- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

comments on Chat as a technically mediated social system
by Murray Turoff 09 Jan '09

09 Jan '09

The problem with chat is that it will change faster than we will be able to evolve theories for it. Those using party-line telephones had audio chat groups made up of the people connected through the party-line. Teletype operators had protocols to form instant chat groups using Morse code. Any early time sharing computer that allowed the operator to type on to a users terminal had the software features that usually allowed a simple chat capability. We had it on EMARSI on the UNIVAC 1108 in 1971 and it was called party-line and appeared as part of a larger system in a conference paper in the 1972 proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Communications. We could set the number of lines allowed in that early version. Today multi-line chat is on skype and gmail by not returning the carriage so even the one line chat is out of date. In 1973 there was also a multi-person chat on Plato the large Computer Assisted Instruction System at the University of Illinois. Chat to those of us evolving the technology was more of an obvious thing, easy to do, that we did not write much about it. In 1973 the people at arpa did not wnat to release the data on message use of the arpa net because it was the biggest application and that was not what they had designed arpa net for. They were afraid it might negatively affect congressional appropriations Why use a very expensive computer network for communications when there was 10 cent telephone calls. That was one reason I wrote the paper below which show that 5-9 people groups could commuicate more for less money using things like computerized conferencing rather than phone calls. That same cost benefit calculation was repeated in chapter 14 of the network nation. Many chats now allow you to save the proceedings, which means the addition of a persistent memory (writing on stone rather than sand) that makes a significant change in the way it is used especially to accomplish true collaborative tasks like making a joint decision. Chat will not be like current capabilities in the next decade as the next big step will be shared blackboards where anyone can type or draw anywhere on the board or add an audio icon that contains a short audio recording so the concept of chat will be text, drawing, handwriting, and voice in one system. Users will evolve methods to use it by imposing structures or communication protocols on the process. In fact it will be quite common to paste audio in word documents to explain figures using audio which will translate to common use in all sorts of electronic documents. This creates problems for theories dealing with a transient technology. Adaptive structurization is one theory that has a lot of merit here. That is a description of what social systems do to a technology in order to make real use of it. reference: Turoff, Murray, (1972), Party-Line and Discussion: Computerized Conferencing Systems, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computers and Communications, October, IEEE. Washington DC > Message: 6 > Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2009 15:33:40 +0100 > From: Jesper T?kke <ses(a)post10.tele.dk> > Subject: [Air-L] Chat as a technically mediated social system > To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org > Message-ID: <20090109143339.DMCU28218.fep50.mail.dk(a)post.tele.dk> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Happy New Year! > > I have published a paper in the series of papers from the Centre for > Internet Research here in Denmark. You can go direct to it following this > link: http://www.cfi.au.dk/publikationer/cfi/011_taekke > > Abstract > This paper provides an analysis of chat as a technical media for > communication. > > This is realized using the strategy for analyzing that I have called > Media > > Sociography (T?kke 2006). The Media Sociography is a synthesis of Medium > > Theory and the Systems Theoretical Sociology of Niklas Luhmann. The aim > of > > the paper is to describe social reproduction under the constraints of > chat, but > > also to show that Media Sociography can provide a unified theoretical > framework > > for CMC-studies. The paper is also indented to provide an introduction to > > the Media Sociography for an English speaking public. > > Keywords: Chat, Medium Theory, Systems Theoretical Sociology, Computer > > Mediated Communication, Media Sociography. > > Best Regards > > Jesper > > > cand.mag, ph.d. Jesper Taekke > Dep. for Information- and Media Studies > Aarhus University, Denmark > http://home16.inet.tele.dk/jesper_t/ -- Distinguished Professor Emeritus Information Systems, NJIT homepage: http://is.njit.edu/turoff

1 0

CFP: MIT's Media in Transition - Conference
by Michael Zimmer 09 Jan '09

09 Jan '09

[Of interest to many, I'm sure... -mz] Media in Transition 6: stone and papyrus, storage and transmission International Conference April 24-26, 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology CALL FOR PAPERS In his seminal essay "The Bias of Communication" Harold Innis distinguishes between time-based and space-based media. Time-based media such as stone or clay, Innis agues, can be seen as durable, while space-based media such as paper or papyrus can be understood as portable, more fragile than stone but more powerful because capable of transmission, diffusion, connections across space. Speculating on this distinction, Innis develops an account of civilization grounded in the ways in which media forms shape trade, religion, government, economic and social structures, and the arts. Our current era of prolonged and profound transition is surely as media-driven as the historical cultures Innis describes. His division between the durable and the portable is perhaps problematic in the age of the computer, but similar tensions define our contemporary situation. Digital communications have increased exponentially the speed with which information circulates. Moore's Law continues to hold, and with it a doubling of memory capacity every two years; we are poised to reach transmission speeds of 100 terabits per second, or something akin to transmitting the entire printed contents of the Library of Congress in under five seconds. Such developments are simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. They profoundly challenge efforts to maintain access to the vast printed and audio-visual inheritance of analog culture as well as efforts to understand and preserve the immense, enlarging universe of text, image and sound available in cyberspace. What are the implications of these trends for historians who seek to understand the place of media in our own culture? What challenges confront librarians and archivists who must supervise the migration of print culture to digital formats and who must also find ways to preserve and catalogue the vast and increasing range of words and images generated by new technologies? How are shifts in distribution and circulation affecting the stories we tell, the art we produce, the social structures and policies we construct? What are the implications of this tension between storage and transmission for education, for individual and national identities, for notions of what is public and what is private? We invite papers from scholars, journalists, media creators, teachers, writers and visual artists on these broad themes. Potential topics might include: The digital archive The future of libraries and museums The past and future of the book Mobile media Historical systems of communication Media in the developing world Social networks Mapping media flows Approaches to media history Education and the changing media environment New forms of storytelling and expression Location-based entertainment Hyperlocal media and civic engagement New modes of circulation and distribution The transformation of television -- from broadcast to download Cosmopolitanism backlashes against media change Virtual worlds and digital tourism The continuity principle: what endures or resists digital transformation? The fate of reading Submissions Abstracts of no more than 500 words or full papers should be sent to Brad Seawell at seawell(a)mit.edu no later than Friday, Jan. 9, 2009. We will evaluate abstracts and full papers on a rolling basis and early submission is highly encouraged. All submissions should be sent as attachments in a Word format. Submitted material will be subject to editing by conference organizers. Email is preferred, but submissions can be mailed to: Brad Seawell MIT 14N-430 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 Please include a biographical statement of no more than 100 words. If your paper is accepted, this statement will be used on the conference Web site. Please monitor the conference Web site at http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit6 for registration information, travel information and conference updates. Abstracts will be accepted on a rolling basis until Jan. 9, 2009. The full text of your paper must be submitted no later than Friday, April 17. Conference papers will be posted to the conference Web site and made available to all conferees. -- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm(a)uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org

3 2

Re: [Air-L] American Youth's Differential Use of New Media
by Mary L. Gray 09 Jan '09

09 Jan '09

Hi folks, Tina: I agree with sentiments of the other posts: 1) there's not much out there and 2) as Caitlin Fisher noted, other than the Pew study, one of the better compilations of work out there is the "Digital Youth Research Project" funded by the MacArthur Foundation...here's the link: http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report I'd also recommend looking at Sonia Livingstone's work in the the UK as a counterpoint (to get a sense of the differences between work in the U.S. and elsewhere). David Buckingham's collection "Youth, Identity, and Digital Media" (MIT Press, 2007) is another broader take on the questions you might find yourself asking. Crispin Thurlow is editing a special collection of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication addressing youth's differential uses of new media. You might email him to ask if the volume's publication date has been scheduled. JCMC came out with a really interesting special issue on SNS (not youth-specific) that's also a great collection to examine for more background (here's the intro article): boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html And a bit of shameless self-promotion (drums rolls a'rolling): my book "Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America" (NYU Press, 2009) will be out this August. It's a veritable trifecta of differential use: how lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and questioning young people use new media to craft a sense of visibility in rural, working poor communities in the U.S. Specifically, it looks at how the politics of gay visibility (expectations to be out and the naturalization of the coming out process) interplay with class, race, sexuality, gender, and space to shape young people's new media use. I use ethnography to examine how young people engage new media to collectively rework the boundaries of visibility and queer authenticity vis-a-vis their families, schools, communities, and online networks (hopefully troubling what we take for granted about the boundaries between online and offline experiences and where we expect to find queer identity work along the way). You've picked a great area of research, Tina. I hope you add to the growing body of work particularly concerned with the lives of youth under 18. Th research on this demographic is particularly thin and in need of a critical eye. All the best, Mary On Jan 8, 2009, at 6:00 PM, air-l-request(a)listserv.aoir.org wrote: > Message: 2 > Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 09:17:56 -0800 > From: "Tina Matuchniak @UCI" <tmatuchn(a)uci.edu> > Subject: [Air-L] American Youth's Differential Use of New Media > To: "AIR Listserve" <air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> > Message-ID: <D68ECA477F944ACF8713C3B1968C9629@tinalaptop> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > > Hello, > > I am a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine, > currently working on a project about use of new media (SNS, games, > video production, etc.) amongst youth. > > I was wondering if someone could point me to any studies on American > youth's differential use (by gender, race, SES etc.) of new media. > > Thank you for your time, > > Tina Matuchniak > Graduate Student > Department of Education > University of California, Irvine > >

3 3

The Communication Review Call for Papers on CMC
by Tatiana Omeltchenko 09 Jan '09

09 Jan '09

The Communication Review, a quarterly publication by Taylor&Francis, invites papers that address the workings, development and transformation of computer-mediated communication specifically focusing on: - Production and consumption of meanings in online or online-offline communication processes, - Political-economic, technological, and institutional dynamics of CMC. We encourage papers that employ critical theoretical and empirical approaches, sociological and anthropological analysis, cultural studies and feminist research. We also welcome non-traditionally constructed articles which critically examine and review current sub-fields of and controversies pertinent to computer-mediated communication. Please direct your papers or queries to Tatiana Omeltchenko, Managing Editor, at to3y(a)virginia.edu For more information about the journal and submission guidelines, please see the journal's website at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/10714421.html Andrea Press and Bruce Williams, Editors in Chief -- The Communication Review A Quarterly Publication by Taylor&Francis University of Virginia 401 Cabell Hall, PO Box 400866 Charlottesville, VA 22904-4866 Phone: 434-243-4330 Fax: 434-243-8869 http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713456253~db=all

1 0

looking for feature article-like readings about twitter and yelp
by David M Silver 09 Jan '09

09 Jan '09

hello! this spring i'm teaching a class called digital media production. it's a production class which means students will be required to learn about and to learn to use various digital media tools. throughout the semester, we'll cover facebook, flickr, blogs, twitter, google maps, online video, yelp, zotero, google docs, and wikipedia. the course readings come more from popular magazines than academic articles or books. for example, to better understand facebook and flickr, we are reading clive thompson's "brave new world of digital intimacy" ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html ) from new york times magazine. to learn about blogs, we'll read emily gould's "exposed" ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/magazine/25internet-t.html?_r=1 ) from new york times magazine and andrew sullivan's "why i blog" ( http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200811/andrew-sullivan-why-i-blog ) from the atlantic. to help us understand wikipedia, we'll be reading stacy schiff's "know it all: can wikipedia conquer expertise?" ( http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact ) from the new yorker and marshall poe's "the hive" ( http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia ) from the atlantic. question: can anyone suggest any other feature articles from similar sources that explore twitter or yelp? david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com

1 0

CfP: "e-Politics:the role of the Internet in designing political practices", ECPR General Conference - Potsdam 09
by Andrea Calderaro 09 Jan '09

09 Jan '09

Hello all, Apologies for cross posting, but it might interest some of you. 8< ----------------------------------- 5th ECPR General Conference, Potsdam 10 - 12 September, 2009 Detailed info: http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/ Call for paper for Panel “E-Politics: the role of the Internet in designing political practices” Section: Internet and Politics Link to the panel: http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/panel_details.asp? panelID=253 PANEL CHAIR Name: Andrea Calderaro Institution: European University Institute Email: andrea.calderaro AT eui.eu PANEL DISCUSSANT Name: W. Lance Bennett Institution: University of Washington ABSTRACT So far, the Internet has been hailed as an instrument useful for facilitating political participation. A classic question arises: is this confirmed today? and if it is, how does this occur? This panel aims to address these questions, reflecting upon how the Internet is used to practice politics. The panel will propose empirical examples to investigate how the Internet both facilitates existing forms of political engagement and how it promotes new forms. HOW TO SUBMIT A PROPOSAL http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/howtosubmit.asp Paper proposal should include: Title /Abstract (max 300 words) / Keywords (select 3) Author: name / institution / email DEADLINE 1 February 2009 _________________________________ Andrea Calderaro PhD Candidate Departmentof Social and Political Sciences European University Institute Via dei Roccettini, 9 50016 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI) Italy ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---- PERSONAL PAGE: http://www.calderaro.caltech.edu P Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.

1 0

Re: [Air-L] American Youth's Differential Use of New Media
by T. Kennedy 09 Jan '09

09 Jan '09

danah boyd! Perhaps not what you're looking for but resources that might lead you in the right direction Tracy Holloway, Sarah L. & Gill Valentine (2003). Cyberkids: children in the information age. New York: Routledge Falmer. Sharon R. Mazzarella (ed) (2005). Girl Wide Web: Girls, the Internet, and the Negotiation of Identity. Peter Lang. Dan Verton (2002). The Hacker Diaries: Confessions of Teenage Hackers. California: McGraw-Hill. Valentine, G. and Holloway, S.L. (2002) 'Cyberkids? Exploring children's identities and social networks in on-line and off-line worlds' Annals, Association of American Geographers, 92, 302-319. Guy Merchant (2001). Teenagers in Cyberspace: an investigation of language use and language change in internet chatrooms. Journal of Research in Reading, 24 (3), pp 293-306. Rebecca Grinter & Leysia Palen (2002). Instant Messaging in Teen Life. CSCW Conference Paper Ronald Davie et al (2004). Mobile phone ownership and usage among pre-adolescents. Telematics and Informatics, 21, pp 359-373. Mizuko Ito - "Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth and the Re-Placement of Social Contact" Crispin Thurlow (2003) Generation Txt? The sociolinguistics of young people's text-messaging. Discourse Analysis Online. http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a3/thurlow2002003-paper.html David A. Huffaker Sandra L. Calvert - Gender, Identity, and Language Use in Teenage Blogs: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue2/huffaker.html David Huffaker (2004). Spinning Yarns around the Digital Fire: Storytelling and Dialogue among Youth on the Internet. Information Technology in Childhood Education Annual, pp 63-75. M.D. Griffiths, Mark N.O. Davies & Darren Chappell (2004).Online computer gaming: a comparison of adolescent and adult gamers. Journal of Adolescence, 27, pp 87-96. Lalita K. Suzuki & Jerel P. Calzob (2004). The search for peer advice in cyberspace: An examination of online teen bulletin boards about health and sexuality. Applied Developmental Psychology, Vol 25, pp 685-698. Kaveri Subrahmanyam, Patricia M. Greenfield & Brendesha Tynes (2004). Constructing sexuality and identity in an online teen chat room. Applied Developmental Psychology, Vol 25, pp 651-666. Kimberly J. Mitchell, David Finkelhor, Janis Wolak (2003). The Exposure of Youth To Unwanted Sexual Material on The Internet A National Survey Of Risk, Impact, And Prevention. Youth & Society, 34 (3), pp 330-358. Brian Wilson & Michael Atkinson (2005). Rave and Straightedge, the Virtual and the Real: Exploring Online and Offline Experiences in Canadian Youth Subcultures Youth & Society, Vol. 36 No. 3, March, pp 276-311. Kathryn Montgomery (2000). Youth and Digital Media: A Policy Research Agenda. Journal of Adolescent Health, 27, pp 61-68. ..|::.|.::|::.|.::|..|::.|.::|::.|.::|.. |::.|.::|::.|.::|..|::.|.::|::.|.::|.. Tracy L. M. Kennedy PhD Candidate Dept of Sociology University of Toronto Course Instructor Dept of Communications, Popular Culture & Film Brock University Research Coordinator NetLab University of Toronto Second Life: Professor Tracy ..|::.|.::|::.|.::|..|::.|.::|::.|.::|.. |::.|.::|::.|.::|..|::.|.::|::.|.::|.. Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 09:17:56 -0800 From: "Tina Matuchniak @UCI" <tmatuchn(a)uci.edu> Subject: [Air-L] American Youth's Differential Use of New Media To: "AIR Listserve" <air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> Message-ID: <D68ECA477F944ACF8713C3B1968C9629@tinalaptop> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Hello, I am a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine, currently working on a project about use of new media (SNS, games, video production, etc.) amongst youth. I was wondering if someone could point me to any studies on American youth's differential use (by gender, race, SES etc.) of new media. Thank you for your time, Tina Matuchniak Graduate Student Department of Education University of California, Irvine

3 2

IR 10.0 keynotes announced!
by Susanna Paasonen 09 Jan '09

09 Jan '09

Dear all, I'm extremely happy to announce that the keynotes for Internet Research 10.0 - Internet:Critical have been confirmed. The general themes for the three plenary sessions are: - "Critical technologies" (Thursday, 8 October) with Siva Vaidhyanathan (University of Virginia) as keynote and Ken Hillis (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) as discussant - "Critical theories" (Friday, 9 October ) with Wendy Hui Kyong Chun (Brown University) as keynote and Jenny Sundén (Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden) as discussant - "Critical practices" (Saturday, 10 October) with Megan M. Boler (University of Toronto) as keynote and David Silver (University of San Francisco) as discussant More info on the speakers is available on the conference web site: http://ir10.aoir.org/?page_id=99#top As organizers, we are very excited about our group of speakers and the way things are shaping up. Our paper and abstract submission system is not quite up and running yet but will be shortly. Will keep you posted! with all best, Susanna Susanna Paasonen Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies Program chair / IR 10.0

1 0

Guestbooks
by Sigurjón B Hafsteinsson 08 Jan '09

08 Jan '09

Dear list, Does anyone on this list know about papers/articles that deal with online guestbooks? Any leads much appreciated. All the best, Sigurjon.

1 0

Re: [Air-L] Air-L Digest, Vol 54, Issue 8
by Shelia Cotten 08 Jan '09

08 Jan '09

Hi Tina. My colleagues and I conducted a study of 1722 middle school students in Maryland. We have a manuscript forthcoming at New Media & Society looking at gender differences in mobile phone usage among middle school students and several others that are in process at the moment (some focusing on gender and some on race - most looking at a variety of types of technology usage). I'm also in the process of conducting a study of over 1,000 4th and 5th graders in Birmingham, Alabama before they receive their XO laptops and then following up approximately 6 months later. Students are over 90% African American in the sample. No manuscripts yet, but we have great data on all kinds of technology use! Someone at Michigan State has also done a study with youth, looking at racial and perhaps gender differences in technology usage. Can't recall the name at this time. Can you tell me more about your project? Good luck. Shelia ******************************** Shelia R. Cotten, PhD Associate Professor Dept. of Sociology UAB Birmingham, AL 205-934-8678 cotten(a)uab.edu ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 09:17:56 -0800 From: "Tina Matuchniak @UCI" <tmatuchn(a)uci.edu> Subject: [Air-L] American Youth's Differential Use of New Media To: "AIR Listserve" <air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> Message-ID: <D68ECA477F944ACF8713C3B1968C9629@tinalaptop> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Hello, I am a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine, currently working on a project about use of new media (SNS, games, video production, etc.) amongst youth. I was wondering if someone could point me to any studies on American youth's differential use (by gender, race, SES etc.) of new media. Thank you for your time, Tina Matuchniak Graduate Student Department of Education University of California, Irvine

1 0