- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Re: [Air-L] Landrushes and Interdisciplinarity
by Sam Ladner 17 Dec '07

17 Dec '07

I would disagree that the WP journalist's view was entirely unjustified. Unlike Nancy, I believe it wasn't a story about disciplines competing for "ownership" over online social networking (I think only an academic might think like that ;-). No I believe the journalist was writing from her perspective, likely shaped in the past, that academics are a petty lot who often grind down the very people who are to take their craft to the next generation. As a former journalist and current academic, I know that journalists tend not to see academics as ego-driven and self-indulgent. They also truly do not know what constitutes "good research," but then, why would they? What they do know is what constitutes a "good story." This involves drama, tension, a peak, and a denoument. It is possible this journalist had previous but subconscious knowledge about a a very real phenomenon in academia, that is, the closing out of emerging research and researchers, which is driven in part by power struggles. Sounds like a good story to me! Even if it's wrong... Of course this does not justify the inaccurate representation of the researchers. Nor does it excuse this journalist's very quick and surface review of the subject. Like Bill, however, I would choose to apply a political economy of journalism to this. The "landrush" mentality is partly the journalist's herself! Everyone wants to be the expert of the big thing, whether it be Bre-X, Dot-Com, or Asset-backed Commercial Paper. All of these take years to understand well but journalists do not have that luxury. It is the constraints of their jobs that force them to be superficial and stake their claims quickly.

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My letter to Monica Hesse at the Post (was snide, etc.)
by Terri Senft 17 Dec '07

17 Dec '07

Hi folks, This is a copy of the letter that I emailed to Monica Hesse at the Post. I sent this about three hours ago, and then posted to the list about to give people a heads up. Since the post never showed up, I am posting again. Sorry if this winds up going out multiple times but I am now concerned that people thought this was a safe space to vent, and I invited her to join us on the list. Frankly , I think she should see how frustrated people are, but that's just my opinion. Here is the letter: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Monica, Thank you for writing the piece on academics and social software scholarship. I thought many of your observations about turf wars were on the money (literally.) As an academic who writes about LiveJournal, Facebook and YouTube, I suppose I too could be viewed as someone jockeying for a piece of the social networking pie. I prefer to see myself as someone deeply interested in her field. When I am honest though, I have to admit 'interested' is too weak a word—on my good days, I actually believe social networks can change the way that institutions function, one person at a time. Which brings me to why I am writing today. Your writing style makes you seem approachable, so I am going to take a chance and hope you are open to the idea of joining us in a conversation that is currently taking place online regarding your article. The venue is the Association of Internet Researchers mailing list. Everyone you have quoted in your piece has already weighed in, and I know that would make me curious, if I were in your shoes. As you rightly intimate in your article, academic study of online social networking is a subcultural practice that has gone mainstream. Like all subcultures, it is best understood in the environment in which it transpires. If I were writing about rave DJ's, I wouldn't call people to ask about raving. I wouldn't even go to raves themselves. I would find out where the DJ's go, and see them interact. Although the analogy doesn't quite hold (our clothes aren't as interesting), the place where academics gather to discuss social networking isn't really the pages of the JCMC. It's the AIR-List, which began because we were all too far flung geographically to get to the same conferences. Even though you might get a bit of a ribbing now, I think you'd like the AIR List, and I believe it would be a great resource for your future reporting. The AIR conference (the physical one) is renowned for the fact that it never prints its badges with titles. I am Terri Senft from the University of East London, UK. I am not "Senior Lecturer," which means that grad students can and do talk to me on equal footing. At least during the conference, we are two people having a beer and talking about whether Twitter is less or more intrusive than Dodgeball. The AIR-List has always worked the same way. There are academics from all the disciplines you intimate are at war with one another, all talking together. There are grad students, there are activists, there are industry people, and there are reporters. I'd like to give you a concrete example of how AIR might help you with future articles. Towards the end of your piece, you intimate that because social software is so new, long-term analyses of its affects are non-existent. As someone with a book coming out that links mid-1990's webcamming communities to sites like YouTube, LiveJournal and Facebook, I feel the need to selfishly disagree. I know lots of other people on AIR-L (sociologists, computer scientists, political theorists, librarians) who can give you other examples of online social networking that predates the 'hot' sites of today. Historical work can be, and is being, done, and we'd love for you to hear about it. I didn't need your article to tell me that social software has grown ubiquitous, but I want to thank you for reminding me that the onus is on me to communicate, as much as it is on you to report news of research in the field. I thought about writing a letter to the editor about your piece. I've long considered volunteering to help with AoIR's press profile (not even sure if we have a press package.) I was finishing a book and I thought about volunteering to take some of the weight of danah boyd's shoulders (it cannot be a blast to have to answer every call from every newspaper about pedophilia scares on MySpace.) Then I realized I was missing the bit where the medium is the message. I'm sending you this note through the email address provided by the Post Online. I'd like you to talk directly with us on AIR-L. I think it would be great for us to keep a dialogue going, now and in the future, wherever your next assignment takes you. I would welcome your presence. To join the AIR List, you just need to go to http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org and fill in some email details. I think I can speak for the membership when I say that I very much hope to see you there. Regards, Theresa M. Senft Senior Lecturer, Media Studies University of East London, UK http://www.terrisenft.net -- Dr. Theresa M. Senft Senior Lecturer, Media Studies School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies University of East London Docklands Campus 4-6 University Way London E162RD www.terrisenft.net www.livejournal.com/users/tsenft

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Re: [Air-L] snide, cute, ignorant, surprisng
by Katy E. Pearce 17 Dec '07

17 Dec '07

And the NYT posts a totally similar yet totally different version of the article... Author: STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/style/17facebook.html?ex=1355634000&en=6a7 b60a6de4618f1&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.4/1187 - Release Date: 12/16/2007 11:36 AM

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Lessons learned (Was "snide, cute, ignorant, surprising")
by Deborah Elizabeth Finn 16 Dec '07

16 Dec '07

Dear AOIR Colleagues, <delurking> I thought I'd delurk, and share a few insights I've gleaned from my own experiences. Every so often, my hometown newspaper (the Boston Globe) calls me for some quotes about civic engagement or online social networking or both. The first conclusion I drew was, "If Deborah does not want to be misquoted or taken out of context, she should not talk to journalists." On further reflection, I revised this to, "If Deborah does not want to be misquoted or taken out of context, she should not talk to anyone." The latter is impossible, so I just do the best I can, and try to live with the results. </delurking> Best regards from Deborah Deborah Elizabeth Finn Cyber-Yenta Boston, Massachusetts, USA deborah_elizabeth_finn(a)post.harvard.edu www.cyber-yenta.org Recommended reading: "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" <http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights>

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My letter to Monica Hesse at the Post (was: snide, cute...)
by Terri Senft 16 Dec '07

16 Dec '07

I sent this ten minutes ago. Just wanted to share with the class, since I invited her to join us on the list. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Monica, Thank you for writing the piece on academics and social software scholarship. I thought many of your observations about turf wars were on the money (literally.) As an academic who writes about LiveJournal, Facebook and YouTube, I suppose I too could be viewed as someone jockeying for a piece of the social networking pie. I prefer to see myself as someone deeply interested in her field. When I am honest though, I have to admit 'interested' is too weak a word—on my good days, I actually believe social networks can change the way that institutions function, one person at a time. Which brings me to why I am writing today. Your writing style makes you seem approachable, so I am going to take a chance and hope you are open to the idea of joining us in a conversation that is currently taking place online regarding your article. The venue is the Association of Internet Researchers mailing list. Everyone you have quoted in your piece has already weighed in, and I know that would make me curious, if I were in your shoes. As you rightly intimate in your article, academic study of online social networking is a subcultural practice that has gone mainstream. Like all subcultures, it is best understood in the environment in which it transpires. If I were writing about rave DJ's, I wouldn't call people to ask about raving. I wouldn't even go to raves themselves. I would find out where the DJ's go, and see them interact. Although the analogy doesn't quite hold (our clothes aren't as interesting), the place where academics gather to discuss social networking isn't really the pages of the JCMC. It's the AIR-List, which began because we were all too far flung geographically to get to the same conferences. Even though you might get a bit of a ribbing now, I think you'd like the AIR List, and I believe it would be a great resource for your future reporting. The AIR conference (the physical one) is renowned for the fact that it never prints its badges with titles. I am Terri Senft from the University of East London, UK. I am not "Senior Lecturer," which means that grad students can and do talk to me on equal footing. At least during the conference, we are two people having a beer and talking about whether Twitter is less or more intrusive than Dodgeball. The AIR-List has always worked the same way. There are academics from all the disciplines you intimate are at war with one another, all talking together. There are grad students, there are activists, there are industry people, and there are reporters. I'd like to give you a concrete example of how AIR might help you with future articles. Towards the end of your piece, you intimate that because social software is so new, long-term analyses of its affects are non-existent. As someone with a book coming out that links mid-1990's webcamming communities to sites like YouTube, LiveJournal and Facebook, I feel the need to selfishly disagree. I know lots of other people on AIR-L (sociologists, computer scientists, political theorists, librarians) who can give you other examples of online social networking that predates the 'hot' sites of today. Historical work can be, and is being, done, and we'd love for you to hear about it. I didn't need your article to tell me that social software has grown ubiquitous, but I want to thank you for reminding me that the onus is on me to communicate, as much as it is on you to report news of research in the field. I thought about writing a letter to the editor about your piece. I've long considered volunteering to help with AoIR's press profile (not even sure if we have a press package.) I was finishing a book and I thought about volunteering to take some of the weight of danah boyd's shoulders (it cannot be a blast to have to answer every call from every newspaper about pedophilia scares on MySpace.) Then I realized I was missing the bit where the medium is the message. I'm sending you this note through the email address provided by the Post Online. I'd like you to talk directly with us on AIR-L. I think it would be great for us to keep a dialogue going, now and in the future, wherever your next assignment takes you. I would welcome your presence. To join the AIR List, you just need to go to http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org and fill in some email details. I think I can speak for the membership when I say that I very much hope to see you there. Regards, Theresa M. Senft Senior Lecturer, Media Studies University of East London, UK http://www.terrisenft.net -- ---------------- Dr. Theresa M. Senft Senior Lecturer, Media Studies School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies University of East London Docklands Campus 4-6 University Way London E162RD www.terrisenft.net www.livejournal.com/users/tsenft -- Dr. Theresa M. Senft Senior Lecturer, Media Studies School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies University of East London Docklands Campus 4-6 University Way London E162RD www.terrisenft.net www.livejournal.com/users/tsenft

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AoIR in today's Washington Post
by Holly Kruse 16 Dec '07

16 Dec '07

Has no one really posted about this yet? The story about the academic study of social networking sites in today's Washington Post is really all about AoIR'ers. AoIR is mentioned, danah boyd is featured, Nancy Baym and Nicole Ellison weigh in, the latest issue of JCMC is commented upon: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/14/AR2007121400 606.htm Holly -- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication The University of Tulsa 600 S. College Ave. Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse(a)utulsa.edu or holly.kruse(a)gmail.com http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~holly-kruse

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Re: [Air-L] AoIR in today's Washington Post
by Marj Kibby 16 Dec '07

16 Dec '07

Dr Marjorie Kibby, Senior Lecturer in Communication & Culture Faculty of Education and Arts The University of Newcastle, Callaghan NSW 2308 Australia Marj.Kibby(a)newcastle.edu.au +61 2 49216604 >>> Nancy Baym <nbaym(a)ku.edu> 12/17/07 7:48 AM >>> ... and academia is mocked ;-) It's an old sport - but still fun: 'An excerpt from Liu's paper: "One of the newest stages for online textual performance of self is the Social Network Profile. The virtual materials of this performance are cultural signs . . . composed together into a 'taste statement' that is 'performed' through the profile." In other words: People on MySpace. List their favorite movies. To show their friends what they enjoy.' Marj

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Correction: AoIR in today's Washington Post
by Holly Kruse 16 Dec '07

16 Dec '07

In copying and pasting, I lost the "l" at the end of the URL. The correct one is http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/14/AR2007121400 606.html Holly -- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication The University of Tulsa 600 S. College Ave. Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse(a)utulsa.edu or holly.kruse(a)gmail.com http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~holly-kruse

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Call for papers: ICT skills and economic opportunities for marginalized groups
by Maria Garrido 15 Dec '07

15 Dec '07

The Journal of Information Technologies and International Development (ITID) invites submissions for a special issue titled ICT goes to work: Skills and economic opportunities for marginalized groups. Submission deadline: March 30th. Please visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/itid for more information about ITID, its author guidelines, and to submit a paper for this issue. When submitting the paper please indicate in the field "comments to the editors" that it is for the ICT skills and employability special issue Guest editors : Christopher T. Coward and Maria Garrido (Center for Information & Society, ICT and Development Group, University of Washington) and Akthar Badshah (Community Affairs, Microsoft Corporation) A fundamental premise of ICT and international development is that people equipped with basic ICT skills should be more employable than those without these skills, and in turn have access to increased economic opportunities. Many nongovernmental organizations, telecenters in particular, state that improving the economic livelihood of their communities is one of their most important missions. Many training programs from donor and public-supported to privately operated, have been built with the express purpose of providing the people who come into the centers with the basic skills they need to be hired by a local company, obtain a better-paying job, or start a microenterprise. This special issue on ICT goes to work: Skills and economic opportunities for marginalized groups invites papers that address this topic with novel, theoretically grounded, and methodologically sound research. We will also accept a limited number of practitioner submissions. Papers may address the following questions, for example: * To what extent does having basic ICT skills affect an individual's employment prospects (e.g., quantitative analyses of income differentials, numbers and types of jobs that are available)? * Have basic ICT skills positively affected microenterprise creation? * How does gaining ICT skills affect employability compared with gaining other types of skills (e.g., learning English, learning how to search for jobs)? * What are the approaches and outcomes of different training programs? * What government policies and other factors influence employability? This special issue is primarily concerned with basic ICT skills (e.g., computer fundamentals, productivity applications, employment sector specific applications) and programs targeting marginalized populations, not with the advanced engineering skills needed for employment in, for instance, the IT export service sector. The topic of this ITID special issue is inherently multidisciplinary. The editors welcome a diverse pool of submissions from fields such as economics, development communications, education, rural sociology, engineering, and public policy. Information Technologies and International Development (ITID) is the leading journal focusing on the intersection of information and communication technologies (ICT) with international development. ITID is published by the MIT Press and edited at the University of Southern California and the Georgia Institute of Technology. If you have any questions related to this special issue, please contact: Maria Garrido, PhD migarrid(a)u.washington.edu<mailto:migarrid@u.washington.edu> Research Associate Center for Information and Society, ICT and Development Group The Information School, University of Washington

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CFP ASIS&T AM 08
by Richard Hill 14 Dec '07

14 Dec '07

People Transforming Information - Information Transforming People October 24-29, 2008 Hyatt Regency, Columbus, OH Complete Call: HTTP://WWW.ASIS.ORG/Conferences/am08/AM08cfp.HTML ASIS&T 2008 will focus on how people transform information as well as how information transforms people. Submissions by researchers and practitioners are solicited on a wide range of human-centered approaches to topics. TYPES OF SUBMISSIONS Contributed papers http://www.softconf.com/asis/AM08_Contributed_Papers/submit.html The submission of original, recent, formally conducted research and projects, theoretical developments, or innovative practical applications is encouraged. Accepted papers will be published in the digital conference proceedings. Contributed posters/short papers http://www.softconf.com/asis/AM08_Posters/submit.html Two types of posters/short papers are encouraged. Contributed research posters present new and promising work or preliminary results of research projects. Contributed best practices posters present the results of design projects, practical implementations or industry innovations. The final version of these short papers will be published in the digital conference proceedings. During the conference, presenters are expected to display their work as a poster, incorporating text and illustrations as appropriate. Technical sessions and panels http://www.softconf.com/asis/AM08-Panels/submit.html Technical sessions and panels present topics for discussion such as cutting-edge research and design, analyses of emerging trends, opinions on controversial issues, reports by practitioners on current information science and technology projects, and contrasting viewpoints from experts in complementary professional areas. The final versions of these submissions will be published in the digital conference proceedings. Pre- and Post-conference sessions http://www.softconf.com/asis/AM08_Pre-Post_Cons/submit.html Pre- and Post-conference sessions present topics such as theoretical research, management strategies, and new and innovative systems or products, typically for purposes of concept development or continuing education. Purely promotional programs are excluded. Formats may include seminars, courses, workshops, and symposia. Sessions are scheduled for half to a full day and require a registration fee beyond the regular conference fee. Submission Deadlines Jan.21, 2008 Proposals due for contributed papers, technical sessions panels, and pre- or Post-conferences Feb. 25, 2008 Proposals due for contributed posters/short papers March 31, 2008 Authors/proposers notified of acceptance May 27, 2008 Final versions due for conference proceedings Any problems with electronic submissions should be directed to: Richard Hill (rhill(a)asis.org) _____ Executive Director American Society for Information Science and Technology 1320 Fenwick Lane, Suite 510 Silver Spring, MD 20910 FAX: (301) 495-0810 (301) 495-0900

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