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RE: [Air-l] howard dean, social movements and clay shirky
by Art McGee 29 Jan '04

29 Jan '04

> I find it implausible that people who are using the > internet to retreat from offline life would choose a > political action online community in which to do so. That's never been asserted. What's been said is that the dependence on online technologies can lull some people into a false sense of security. Look folks, this isn't aerospace engineering. There are a whole range of factors that determined why Dean is where he is, and none of them are simple. I don't understand why people assume they are. I have some questions: 1. Why do we assume that Iowa and New Hampshire speak for the entire country? I live in California, and don't understand why other states get to decide the field of candidates before I've even had the chance to vote. For all we know, Dean could have 100% support in other states, but due to the nature of the primaries, people get knocked out before we can discover that. Anyone here done some research on the flaws in that? 2. Most of the focus on Dean was about the internal organization of volunteers and core supporters, but little was said about voters not a part of the campaign (that includes people who didn't have time to waste going to MeetUps). Dean's strength was his staff and volunteers, but that can't be equated with votes. Too many people made the assumption that one would lead to the other or that they were one and the same. Why? 3. Dean would be nobody without the net. Why is there an assumption of failure? If Bill Clinton was running with the same figures as Dean, that would be failure, but that would also assume that he was somebody already. Dean was a nobody, who used the internet to become a somebody. That's not failure, that's incredible success. Why do the idiots like Clay Shirky and all of you smart researchers wholly swallow the false paradigm of failure that Capitalist media feeds us? 4. Why is everyone ignoring the politics? Why do people assume that the reason people didn't vote for Dean was something other than his politics? Lots of the people who were assumed to be Dean supporters don't really like him or even know who he is. Remember the article talking about the lack of support among African-Americans for Dean? Did Clay Shirky and the rest of those blog idiots have much to say about that? Well, African-Americans are one of the core constituencies of the Democratic party. If they weren't all that enthused how do you think other people might have felt? 5. Too much of the focus on and of Dean's campaign was about youth. That's nice, but youth don't vote. Youth aren't stupid, they're just rightly cynical about the lies fed to them by Capitalism. While Dean had tremendous youth support that doesn't mean that he had lots of eligible voting-age support. Too much high-tech focus on youth and gadgetry and not enough on the offline old folks who actually go to the polls and those city council meetings consistently (which are important, whereas a MeetUp don't mean shit to them). Art

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Re: RE: [Air-l] howard dean, social movements and clay shirky
by Jonathan Marshall 29 Jan '04

29 Jan '04

----- Original Message ----- From: Nancy Baym <nbaym(a)ku.edu> Date: Friday, January 30, 2004 9:28 am Subject: RE: [Air-l] howard dean, social movements and clay shirky [snip] > Shirky asserts: > > "We know well from past attempts to use social software to organize > groups for political change that it is hard, very hard, because > participation in online communities often provides a sense of > satisfaction that actually dampens a willingness to interact with the > real world." > > My question (and I think Ren's) was not whether this is an > accurate > explanation of what's going on with Dean's campaign, but whether > there is any evidence to support this claim in general -- what is > the > evidence from the use of social software to organize groups for > political change that participation in online communities results > in > less willingness to interact in "the real world"? For what its worth, my experiences with online groups who tried to organise anything, and its only subjective and limited, is that it is exceedingly hard to translate online enthusiasm into actual *sustained* action of any sort - taking the action offline makes it even harder. Furthermore it seems that stuff eventuates when it can be largely all be done by one or two 'fanatic' people - or it can be done through personal ties between a few list members, or there is already some kind of offline organisation propelling people. I think this would be harder still when you are going against established power or communication systems, or when your class of members is largely not able to do what you need them to do - say if, as Art suggests, Dean's web campaign attracted people who were too young to vote, and not enough of the voters. These kinds of effects may well be of social origin, not innate to the Net. Ie to use an old term, in a place were people are already alienated from action, then talk may well be the only action people are willing to take or risk. But as i suggested earlier this may also vary with the kind of social action we are discussing, and the kind of resistances to it. It is not necessarily an all or nothing thing. Ie with Dean, it seems much easier to find the mainstream media's coverage of the 'i have a scream' thing and how it disqualifies him in some people's eyes, than to find out anything about what he actually said. That probably has something to do with already established powers. jon UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER ======================================================================== This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views the University of Technology Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. ========================================================================

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Re: [Air-l] howard dean, social movements and clay shirky
by Jonathan Marshall 29 Jan '04

29 Jan '04

I don't know if people saw Weinberger's response to Shirky. Weiberger wrote "small peices loosely joined" and is Dean's web campaign person. http://www.corante.com/loose/archives/001636.html The arguement seems to be the old one. The Net leads to fantasy, or online satisfaction, rather than real world action (Shirky) vs. the Net challenges everything and is a new public space going to forge new social alliances [social software](Weinberger). At the moment this seems to a matter of assertion. Weinberger asserts the Dean campaign would be nowhere without the Web and it has allowed the raising of funds etc. It would be nice if we could actually get beyond these kinds of dichotemies even if it was just to ask "what kinds of offline social interaction is furthered by the Internet, and which is not?" It may be that established powers are not yet threatened by the net, they can use it better etc. It may simply be that people forget that the Net is embedded within a society which has very specific conflicts and dominances and is thus not simply going to escape those dominances, who are as good at colonising new spaces as ever. However it might be worth asking if there some aspect of power - what Michael Mann calls 'interstitial power', which is invisible to the dominancies and thus able to be organised through the net? Or is it simply that we old folks, have not yet got into the habit of integrating online life with offline? Is the perception of the gap the problem, both ways....? Oh well, nothing useful i guess.. jon UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER ======================================================================== This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views the University of Technology Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. ========================================================================

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Think Tank: Greeting Big Brother With Open Arms (fwd)
by david silver 28 Jan '04

28 Jan '04

nice ny times piece featuring air'er Mark Andrejevic. david *** Think Tank: Greeting Big Brother With Open Arms January 17, 2004 By EMILY EAKIN For 50 years, Big Brother was an unambiguous symbol of malignant state power, totalitarianism's all-seeing eye. Then Big Brother became a hip reality television show, in which 10 cohabiting strangers submitted to round-the-clock camera monitoring in return for the chance to compete for $500,000. That transformation is telling, says Mark Andrejevic, a professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa at Iowa City. Today, more than twice as many young people apply to MTV's "Real World" show than to Harvard, he says. Clearly, to a post-cold-war generation of Americans, the prospect of living under surveillance is no longer scary but cool. Media critics have frequently portrayed the reality show craze in unflattering terms, as a sign of base voyeurism (on the part of viewers) and an unseemly obsession with fame (on the part of participants). But Mr. Andrejevic's take, influenced by the theories of Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault, is at once darker and more subtle. Reality shows glamorize surveillance, he writes, presenting it "as one of the hip attributes of the contemporary world," "an entree into the world of wealth and celebrity" and even a moral good. His new book, "Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched" (Rowman & Littlefield), is peppered with quotes from veterans of "The Real World," "Road Rules" and "Temptation Island," rhapsodizing about on-air personal growth and the therapeutic value of being constantly watched. As Josh on "Big Brother" explains, "Everyone should have an audience." At the same time, Mr. Andrejevic (pronounced an-DRAY-uh-vitch) argues, the reality genre appears to fulfill the democratic promise of the emerging interactive economy, turning passive cultural consumers into active ones who can star on shows or vote on their outcomes. (The series "Extreme Makeover" takes this promise literally, he notes, "offering to rebuild `real' people via plastic surgery so that they can physically close the gap between themselves and the contrived aesthetic of celebrity they have been taught to revere.") As seductive as this sounds, in Mr. Andrejevic's view reality television is essentially a scam: propaganda for a new business model that only pretends to give consumers more control while in fact subjecting them to increasingly sophisticated forms of monitoring and manipulation. As he put it in a telephone interview: "The promise out there is that everybody can have their own TV show. But of course, that ends up being a kind of Ponzi scheme. You can't have everybody watching everybody else's TV show. And since that's not possible, in economic terms, the way it's going to work is according to this model of a few people monitoring what the rest of us do." Think of TiVo or Replay, he said. These digital recorders allow people to watch the television shows they want when they want to. But in return, he points out, the recorders' manufacturers get a stream of valuable information about viewer preferences. The same principle, he argues, holds true for online shops that offer custom CD's in exchange for data on personal musical tastes. Or Web sites that use "cookies" to track users' movements on the Internet. Marketers aren't interested in exceptional behavior, he added. They want to know about the routine aspects of daily life, the same material that shows like "The Real World" and "Big Brother" - in which banality passes as authenticity - strive to capture on film. In short, Mr. Andrejevic said, reality television's true beneficiaries are not the shows' cast members (who can wind up making little more than minimum wage for the hours - or months - they spend before the camera) or ordinary viewers (who don't really choose what happens on their television screens) but the marketers, advertisers and corporate executives who have a large stake in seeing surveillance portrayed as benign. Of course, he conceded, his students don't necessarily see it this way. Raised on Web logs, Google, cellphones and instant messaging, they "divulge much more information about themselves on a daily basis than previous generations," he said, and they don't associate the idea of surveillance with a totalitarian Big Brother. "The concern I have is that self-expression gets confused with the inducement to assist in marketing to yourself," Mr. Andrejevic said. "But my students say they've got nothing to hide. And until there are some consequences they perceive as detrimental, they're not going to be concerned." At least in one respect, he added, reality television does conform to real life. "It portrays the reality of contrivance, the way consumers are manipulated," he said. "I look at it with the fascination of somebody watching a car wreck." _________________________________________________________________ Rethink your business approach for the new year with the helpful tips here. http://special.msn.com/bcentral/prep04.armx

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Re: [Air-l] The Internet Is Changing The Way Canadians Socialize
by Jonathan Marshall 28 Jan '04

28 Jan '04

This peice of journalism about Australia might be interesting in this context. It interviews a sample of one teenager:) http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2004/s1033543.htm Extracts: People from 12-23 in Oz generate the bulk of the 400 million text messages made on mobile phones each month. this is at 25c per message. The head of Virgin mobiles in Oz says that voice calls have plateaued but text messaging has become the new way to communicate. He says its shorter, it's quicker, it's discreet. It seems that the need for being in contact without disturbing the current activity is powerful. Also used to make more money out of TV shows, by making them seem interactive. Leads young people into serious debt because of ways of billing. This all *suggests* that the medium of communication while not giving us new formats of community may act to intensify old ones jon UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER ======================================================================== This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views the University of Technology Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. ========================================================================

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Re: howard dean, social movements and clay shirky
by Art McGee 28 Jan '04

28 Jan '04

Hum, I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble understanding why you can't see through the most important problem with electoral analysis: the assumption that distribution of support for a candidate will be equal across all states, and therefore, if you lose these initial states, that means you're out of the race. More importantly, the manipulations of electoral politics by Capitalist media seem to me to be something that make the entire process fraudulent. Have you ever seen a literal horse race in which people were able to bet after the race started? No? Then why do we allow that in our elections? The very nature of the reporting about the race and the speculation about possibilities of winning for particular candidates is a blatant manipulation of the process itself. In effect, U.S. Presidential elections are invalid by default, but maybe I'm not grasping the sociological underpinnings of why we run them this way. Art

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Reviewers for the annual AoIR conference
by K.S.O-Riordan＠sussex.ac.uk 28 Jan '04

28 Jan '04

Dear AoIR members We will shortly be reviewing papers submitted for the conference and we would like to encourage volunteers to take part in this process. The reviewing will take part over the next month. If you would be interested in reviewing the papers submitted, please contact the programme chair Professor Sheizaf Rafaeli <sheizaf(a)rafaeli.net> directly. An indication of your subject expertise and your contact details are all that is required at this stage. We will issue guidelines once the process has been set up. Many thanks in advance for your participation and support Dr. Kate O'Riordan Lecturer in Continuing Education (Media Studies) Centre for Continuing Education Sussex Institute Essex House University of Sussex Falmer Brighton BN1 9QQ Tel: 01273 877774 Email: k.s.o-riordan(a)sussex.ac.uk Web: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/qlff7 -

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Workshop program German Online Research 04
by Uwe Matzat 28 Jan '04

28 Jan '04

Dear Internet Researchers, at the sixth international conference German Online Research 04 (GOR 04) there is a tutorial workshop program that covers the following topics of internet research: Prof. Don A. Dillman (Washington State University): How the Visual Layout of Questions Influences Answers to Web and Other Self-Administered Surveys Dr. Nicola Döring (University of Hamburg): The Analysis of Online Groups: Topics, findings, techniques, and applications Dr. Christian Stegbauer (University of Frankfurt): The Analysis of Social Networks in the field of Internet Research Dr. Dietmar Janetzko (University of Freiburg): Non-Reactive Methods of Data Collection on the Internet Dr. Ulf-Dietrich Reips (University of Zuerich): Online Experimenting Holger Geissler (Psychonomics GmbH): Online Employee Surveys The workshop program takes place before and after the conference (March 29 + April 1, 2004). The conference itself takes place March 30 + 31, 2004 at the University Duisburg-Essen, Campus Duisburg (Germany). The GOR 04 conference presentations cover topics such as - online groups, - e-democracy and civil society, - the digital divide, - the Internet and social networks, and others. Traditionally there is a set of sessions focussing on methodological questions concerning issues of online data collection and web surveys. Prof. Don Dillman (Washington State University) will give a Keynote Speech on: How On-Line Surveys are Democratizing Social Research and Challenging Survey Methodology The conference is jointly organized by the German Society for Online Research (http://www.dgof.de/indexe.htm) and the Social Survey Research Center, Institute of Sociology, University Duisburg- Essen. The preliminary conference program is a available at http://www.dgof.de/gor04/programm_en.html. Some minor changes may me implemented later. Registration is available at http://www.dgof.de/gor04/index_e.htm. Please take into account that until January 31, 2004 the German Society for Online Research offers a 20% reduction of the conference fees for early registration. Thereafter, registration is charged with the full fees. Attendance of the tutoral workshops is available only for those who register for the conference. I hope to meet you at the GOR 04! Regards, Uwe Matzat ======================================= Uwe Matzat Sociology Section Sub-Department of Technology and Policy Department of Technology Management Eindhoven University of Technology P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands phone: +31 40 247-8392 email: u.matzat(a)tm.tue.nl http://www.tue-tm-soc.nl/~matzat/ =======================================

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Academy and the Internet
by Verhulst, Stefaan 27 Jan '04

27 Jan '04

Academy and the Internet by Helen <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-autho…> Fay Nissenbaum (Editor), and Monroe <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-autho…> Edwin Price (Editor) Peter Lang Publishing; (December 2003) Book Description This book explores the impact of the Internet on scholarly research across and beyond the social sciences. The contributors-leading figures in a broad spectrum of disciplines-explain how their fields of inquiry are being redefined, and what issues of social change are salient as new information technologies increasingly become the subject of scholarly analysis. They have rendered a conceptual photograph of how their disciplines are coping with the impact of information technology by covering policy approaches, empirical research, and theoretical questions. Academy & the Internet highlights significant zones of inquiry and provides a critical perspective on the direction each discipline is traveling. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0820462039/qid=1075221372/sr=… <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0820462039/qid=1075221372/sr=…> &s=books

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howard dean, social movements and clay shirky
by Barry Wellman 27 Jan '04

27 Jan '04

Clary Shirky has a nice essay on the Howard Dean and Iowa situation, that fits nicely with what Chuck Tilly and I have posted here in complementary ways: http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2004/01/26/is_social_software_bad_for_… Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________

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