough to keep up with the flow. This was in the paper that roxanne and i did some years back for cacm (i think 1981) on "information overload." In delphi one of the most important motivations to get professionals to participate is to make sure they know they are going to be collaborating with a peer group where they may get more feedback of useful information than they will have to put in. Sometimes we let participants know who is in the group even if it is anonymous with respect to entries. That is I feel a good motivation for professional message lists and when one starts getting too many requests for information verses contributions of information or too many announcements of paper requests i tend to lesson my activity in the message list. i did a study a year back on information seeking behavior of professionals in emergency management and as a result, i published recently through springer a paper on a recommender system design for communities of practice based upon some of the above areas including Delphi design. i can send it to anyone interested. The original study for NLM (on my website) was not allowed to incorporate any solutions to the information seeking behavior problems of emergency management professionals. But if you read the 60 page raw appendix of their actual text answers to our open ended questions the solutions become clear and in the paper i later published. The original inquiry was a one round delphi on information seeking behavior and problems using a snowball sampling and open ended text questions in a word file we sent people. By the way people who make comments but never get replies tend to stop making comments. Distinguished Professor Emeritus Information Systems, NJIT homepage: http://is.njit.edu/turoff

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altruism, giving to the crowd
by Barry Wellman 02 Feb '10

02 Feb '10

Concur with denise about reputation building as a motivator for contributing, but not the whole story: -- giving to the collective whole: many of us have worked to build AoIR, for example. Wikipedia another great example -- desire to set the record straight. Every time I see some pundit say that social isolation is increasing, grrrrr I'm sure there are other things too. 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 _______________________________________________________________________

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