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Need Your Help to Build Grassroots Polling Community
by Yosem Companys 07 Feb '08

07 Feb '08

Dear AIR friends, Since some of you may not know me personally, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Yosem Companys (yes, this is truly my last name!), and I am a PhD student in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. As part of my studies, I have closely collaborated with my friend Ricardo Rossello who just obtained his Ph.D. in Bio-Engineering at the University of Michigan to create a new scientific method to enhance the value of polling. What we came up with is called *Bullitics*, which you can see at www.bullitics.com. This is *NOT* a faddish 2.0 site, but rather a patent-pending scientific method that we have developed after years of research to enhance the value of polling. What we are trying to do with *www.bullitics.com** *is *to build a non partisan grassroots online polling community to empower people to become their own pollsters and enable them to track the value of candidates and issues in real time*. As an example of how powerful the system could be, please read the results<http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=12231>of an early test we conducted on it in New Hampshire. *PLEASE HELP US*. You can help us by following the simple four steps: - *Register* at www.bullitics.com - *Submit your preferences and change them often *as political events change before and after Super Tuesday. The more you use the product, the better! - *Provide feedback *regarding your experience with the product. Recall, its just a beta --- most of the interesting things about the product will be surfacing later on, so please also check the site often for updates as we will be integrating these continuously over time. - *Forward to Ten Friends*! The more people use Bullitics, the more powerful the tool will be. In general, I think that we are all interested in making it easier for people to influence the political process and the political decisions that affect their lives. We hope that *www.bullitics.com** *serves as a small grain of sand that takes us in that direction. *WE TRULY APPRECIATE YOUR HELP*! With your help, we may improve the political process... Thanks, Yosem Companys and Ricardo Rossello P.S. Forward this email to your friends... and send any comments to ricky.rossello(a)gmail.com

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WikiCandidate 08
by Dmitry Epstein 06 Feb '08

06 Feb '08

Dear list members, My colleagues and I just launched a website (http://wikicandidate08.com <http://wikicandidate08.com/> ) intended to research the way in which people engage in political discussion online. It's called WikiCandidate. The site is the campaign website of a fictional presidential candidate running in the 2008 US election. It's intended to look and feel exactly like a real campaign website (our developers are getting there gradually, but things look similar already), with one exception: all the content on it is tied to a wiki engine and editable by users. Visitors to the site can write up and change this candidate's bio, issue stances, news from the campaign trail, etc. First and foremost, the WikiCandidate Project is supposed to be a fun website and an online community. In a presidential election, it's common for people to be disappointed in the choice of candidates. Each person running has some character flaw, holds a position on an issue you don't share, says something you wish they hadn't. So, we wondered, free of practical constraints like life history, party politics, and voting record, who is (and can there be) a perfect presidential candidate? It wasn't long before we realized there were some really interesting academic research questions that could be asked about this. And so we put together this website. We're not studying people our users like bugs or anything. We mostly want to see whether an effort like this can be successful, and how people discuss politics in this non-traditional forum. We'd love you to stop by, and if you like what you see, invite your readers to do the same. Thank you! Dima

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Most popular sites
by Peter Fischer-Nielsen 06 Feb '08

06 Feb '08

Dear all, What is your experience with alexa.com? Can it be used as a reliable tool for measuring for instance the most used religious sites world wide: http://www.alexa.com/browse/general/?&CategoryID=373&mode=general&R=True &Start=1&SortBy=Popularity Do you know of other and better ways? Kind regards, Peter Fischer-Nielsen PhD student, University of Aarhus, Denmark

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final call panel: science learning/education in virtual worlds
by Jeremy Hunsinger 06 Feb '08

06 Feb '08

This is one of the ideas that I've been working on for copenhagen, as it seems to be gathering a good bit of steam and funding. My perspective will be to look at the organizational and funding structures for science learning in virtual worlds, likely a network/ political economy analysis. If other people have papers or proposals, I'd love to see them so i could write up a panel. Jeremy Hunsinger Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu ) Words are things; and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. --Byron _______________________________________________ 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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Association/Organizational Virtual Communities of Practice?
by Gerry Mckiernan 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

***APOLOGIES FOR RECEIPT OF DUPLICATE POSTINGS*** Colleagues/ As many may be aware, there are several changes being considered in the Public Library Association (PLA) Bylaws. A major proposed change is the creation of various Communities of Practice to replace PLA committees: >Communities of Practice will replace many of the PLA Committees. Communities of Practice will be virtual groups that are interest- >focused and member-driven. Members will have the power to create groups, as well as morph and/or disband them at their >discretion. This will allow all 11,000+ members, many who are not able to travel to in-person committee meetings, to get involved >with the organization and the public library issues they care about most. Communities of Practice, should the members choose, will >still be able to meet in-person at ALA Annual Conference and Midwinter. [ http://www.pla.org/ala/pla/bylawsannouncement.cfm ] For a forthcoming presentation, I am greatly interest in learning of Any and All Past, Present and/Future Association/Organizational Virtual Communities of Practice, particularly those of the Online Social Networking Kind. Note: At this time, I am only interested in *Virtual* >>Association / Organizational<< Communities of Practice. I am also interested in Any and All relevant literature, Web sites, blogs, wikis, etc. Please respond to this list and ** if at all possible, also submit as a comment on my _Friends_ blog posting*** Association/Organizational Virtual Communities of Practice? [ http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2008/02/associationorganizational-… ] I will post a summary to the e-List(s) of Any and All submissions to The Blog. Thanks! >From a Snowing Central Iowa ... /Gerry Gerry McKiernan Associate Professor Science and Technology Librarian Iowa State University Library Ames IA 50011 gerrymck(a)iastate.edu There is Nothing More Powerful Than An Idea Whose Time Has Come Victor Hugo [ http://www.blogger.com/profile/09093368136660604490 ] Iowa: Where the Tall Corn Flows and the (North)West Wind Blows ... [ http://www.alternativeenergyblogs.blogspot.com/ ]

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CFP Digital Culture and Communication
by Kathleen O'Riordan 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

a reminder that the final deadline for this is 15th Feb. k > DIGITAL CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION (DCC) SECTION - CALL FOR PANELS AND > PAPERS > European Communication Research and Education Association - ECREA > > 2nd ECREA CONFERENCE, Barcelona, 25-28 November 2008 > Hosted by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) http:// > www.ecrea2008barcelona.org > > PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 15th February 2008 > > The 'Digital Culture and Communication' section invites everyone who > works > on these issues, within the broad theme of ECREA's 2nd international > conference, 'Communication policies and culture in Europe' to submit > proposals. > > The section 'Digital Culture and Communication' aims to further exchange > and develop research at the European level in the field of digital media > and informational culture as this is broadly defined. We welcome work > that > crosses disciplines and that operates at the boundaries of what might > generally be allowed to constitute media/ communication systems. The > section actively seeks both empirical and theoretical/critical work. > > Digital media technologies allow us to rethink existing media and > communication theories and approaches (as well as research methods). They > also force us to redefine traditional boundaries and to explore new forms > of interaction. We therefore encourage work based on interdisciplinary > approaches that address the broad theme of the conference call, and the > section's interests. We welcome proposals which reflect both theoretical > and methodological challenges in digital culture and communication > research as well as those exploring new boundaries within the field. > > For further information about the section please visit our (relative > stable) blog at: www.digitalcultureandcommunication.blogspot.com/ > or email Maren Hartmann: hartmann(a)udk-berlin.de and/or Caroline Bassett: > C.Bassett(a)sussex.ac.uk, Kate ORiordan: K.ORiordan(a)sussex.ac.uk > > This invitation is for proposals of pre-organized panels, posters, and > individual papers from established academics, young scholars, > practitioners and postgraduate research students. > > Individual paper proposals, individual poster proposals and panel > proposals can be submitted at the official conference website: > www.ecrea2008barcelona.org > PAPER PROPOSALS: http://www.ecrea2008barcelona.org/eng/callfor_pa.asp > POSTER PROPOSALS: http://www.ecrea2008barcelona.org/eng/callfor_po.asp > PANEL PROPOSALS: http://www.ecrea2008barcelona.org/eng/callfor_pn.asp > > Notifications of acceptance will be sent out in mid-April 2008, > > Paper-presenters and panellists will be asked to confirm their intention > to attend by registering before October 24, 2008. > > Please note that, as a policy, ECREA Candidates can submit "one proposal > as first author, and more as co-author (second, ...), chair or respondent > of a panel - but a participant will be allowed only one paper > presentation. The length of the individual abstracts is preferably 400 > and > maximum 500 words. A panel proposal combines a panel abstract with the > individual abstracts, of each 400-500 words. Participants will indicate > their preference for a specific section (where they want to present their > paper / poster / panel)". >

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Colombia march against terrorism: social impact of a fecebook call against FARC and ELN/EPL
by Cristian Berrio Zapata 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

Dear friends: Yesterday an impressive movement against violence ,terrorism and kidnapping occurred in Colombia and 163 different places in the planet. The initiative was coordinated via Facebook and moved about 10 million people around the world, Colombians and other nationalities. Being our country subject of a heavy digital divide, it is quite interesting how face-to-face information systems had integrated with ICTs to produce such impact. The march was extremely organized and peaceful, abandoning some earlier attempts to use it with political intentions. We shall evaluate fore coming results but seems this act may produce a visible signal for international supporters of FARC (i.e. president Chavez from Venezuela or some NGOs in Europe; even Nederland youngsters had been found within their camps), so the real extend of their actions is understood, not as a political project but a criminal organization. Community Informatic practitioners and researchers may find this phenomenon quite interesting from the academic point of view but most important, academic communities must take a step foreword to use their knowledge into making visible the success elements of these events and let them be tools to produce social and political changes in search of a better world. Cristian Berrío Zapata Profesor Auxiliar Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales Universidad de San Buenaventura (Bogotá)

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ASA Pre-Conference and Student Workshop : Call for Participation
by Keith N. Hampton 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION http://www.citasa.org/pre-conference ASA COMMUNICATION & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES PRE-CONFERENCE AND GRADUATE STUDENT WORKSHOP "Worlds of Work: Communication and Information Technologies" July 31, 2008 Boston, MA Submission Deadline: March 1, 2008 Send Submissions to: CITASA2008(a)CITASA.ORG Organized by the Communication and Information Technologies Section of the American Sociological Association (CITASA) This one day event combines a pre-conference on information and communication technologies (ICTs) and "Worlds of Works," building on the theme of the 103rd annual meeting of the ASA, and a workshop for 20 selected graduate students researching any aspect of the sociology of communications or information technologies. The program will include a keynote address by the winner of the "Microsoft CITASA Port 25 Award," a series of presentations on ICTs and the sociology of work, and a series of select student presentations of work-in-progress (on diverse themes within the sociological study of communications and IT) to both a general audience and to a mentor panel of well known and established researchers in the field. Communication and information technologies are an important source of change in work today, affecting both the ways work is done on a day-to-day basis and the long term relations of labor and production. The different types of communication, markets, goods and services enabled by ICTs have allowed new work configurations to become prominent, even as they help to reshape existing ways of working. These new configurations and changed practices are creating altogether different kinds of "worlds" in which work is done. Office work activities are increasingly becoming computer-mediated, allowing work to move from traditional settings to the home or to virtual environments. The use of ICTs allow the emergence of new organizational forms, ushering in an era of globally distributed work no longer as reliant on geographic co-location and moving some work processes out of firms and into "communities." New forms of industrial production that challenge many of the traditional ideas about work are becoming more common, open source software development being the primary example and providing serious challenges to the traditional sociology of work. This pre-conference workshop will address these issues and others that lie at the intersection of sociology of work and the sociology of communication and information technology. PRE-CONFERENCE CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Submissions can be in the form of an abstract of 500 words OR a full paper of no more than 7,000 words. Any full paper accepted for presentation can be considered for inclusion in the annual CITASA special issue of the journal Information, Communication and Society (iCS). Any research that lies at the intersection of sociology of work and ICT is welcome. Sociologist working outside of sociology departments and those with formal training in other disciplines who take a sociological approach are strongly encouraged to apply. Submissions are encouraged in the following specific areas: - ICTs in the office - ICTs and globalization of work - Telework and distributed teams - New "worlds" of work - Online communities and work - Software development and the sociology of work - Open source and user-created content and sociology of work - ICTs and research methods in the study of work GRADUATE STUDENT WORKSHOP CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Submissions are encouraged from all areas related to the sociology of communication and information technologies (not exclusively the study of work). Submissions should be in the form of an abstract of 500 words OR a full paper of no more than 7,000 words. Any full paper accepted for presentation can be considered for inclusion in the annual CITASA special issue of the journal Information, Communication and Society (iCS). Selected students will give a 15-20 minute presentation of their research to a mentor panel of well-known senior researchers. Each presentation will be followed by questions and discussion prompted by the panel and general audience. Students will be chosen by the organizing committee with the intent of inviting students from diverse backgrounds, with diverse methods, working on a broad range of topic areas (not exclusively the study of work). Students actively preparing a dissertation proposal or working on thesis that has already been approved by your university are strongly urged to apply (students do not need to be in sociology departments to apply). A maximum of 20 students will be invited to participate and will receive a "Microsoft CITASA Port 25 Emerging Scholars Award" in the amount of $200 to help defray travel and accommodation. SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 1, 2008 Full papers submitted to the CITASA pre-conference and workshop can simultaneously be submitted to sessions of the regular ASA conference. Papers accepted for the CITASA pre-conference and workshop do not count against ASA limits on the number of papers an author can present at the regular meeting. SEND SUBMISSION TO: CITASA2008(a)CITASA.ORG Authors will be notified by April 2. MENTOR PANEL (more to come) Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University Barry Wellman, University of Toronto LOCATION Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sidney-Pacific Graduate Community Building 70 Pacific Street Cambridge, MA 02139 http://s-p.mit.edu/about_sp/directions.php ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Katie Bessiere, Carnegie Mellon University Sarah Gatson, Texas A&M University Keith N. Hampton, University of Pennsylvania Steve Sawyer, The Pennsylvania State University Yuri Takhteyev, University of California Berkeley Jim Witte, Clemson University The ASA Communication and Information Technologies Pre-Conference and Graduate Student Workshop is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft. ============================================

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Electronic Tribes
by Mathieu O'Neil 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

Hi there- 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... De-lurk! Sorry to begin posting with an ad but hey, when your editor requests something, you oblige. Hope this will be of interest... Cheers, Mathieu ==================================================== Pre-order Web special: $16.72 USD (paperback) ***See: http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exadaele.html ==================================================== Electronic Tribes: The Virtual Worlds of Geeks, Gamers, Shamans, and Scammers Edited by: Tyrone L. Adams, The University of Louisiana, Lafayette theswampboy(a)gmail.com & Stephen A. Smith, The University of Arkansas libertas(a)comp.uark.edu ==================================================== Foreword, Ronald E. Rice Acknowledgments Introduction: Where Is the Shaman? Jim Parker (copied below) Part I: Conceptualizing Electronic Tribes Chapter 1. "A Tribe by Any Other Name . . . ," Tyrone L. Adams and Stephen A. Smith Chapter 2. Mimetic Kinship: Theorizing Online "Tribalism," Veronica M. Davidov and Barbara Andersen Chapter 3. Electronic Tribes (E-Tribes): Some Theoretical Perspectives and Implications, Bolanle Olaniran Chapter 4. Revisiting the Impact of Tribalism on Civil Society: An Investigation of the Potential Benefits of Membership in an E-Tribe on Public Discourse, Christina Standerfer Part II: Social Consequences of Electronic Tribalism Chapter 5. Theorizing the E-Tribe on MySpace.com, David R. Dewberry Chapter 6. Don't Date, Craftsterbate: Dialogue and Resistance on craftster.org, Terri L. Russ Chapter 7. Guild Life in the World of Warcraft: Online Gaming Tribalism, Thomas Brignall III Chapter 8. At the Electronic Evergreen: A Computer-Mediated Ethnography of Tribalism in a Newsgroup from Montserrat and Afar, Jonathan Skinner Part III: Emerging Electronic Tribal Cultures Chapter 9. "Like a neighborhood of sisters": Can Culture Be Formed Electronically? Deborah Clark Vance Chapter 10. Gerald M. Phillips as Electronic Tribal Chief: Socioforming Cyberspace, Ann Rosenthal Chapter 11. Digital Dreamtime, Sonic Talismans: Music Downloading and the Tribal Landscape, Michael C. Zalot Chapter 12. Magic, Myth, and Mayhem: Tribalization in the Digital Age, Leonie Naughton Part IV: Cybercrime and Counterculture among Electronic Tribes Chapter 13. Mundanes at the Gate . . . and Perverts Within: Managing Internal and External Threats to Community Online, Steve Abrams and Smaragd Grün Chapter 14. Brotherhood of Blood: Aryan Tribalism and Skinhead Cybercrews, Jody M. Roy Chapter 15. Radical Tribes at Warre: Primitivists on the Net, Mathieu O'Neil Chapter 16. A "Tribe" Migrates Crime to Cyberspace: Nigerian Igbos in 419 E-Mail Scams, Farooq A. Kperogi and Sandra Duhé About the Contributors Index ==================================================== Dr Mathieu O'Neil Adjunct Research Fellow Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute The Australian National University ACT 0200 - Australia --- Tel.: (61 02) 61 25 38 00 E-mail: mathieu.oneil(a)anu.edu.au Web: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/people/visitors/mathieu.php

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protests against rebels (FARC) began on Facebook
by nativebuddha 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

from cyberspace to ground-level South America: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/02/04/colombia.demos.ap/index.ht… -robert

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