- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Re: [Air-L] the role of new media in reducing health care cost?
by Mariana Goya 24 Feb '09

24 Feb '09

More than reducing health cost, it seems to me that internet is certainly giving (or can give) more agency to patients in their health issues. The information that can be found online goes from medical information and advice given by medical institutions (mayo clinic, for instance), published research papers, patients' recommendations of doctors (as in yelp), and patients exchange of medical advice and symptoms as well as empathic feelings. An informed patient surely has more resources to make decisions related to her health and to make better questions to the doctor or even suggesting specific treatments or medicines. This access to medical information is especially important in the US where getting easy/fast access to doctors is not always possible. --- On Mon, 2/23/09, air-l-request(a)listserv.aoir.org <air-l-request(a)listserv.aoir.org> wrote: Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:37:11 -0500 From: Yifeng Hu <hu(a)tcnj.edu> Subject: [Air-L] the role of new media in reducing health care cost? To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org Hi all, I am looking for articles/thoughts about whether new media can play a role in reducing health care cost. Any perspectives are welcome. Thanks. Yifeng** -- Yifeng Hu, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Communication Studies Kendall Hall 244 The College of New Jersey 2000 Pennington Rd. Ewing, NJ 08628 Telephone: 609-771-2373 Fax: 609-637-5187 Email: hu(a)tcnj.edu Homepage: http://www.tcnj.edu/~hu/ Mariana Goya-Martinez University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

3 2

Virtual Ethnography - Methodological Considerations
by tboellst＠uci.edu 23 Feb '09

23 Feb '09

Games and Virtual Worlds" will be out soon from MIT Press - it has a sustained and interesting discussion of ethnographic methods in virtual worlds/online games! Tom Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:13:06 -0600 From: "Andras Lukacs" <Alukacs(a)luc.edu> Subject: [Air-L] Virtual Ethnography - Methodological Considerations To: <air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> Message-ID: <49A292D2.E8EB.00AF.0(a)luc.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Hello ? I'm trying to compile a methodological bibliography (qualitative/ethnographic) on critical studies of virtual realms/ games. The best works that actually consider methods seriously are Tom Boellstorff's book on SL and Dmitri Williams' paper - imho. (Gary Fine's ethnography on D&D is a classic of course). May I pick the lists' collective brain and get further references/suggestions? Cheers. Andras Lukacs PhD Candidate

1 0

Consciousness of real-virtual connection
by Andrea Hein 23 Feb '09

23 Feb '09

Greetings, I am in the process of wrapping up some research and was wondering if you all could provide some information regarding a particular topic. I'm looking for research about people's level of consciousness regarding the connection between their real and virtual lives. I know that the connection between the real and virtual is well-documented and that people who inhabit virtual worlds generally acknowledge the connection between their two lives. What I'm looking for is research that discusses the point where the two lives become so intermingled, a person no longer consciously thinks of certain aspects as completely virtual or completely real. I hope this makes sense. Thank you in advance for your help. Andrea Guzman "Leigh Koppel" in SL Graduate Student Department of Communication Northern Illinois University _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™ Hotmail®:…more than just e-mail. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_hm_justgotbetter_explor…

1 0

Crowdsourcing the Broadband Stimulus
by Larry Press 23 Feb '09

23 Feb '09

Steven Clift asked whether crowd sourcing could affect the stimulus implementation. I wonder if, in spite of Obama's apparent wish to do so, it is possible to get meaningful two-way communication with the government using the Internet. Here are six short blog posts on Obama's efforts to date: http://cis471.blogspot.com/search/label/web2%20government Larry

1 0

The stimulus implementation
by Larry Press 23 Feb '09

23 Feb '09

Steven Clift asks: > Can Facebook Influence Stimulus Implementation? I hope the answer is "yes!" With or without the stimulus package, we are about to install the next generation fiber and wireless Internet access network. The key question is: Who will own and control it? I've done a recent blog post pertaining to this topic: http://cis471.blogspot.com/2009/02/lets-slow-down-on-broadband-stimulus-in.… The post links to a paper: http://bpastudio.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/draft/policygeneral.doc and a PowerPoint presentation: http://som.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/471/hout/policy.ppt Note that in addition to spending on infrastructure, the stimulus bill orders the FCC to prepare a national broadband plan within one year. That may be more important than this initial spending. See the post at: http://cis471.blogspot.com/2009/02/fcc-national-broadband-plan-can.html Larry

1 0

Virtual Ethnography - Methodological Considerations
by Andras Lukacs 23 Feb '09

23 Feb '09

Hello — I'm trying to compile a methodological bibliography (qualitative/ethnographic) on critical studies of virtual realms/games. The best works that actually consider methods seriously are Tom Boellstorff's book on SL and Dmitri Williams' paper - imho. (Gary Fine's ethnography on D&D is a classic of course). May I pick the lists' collective brain and get further references/suggestions? Cheers. Andras Lukacs PhD Candidate Loyola University Chicago Department of Sociology

1 0

Can Facebook Influence Stimulus Implementation? - Broadband Billionaires - Crowdsourcing the Broadband Stimulus
by Steven Clift 23 Feb '09

23 Feb '09

Not sure. Follow along ... Broadband Billionaires - Crowdsourcing the Broadband Stimulus A place to share links, news items, and comments on the over $7 billion dollars we are providing with our tax dolllars/debt to improve broadband. We own this effort, let's influence it. Join from: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=133665270318 Spread the word. Steven Clift P.S. Something of note in Minnesota: http://mnbroadbandcoalition.com And a related resource: http://blandinonbroadband.org

1 0

Liss Jeffrey obit
by Barry Wellman 23 Feb '09

23 Feb '09

Liss Jeffrey who was heavily involved in organizing AoIR Toronto Internet Research conference some years ago died recently. A long and interesting obituary is in today's Toronto Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090223.OBJEFFREY23/TPSto… Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology University of Toronto 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 I regret that most of my thoughts are more than 140 characters long Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________

1 0

research on birth week groups?
by danah boyd 23 Feb '09

23 Feb '09

A friend of mine is trying to find research on women who are part of "birth week" groups. I've heard a lot about these forming through Craigslist, but I don't know who is doing research in this space. Does anyone here know? I've included his full query below. --danah Begin forwarded message: > From: Ethan Zuckerman <ethanz(a)gmail.com> > > In the past few (several?) years, online support groups have emerged > for women who share a pregnancy due date. Some of these clubs are > regional; others are nationwide or worldwide, usually constrained by > language. Women participate because it's helpful to compare their > experiences to women at the same stage of gestational development. > > What's interesting to me about these groups is that they encourage > connect - sometimes deep emotional connection - between women who > don't share much in common in demograhic/psychograhic terms. These > groups are limited by gender, age and basic computer literacy, but > they appear to be - if only from anecdotes - more diverse than many > voluntary online associations. > > I'm interested in whether anyone has done either a detailed > ethnographic or a quantitative, survey-based study of one or more of > these communities. I'm especially interested in observations on > support relationships developing between women who differ in terms > of income, race and religion. > > -E

3 2

Register Today to Get the Early Bird Rates for "YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the United States"
by Stuart Shulman 22 Feb '09

22 Feb '09

Please join us at the 1st Annual Journal of Information Technology & Politics Conference, "YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the United States," taking place April 16 & 17, 2009 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This conference brings together social and computer scientists to examine the electoral impact of user-created YouTube content and to demonstrate new technical and analytic opportunities associated with new media technologies and politics. Register on or before January 31 and receive an Early Bird discount. http://www.umass.edu/polsci/youtube/ The conference is pleased to feature two keynote speakers: Day 1: Richard Rogers, Chair in New Media & Digital Culture, University of Amsterdam. He is Director of Govcom.org, the group responsible for the Issue Crawler and other info-political tools, and the Digital Methods Initiative, reworking method for Internet research. Rogers is author of Information Politics on the Web (MIT Press, 2004), awarded the 2005 best book of the year by the American Society of Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T). Current research interests include Internet censorship, googlization, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the Web, as well as the post-demographics implied by recommender systems. Day 2: Noshir Contractor, Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences in the School of Engineering, School of Communication and the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, USA. He is the Director of the Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) Research Group at Northwestern University. He is investigating factors that lead to the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of dynamically linked social and knowledge networks in communities. Specifically, his research team is developing and testing theories and methods of network science to map, understand and enable more effective networks in a wide variety of contexts including communities of practice in business, science and engineering communities, disaster response teams, public health networks, digital media and learning networks, and in virtual worlds, such as Second Life. YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle is co-sponsored by the Departments of Political Science, Computer Science and Communication at UMass Amherst; the Center for Public Policy and Administration at UMass Amherst; Panopto; TubeKit; the National Center for Digital Government; the Qualitative Data Analysis Program; the Science, Technology and Society Initiative; the Journal of Information Technology and Politics; and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UMass Amherst and is supported by a grant from the Research Leadership in Action Program in the Office of Research and Engagement at UMass Amherst. Visit the conference website for more information: http://www.umass.edu/polsci/youtube/ Regards, Michelle Michelle Sagan Goncalves Conference Coordinator YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the US 126 Thompson Hall UMass Amherst Amherst, MA 01003 Telephone: + 1 413 577 2354

2 1