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Faculty Position in HCI
by James P. Zappen 10 Sep '06

10 Sep '06

Please see the announcement of the Rensselaer faculty position in human-computer interaction appended below and distribute it to candidates who may be interested in and qualified for such a position. Thank you. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute School of Humanities and Social Sciences Department of Language, Literature and Communication Tenure Track Faculty Position (Rank Open) in Human-Computer Interaction The Department of Language, Literature and Communication seeks a strong scholar/researcher in human-computer interaction. We will consider candidates in any area of HCI; however, we are especially interested in candidates whose research interests are in the areas of social computing, mobile/ubiquitous computing, or user-centered design, and who implement systems or perform rigorous laboratory or field studies as part of their research approach. Candidates are expected to develop a substantial program of research leading to peer-reviewed publication and external funding. A junior candidate should show evidence of strong promise in teaching and scholarship and a senior candidate should have a strong record in teaching and scholarship. Teaching opportunities will be at the undergraduate and graduate level with the typical teaching load set at two courses per semester. Desirable teaching expertise includes interface prototyping and implementation, HCI usability and evaluation techniques, and design methodology. The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary faculty conducting state-of-the-art research on communication in technologically mediated contexts in areas such as human-computer interaction, communication studies, digital rhetoric, technical communication, media studies, and graphic design. The department has just added a new M.S. in Human Computer Interaction to a program portfolio that includes one of the top-ranked Ph.D.s in Communication and Rhetoric and a joint B.S. in Electronic Media, Arts, and Communication. The department also makes substantial contributions to teaching in a B.S. and M.S. in Information Technology and has a joint B.S. in game studies under development. Faculty and students have access to the Social and Behavioral Laboratory (http://www.sbrl.rpi.edu) and other Institute research facilities. More information about the department is available at http://www.llc.rpi.edu. Rensselaer is a U.S. News and World Report top-50 university with approximately 5000 undergraduate and 2500 graduate students. It is located in the emerging "Tech Valley" region of the Hudson River Valley with New York City, Boston, and Montreal only a few hours away. The region is known for its quality of life: Outdoor recreation opportunities in the Adirondack and Berkshire Mountains are only an hour or so away. The area boasts affordable Victorian architecture and is a cultural center for the arts. Rensselaers own EMPAC the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center will provide unsurpassed facilities for creative exploration and for research linking art and technology when it opens in 2007. Appointment begins August 15, 2006. Review of applications will begin February 1, 2006 and will continue until suitable candidates are identified. Application letter, current c.v., writing samples, and three letters of recommendation should be sent to: James P. Zappen, Search Committee Chair Department of Language, Literature, and Communication Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 110 8th Street Troy, NY 12180 Email: zappenj(a)rpi.edu Telephone: (518) 276-8117 Fax: (518) 276- 4092 10-0-0

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Faculty Position in Communication
by James P. Zappen 10 Sep '06

10 Sep '06

Please see the announcement of the Rensselaer faculty position in communication in technologically mediated contexts appended below and distribute it to candidates who may be interested in and qualified for such a position. Thank you. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute School of Humanities and Social Sciences Department of Language, Literature and Communication Tenure Track Junior Faculty Position in Communication in Technologically Mediated Contexts The Department of Language, Literature and Communication seeks a strong scholar/researcher in communication in technologically mediated contexts. We will consider candidates who approach this topic grounded in established communication theory and research methods from any area; however, we are especially interested in candidates whose approach is informed by new media studies or by organizational, cross-cultural, or visual communication. Candidates are expected to develop a substantial program of research leading to peer-reviewed publication and external funding. The candidate should show evidence of strong promise in teaching and scholarship. Teaching opportunities will be at the undergraduate and graduate level with the typical teaching load set at two courses per semester. Desirable teaching expertise includes communication theory and research methods, but our flexible program allows faculty to devise and teach courses related to individual scholarly interests. The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary faculty conducting state-of-the-art research on communication in technologically mediated contexts in areas such as communication studies, human-computer interaction, digital rhetoric, technical communication, media studies, and graphic design. The department has just added a new M.S. in Human Computer Interaction to a program portfolio that includes one of the top-ranked Ph.D.s in Communication and Rhetoric in the country and a joint B.S. in Electronic Media, Arts, and Communication. The department also makes substantial contributions to teaching in a B.S. and M.S. in Information Technology and has a joint B.S. in Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences reaching final approval. Faculty and students have access to the Social and Behavioral Laboratory (http://www.sbrl.rpi.edu) and other Institute research facilities. More information about the department is available at http://www.llc.rpi.edu. Rensselaer is a U.S. News and World Report top-50 university with approximately 5000 undergraduate and 2500 graduate students. It is located in the emerging "Tech Valley" region of the Hudson River Valley with New York City, Boston, and Montreal only a few hours away. The region is known for its quality of life: Outdoor recreation opportunities in the Adirondack and Berkshire Mountains are only an hour or so away. The area boasts affordable Victorian architecture and is a cultural center for the arts. When it opens, Rensselaers EMPAC the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center will provide unsurpassed facilities for creative exploration and for research linking art and technology. Appointment begins August 15, 2007. Review of applications will begin October 15, 2006 and will continue until suitable candidates are identified. Application letter, current c.v., writing samples, and three letters of recommendation should be sent in hardcopy to: James P. Zappen, Search Committee Chair Department of Language, Literature, and Communication Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 110 8th Street Troy, NY 12180 Email: zappenj(a)rpi.edu Telephone: (518) 276-8117 Fax: (518) 276- 4092 (ads in July) 10-0-0

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Publishishing
by Rasputin 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

Why does an organization that is supposed to "Fount of Knowledge" on all things Internet publish its proceedings in on paper?

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Wiki and Mao
by J. J. 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

>From Newsweek Magazine: Yes, to Lanier, subsuming one's identity into an electronically aggregated mass is akin to the mob fervor seen in China during the chairman's rule. "If you look at the history of youth cultural movements, they tend to go one of two ways," he explains. "One is in the direction of individual expression and creativity; the best example is the '60s. The other way is to lose themselves in the collective, binding themselves into a gangas in the Cultural Revolution." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14638212/site/newsweek/ Jarek

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Facebook protests
by Julian Hopkins 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

Hello all and thanks for the interesting discussion. I'm a bit late coming into this but I'm submitting these remarks. [I don’t know what ‘Facebook’ is, but I assume it is something like Friendster, etc. Apologies for any errors caused by ignorance] I would agree with Michael & Kevin’s approach, it is the change in situation/process which has made the users realise their lack of privacy. Mark says: “A student is not forced to join Facebook”. Yes this is true; however, consider their lived daily practice – I assume that joining such a network is part of establishing social networks for students. Thus it is somewhat of a social necessity – to be able to participate in shared practices and be part of what’s ‘happening’. Gail says “The number of friends one has is a status symbol for some students with Facebook accounts.” Johnathan Sterne says: “People have long made mistakes in negotiating issues of self-presentation in their lives, and social networking software simply documents those mistakes.” Ledbetter notes how ‘friends’ are undifferentiated. Perhaps they approach it as an extension of their offline habits – i.e. making friends. And everyone hates a gossip who immediately passes on to the whole world details of what you get up to. I also get surprised at seeing blogs with phrases like “note that when you're reading my blog, you're intruding into my private space” (actual quote); or “…you cant keep an actual diary at home in case your mom finds out that you've been taking drugs and have a boyfriend etc. It's much safer online since most parents arent tech savvy.” (email to me from a blogger). However, blogs are often explicitly aimed at attracting strangers (as a mass media), but the Friendster-type website is promoted as a way to meet friends – your online social club/bar/nightclub/neighbourhood park so to speak. In those public spaces we choose who wish to interact with, which is what this new service seems to be explicitly not doing. Charles Ess’ points (“degrees of control”) relate to this: i.e. we like to have the power to control who we interact with, and when. Andrea touches on this too. Erikson does a better job than me explaining the intricacies of information dissemination. Nancy, I think you are thinking down the same lines as me. Yes, the privacy is an illusion – but their online interaction is still framed by offline contexts. ++++++++++ Julian Hopkins Lecturer - ADP HELP University College +60 3 2095 8791 x2913 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.2/442 - Release Date: 08/09/2006

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ableist language
by Michele White 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

I want to support Kathy Mancusos consideration of the ways the language that we use to describe things can privilege some individuals and continue to produce a series of binaries. This is an important and appropriate post to the list and I hope that we can take her questions and concerns seriously. Her question and debate are related to disability activism and studies and have been incorporated into Internet/new media studies by such people as Gerard Goggin and Chrisopher Newell. A variety of academics have indicated how we often associate seeing and visual processes with knowledge and truth (see for instance Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). To say something like I see what you mean indicates comprehension. Unfortunately, statements like are you blind? suggest that the person cannot recognize the obvious, is deficit, and stupid. Therefore, when we use the word blind to indicate that someone is less perceptive, unknowing, or clueless, we also denigrate individuals who are described as blind because of the ways their eyes function. In doing this, we establish a norm and indicate that the physically blind are deficit. This may be unintentional but it does have serious consequences for the ways bodies are understood and people are valued or devalued. I certainly have found my language to sometimes unintentionally dismiss and categorize people. I believe that it is worth thinking about the ways we say things and how this may have unintentional consequences and support powers and authorities that we would rather critique. All my best, Michele

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"last mile" query
by Jonathan Sterne 08 Sep '06

08 Sep '06

Hi All, This is a request for bibliographic help. I can find countless resources that USE the idea of the "last mile" to talk about end user access issues in a wide range of contexts. But I am having a much harder time tracking down the origins of the term or its early development with respect to cable, the internet and other networked technologies. Any suggestions would be much appreciated, including suggestions for "classic texts" in the development of the idea. Thank you. --Jonathan

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Facebook response
by Alex Halavais 08 Sep '06

08 Sep '06

Since some following the Facebook events may not actually be using Facebook, I've copied Zuckerberg's response below. I do think there are parallels between this and the release of the AOL search data. In both cases, designers failed to predict the potential privacy implications of their systems. It's worth contrasting these with another rollout over the last few weeks: Flickr's addition of photo geotagging capabilities. I would be surprised if Flickr actually engaged in more participatory design than Facebook or last.fm has, but they made clear when you started geotagging that it would affect your privacy, and gave you a reasonably fine-grained control over who would see what. I'm not suggesting that more participatory design and evolution, particularly for social systems, isn't a good thing or a necessary thing. But I think a more pressing issue may be preparing our designers--both on the CS/application coding side and on the designerly user experience side--to think more about the moral impact of their code. Neither of these issues, I think, could have been covered easily by the kinds of ethical codes already present (ACM, SPJ, CPSR, etc.), but needs a more flexible approach that requires the designer to think through and measure user responses. On the other hand, some, including Zuckerberg himself below, have suggested that the response was actually amplified considerably by the technology itself, as it allowed for fairly marginal and low effort social organizing. I actually don't think that this is a function of the major user group being undergraduates. I suspect this is a hallmark of a lot of current social uses of the internet, from politics to knowledge building. I think that Wikipedia, YouTube, and the Howard Dean campaign all benefitted from this ability to aggregate very small amounts of attention/effort/money/time from a very large audience. [The following copied from the Facebook system verbatim.] An Open Letter from Mark Zuckerberg: We really messed this one up. When we launched News Feed and Mini-Feed we were trying to provide you with a stream of information about your social world. Instead, we did a bad job of explaining what the new features were and an even worse job of giving you control of them. I'd like to try to correct those errors now. When I made Facebook two years ago my goal was to help people understand what was going on in their world a little better. I wanted to create an environment where people could share whatever information they wanted, but also have control over whom they shared that information with. I think a lot of the success we've seen is because of these basic principles. We made the site so that all of our members are a part of smaller networks like schools, companies or regions, so you can only see the profiles of people who are in your networks and your friends. We did this to make sure you could share information with the people you care about. This is the same reason we have built extensive privacy settings – to give you even more control over who you share your information with. Somehow we missed this point with News Feed and Mini-Feed and we didn't build in the proper privacy controls right away. This was a big mistake on our part, and I'm sorry for it. But apologizing isn't enough. I wanted to make sure we did something about it, and quickly. So we have been coding nonstop for two days to get you better privacy controls. This new privacy page will allow you to choose which types of stories go into your Mini-Feed and your friends' News Feeds, and it also lists the type of actions Facebook will never let any other person know about. If you have more comments, please send them over. This may sound silly, but I want to thank all of you who have written in and created groups and protested. Even though I wish I hadn't made so many of you angry, I am glad we got to hear you. And I am also glad that News Feed highlighted all these groups so people could find them and share their opinions with each other as well. About a week ago I created a group called Free Flow of Information on the Internet, because that's what I believe in – helping people share information with the people they want to share it with. I'd encourage you to check it out to learn more about what guides those of us who make Facebook. Today (Friday, 9/8) at 4pm edt, I will be in that group with a bunch of people from Facebook, and we would love to discuss all of this with you. It would be great to see you there. Thanks for taking the time to read this, Mark -- // // This email is // [X] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded. // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing. // // Alexander C. Halavais // Social Architect // http://alex.halavais.net //

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ableist language (was facebook)
by Kathy Mancuso 08 Sep '06

08 Sep '06

In answer to Mr Cornwell's commment (and possibly Dr Goddard's--since he said it was paraphrased I don't know what wording Dr Goddard used) that we are all half-blind on the internet, it is inappropriate and ableist to use the word blind to denote what appears from this post to mean wilful ignorance. By using that term in that way, you are arguing that just because blind people cannot see they are somehow less aware of the world around them than sighted people, which isn't true: just differently aware. The sort of wilful spin on it here just makes the ableism even worse. Perhaps we could use a term like oblivious or unaware instead. A thesaurus will provide you with many excellent options that do not cast aspersions on a particular group. Thank you in advance for your consideration in keeping AIR-L a friendly and non-discriminatory space for everyone. Kathy -- . . . connection in an isolating age . . . Katherine Mancuso, graduate student, Emory University Web 2.0 research, life, and meta: http://museumfreak.livejournal.com http://del.icio.us/museumfreak "Whenever anyone says 'You are,' they mean 'I want you to be.'" --Anais Nin

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Re: [Air-l] american internet penetration stats?
by Nancy Baym 08 Sep '06

08 Sep '06

Also I do want to mention the Pew chart on American internet adoption at this page: http://www.pewinternet.org/trends.asp Nancy

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