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Fwd:: CfP Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication Conference
by Michel J. Menou 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

See in particular the 2 special topics that have been added to the earlier call. Michel This is a forwarded message From: catac(a)wirth.murdoch.edu.au <catac(a)wirth.murdoch.edu.au> To: Michel.Menou(a)wanadoo.fr Date: Sunday, November 30, 2003, 3:07:13 PM Subject: Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication Conference ===8<==============Original message text=============== CALL FOR PAPERS Fourth International Conference on CULTURAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNICATION (CATaC'04) 27 June-1 July 2004 Karlstad University, Sweden www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/ Conference theme: Off the shelf or from the ground up? ICTs and cultural marginalization, homogenization or hybridization The biennial CATaC conference series provides a continuously expanding international forum for the presentation and discussion of current research on how diverse cultural attitudes shape the implementation and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The conference series brings together scholars from around the globe who provide diverse perspectives, both in terms of the specific culture(s) they highlight in their presentations and discussions, and in terms of the discipline(s) through which they approach the conference theme. The first conference in the series was held in London in 1998, the second in Perth in 2000, and the third in Montreal in 2002. Beginning with our first conference in 1998, the CATaC conferences have highlighted theoretical and praxis-oriented scholarship and research from all parts of the globe, including Asia, Africa, and the Middle-East. The conferences focus especially on people and communities at the developing edges of ICT diffusion, including indigenous peoples and those outside the English-speaking world. Understanding the role of culture in how far minority and/or indigenous cultural groups may succeed - or fail - in taking up ICTs designed for a majority culture is obviously crucial to the moral and political imperative of designing ICTs in ways that will not simply reinforce such groups' marginalization. What is the role of culture in the development of ICTs "from the ground up" - beginning with the local culture and conditions - rather than assuming dominant "off the shelf" technologies are appropriate? Are the empowering potentials of ICTs successfully exploited among minority and indigenous groups, and/or do they rather engender cultural marginalization, cultural homogenization or cultural hybridization? Original full papers (especially those which connect theoretical frameworks with specific examples of cultural values, practices, etc.) and short papers (e.g. describing current research projects and preliminary results) are invited. Topics of particular interest include but are not limited to: - Culture: theory and praxis - Culture and economy - Alternative models for ICT diffusion - Role of governments and activists in culture, technology and communication - ICTs and cultural hybridity - ICTs and intercultural communication - Culture, communication and e-learning Our conference themes provide a range of approaches to the questions raised. KEYNOTE SPEAKER Nina Wakeford, Foundation Fund Lecturer in Sociology and Social Methodology. For her DPhil at Nuffield College, Oxford, Dr Wakeford studied the experiences of mature students using a sociological conception of risk. Before coming to the University of Surrey in September of 1998, she spent three years studying "Women's Experiences of Virtual Communities", funded by an ESRC Post-Doctoral grant. The last two years of this Fellowship she conducted fieldwork in and around Silicon Valley while based at the University of California, Berkeley. CATaC04 will also feature two particular foci, each chaired by a distinguished colleague who will oversee paper review and development of the final panels. PANEL 1: The Multilingual Internet Panel Chairs: Susan Herring and Brenda Danet Expanding on their collective work, including a special issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (Vol. 9 (1), November, 2003 - see http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/) this thread invites papers with a specific focus on how the Internet impacts language choice and linguistic practices in traditionally non-English speaking cultural contexts. Of particular interest are situations that respond in various ways to the tension between global English dominance and local linguistic diversity, e.g., through use of English as an online lingua franca, the "localization" of global or regional linguistic influences, translation or code-switching between different languages, and strategic uses of the Internet to maintain and invigorate minority languages. Susan Herring is Professor of Information Science and Linguistics, Indiana University Bloomington Brenda Danet is Professor Emerita of Sociology and Communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem PANEL 2: Utopian Dreams vs. Real-World Conditions: Under what conditions can ICTs really help worse off communities? Panel Chair: Michel Menou. CATaC'04 will likely feature some examples of "best practices" in using ICTs to aid culturally-appropriate development, especially as pursued through governmental or NGOs' projects, community informatics endeavours, etc. At the same time, however, real-world politics and realities - e.g., violent oppression, political corruption, gender and ethnic discrimination, abuse of dominant economic position, structural disasters, worst practices of all kinds and origins, etc. - can shatter the best-laid plans for using ICTs to supposedly help especially the poorest of the poor. How far can ICTs succeed in supporting culturally-appropriate development - and what appropriate answers to real-world conditions are required in order for our best efforts to realize the liberatory potentials of these technologies not be broken down? Michel Menou, has worked on the development of national information policies and systems in many countries of the Southern hemisphere since 1966. Since 1992 his work focused on the impact of information and ICT in development. He is a member of the Community Informatics Research Network and of the network of Telecentres of Latin America and Caribbean. PAPER SUBMISSIONS All submissions will be peer reviewed by an international panel of scholars and researchers and accepted papers will appear in the conference proceedings. Initial submissions are to be uploaded to the CATaC website according to the paper guidelines (available at the conference website). Submission of a paper implies that it has not been submitted or published elsewhere. At least one author of each accepted paper is expected to present the paper at the conference. There will be the opportunity for selected papers from this 2004 conference to appear in special issues of journals and a book. Papers in previous conferences have appeared in journals (Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, Electronic Journal of Communication/La Revue Electronique de Communication, AI and Society, Javnost- The Public, and New Media and Society) and a book (Culture, Technology, Communication: towards an Intercultural Global Village, 2001, edited by Charles Ess with Fay Sudweeks, SUNY Press, New York). You may purchase the conference proceedings from the 2002 conference from www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac. Important Dates Full papers (10-20 pages): 12 January 2004 Short papers (3-5 pages): 26 January 2004 Notification of acceptance: end February 2004 Final formatted papers: 29 March 2004 CONFERENCE CO-CHAIRS Charles Ess, Drury University, USA, catac(a)it.murdoch.edu.au Fay Sudweeks, Murdoch University, Australia, catac(a)it.murdoch.edu.au CONFERENCE CO-VICE-CHAIRS Malin Sveningsson, Karlstad University, Sweden, malin.sveningsson(a)kau.se ===8<===========End of original message text=========== ===8<===========End of original message text===========

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7 new papers on opensource.mit.edu | freesoftware.mit.edu
by Karim R. Lakhani 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

Hello Friends <sorry for any X-posting> Happy Thanksgiving to all our American friends. Below you will find 7 new papers related to open source and free software. We have papers from Sociology, Social Psychology, Economics, and Computer Science. Many thanks to all the authors that submitted their papers! Thanks! Karim ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paper 1 Authors: Bonaccorsi, Andrea & Cristina Rossi Title: Comparing motivations of individual programmers and firms to take part in the Open Source movement. From community to business http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/bnaccorsirossimotivationlong.pdf Abstract: A growing body of economic literature is addressing the incentives of the individuals that take part to the Open Source movement. However, empirical analyses focus on individual developers and neglect firms that do business with Open Source software (OSS). During 2002, we conducted a large-scale survey on 146 Italian firms supplying Open Source solutions in Italy. In this paper our data on firms’ motivations are compared with data collected by the surveys made on individual programmers. We aim at analysing the role played by different classes of motivations (social, economic and technological) in determining the involvement of different groups of agents in Open Source activities. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paper 2 Authors: O'Mahony, Siobhan & Fabrizio Ferraro Title: Managing the Boundary of an ‘Open’ Project http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/omahonyferraro.pdf Abstract: In the past ten years, the boundaries between public and open science and commercial research efforts have become more porous. Scholars have thus more critically examined ways in which these two institutional regimes intersect. Large open source software projects have also attracted commercial collaborators and now struggle to develop code in an open public environment that still protects their communal boundaries. This research applies a dynamic social network approach to understand how one community managed software project, Debian, develops a membership process. We examine the project’s face-to-face social network during a five-year period (1997-2001) to see how changes in the social structure affect the evolution of membership mechanisms and the determination of gatekeepers. While the amount and importance of a contributor’s work increases the probability that a contributor will become a gatekeeper, those more central in the social network are more likely to become gatekeepers and influence the membership process. A greater understanding of the mechanisms open projects use to manage their boundaries has critical implications for research and knowledge producing communities operating in pluralistic, open and distributed environments. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paper 3 Authors: Schach, Jin, Wright, Heller & Offutt Title: Quality Impacts of Clandestine Common Coupling http://www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/~srs/preprints/clandestine.preprint.pdf Abstract: The number of instances of common coupling between a module M and the other modules can be changed without any explicit change to M; this is termed "clandestine common coupling." This paper presents results from a study of clandestine common coupling in 391 versions of Linux. Specifically, the common coupling between each of 5332 kernel modules and the rest of the product as a whole was measured. In more than half of the new versions, a change in common coupling was observed, even though none of the modules themselves was changed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paper 4 Authors: Schach, Jin, Wright, Heller & Offutt Title: Maintainability of the Linux Kernel http://www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/~srs/preprints/linux.longitudinal.preprint.p… Abstract: We have examined 365 versions of Linux. For every version, we counted the number of instances of common (global) coupling between each of the 17 kernel modules and all the other modules in that version of Linux. We found that the number of instances of common coupling grows exponentially with version number. This result is significant at the 99.99% level, and no additional variables are needed to explain this increase. We conclude that, unless Linux is restructured with a bare minimum of common coupling, the dependencies induced by common coupling will, at some future date, make Linux exceedingly hard to maintain without inducing regression faults. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paper 5 Authors: Schach, Jin, Yu, Heller & Offutt Title: Determining the Distribution of Maintenance Categories: Survey versus Measurement http://www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/~srs/preprints/lst.preprint.pdf Abstract: In 1978, Lientz, Swanson, and Tompkins ("LST") published the results of a survey on software maintenance. They found that 17.4% of maintenance effort was categorized as corrective in nature, 18.2% as adaptive, 60.3% as perfective, and 4.1% was categorized as other. We contrast this survey-based result with our empirical results from the analysis of data for the repeated maintenance of a commercial real-time product and two open-source products, the Linux kernel and GCC. For all three products and at both levels of granularity we considered, our observed distributions of maintenance categories were statistically very highly significantly different from LST. In particular, corrective maintenance was always more than twice the LST value. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paper 6 Author: Shah, Sonali Title: Understanding the Nature of Participation & Coordination in Open and Gated Source Software Development Communities http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/shah3.pdf Abstract: This paper explores the motivations of participants from two software development communities and finds that most participants are motivated by either a need to use the software or an enjoyment of programming. The latter group, hobbyists or enthusiasts, are critical to the long-term viability and sustainability of open source software code: they take on tasks that might otherwise go undone, are largely need-neutral as they make decisions, and express a desire to maintain the simplicity, elegance, and modularity of the code. The motives of hobbyist evolve over time; most join the community because they have a need for the software and stay because they enjoy programming in the context of a particular community. Governance and licensing structures affect this evolution. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paper 7 Author: Warner, Julian Title: Forms of labour in information systems http://informationr.net/ir/7-4/paper135.html Abstract: The idea of technology, including information technology, as a human construction is taken as the basis for the themes to be developed. The possibility of constructing an information dynamic, continuous with the dynamic of capitalism, is considered. Differentiations are made between forms of semiotic labour: semantic from syntactic labour and communal from universal labour. Information retrieval systems and the departure from the labour theory of copyright are considered in relation to the forms of labour distinguished. An information dynamic is constructed. The potential and limitations of syntactic labour are considered. The analytic value of the distinctions developed is differentiated from the possible predictive power of the dynamic indicated. -- =============================================== Karim R. Lakhani MIT Sloan School of Management & The Boston Consulting Group, Strategy Practice Initiative e-mail: karim.lakhani(a)sloan.mit.edu | lakhani.karim(a)bcg.com voice: 617-851-1224 fax: 617-344-0403 http://spoudaiospaizen.net/ http://opensource.mit.edu | http://freesoftware.mit.edu http://userinnovation.mit.edu -- =============================================== Karim R. Lakhani MIT Sloan School of Management & The Boston Consulting Group, Strategy Practice Initiative e-mail: karim.lakhani(a)sloan.mit.edu | lakhani.karim(a)bcg.com voice: 617-851-1224 fax: 617-344-0403 http://spoudaiospaizen.net/ http://opensource.mit.edu | http://freesoftware.mit.edu http://userinnovation.mit.edu

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Rich Site Summary Technology
by Chris Williams 29 Nov '03

29 Nov '03

If you are using Rich Site Summary (RSS) and know of any relative feeds that are not listed at the bottom of this post, please email me to let me know. Other than that, the purpose of this post is to inform non-RSS users of the benefits of RSS. In short, RSS feeds bring websites of your choosing to one place on your computer instead of you having to go to site after site to look for updates or other new material. Unfortunately, whether sites have RSS feeds to offer is completely up to the webmasters. Afterall, why would a webmaster want to use a technology that would keep internet users from visiting their website? There are a few academic sites, listed below, that do. But CNN and Fox, for example, send only their top 5 headlines through their RSS feeds. There are several free programs to choose from that will accept these RSS feeds. They are listed below along with some example RSS feeds that might be of interest to social scientists. Also, if you do not want to fool with learning a new technology and its software but are interested in RSS, you can go here: http://www.bloglines.com/. Most RSS programs do require Microsoft's .NET to be installed on your computer. You can get that from the MS Updates option under your Start button if you use Windows. This is the RSS reader that I use: http://www.awasu.com . It is one of the easiest to set up and learn. A tour of what the program does is located here: http://www.awasu.com/tour.php . Five software packages that require a bit of technical knowledge are SharpReader ( http://www.sharpreader.net/ ) and Wildgrape News Desk. A Java installation is required for nntp//rss ( http://www.methodize.org/nntprss/ ), a program that lets you read RSS files in Outlook Express or any other newsgroup-reading software. Or if you would like your RSS headlines in a news ticker, try wTicker ( http://www.wticker.org/mt/ ). Headline Viewer is another type of news ticker ( http://www.headlineviewer.com/download.html ). When you come across a website that offers a RSS feed, all you have to do is copy the address and paste it into your RSS reader. Here are some rss feeds that might be of interest to political scientists: China News http://p.moreover.com/cgi-local/page?o=rss&c=China%20news ------------------ US Political News http://p.moreover.com/cgi-local/page?o=rss&c=US%20politics%20news ------------------ US Political Columnists http://p.moreover.com/cgi-local/page?o=rss&c=US%20political%20columnists ------------------ US Social Policy http://p.moreover.com/cgi-local/page?o=rss&c=US%20social%20policy%20news ------------------ Working-Paper Sites of Political Science http://workingpapers.org/rss.rss ------------------ CNN Top Stories (not great, but we need to see what are students are seeing) http://csociety.purdue.org/~jacoby/XML/CNN_TOP_STORIES.xml ------------------ FOX (not great, but we need to see what our students are seeing) http://www.newsisfree.com/HPE/xml/feeds/67/3167.xml ------------------ If you want to read more about RSS, here are some links for you to explore: http://www.faganfinder.com/search/rss.shtml http://www.webreference.com/authoring/languages/xml/rss/intro/ http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/07/23/rssone.html Chris Williams, Ph.D. Mississippi Virtual Community College http://www.msvcc.org

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Re: [Air-l] online interview
by Mark D. Johns 29 Nov '03

29 Nov '03

At 01:57 PM 11/27/2003 -0200, you wrote: >Dear friends, >I am conducting a research project on online courses and I´m planning to >interview some students online. Is anyone on this list familiar with some >papers/books/sites where people write about the methodology of conducting >online interviews or the methodology of researching in the Internet, in >general? > >Thank you very much for your time, >best regards, >Daniela Papelbaum At the risk of self-promotion, you might want to take a look at: Online Social Research: Methods, Issues, and Ethics (Digital Formations Series, Vol. 7 Steve Jones, Series Editor) Edited by Mark D. Johns, Shing-Ling Sarina Chen, and G. Jon Hall has just been released by Peter Lang Publishers, New York © 2004 ISBN 0-8204-6101-6 ------ Mark D. Johns, Ph.D. Asst. Professor of Communication/Linguistics, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa http://faculty.luther.edu/~johnsmar/ ----------------------------------------------- "Get the facts first. You can distort them later." ---Mark Twain

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network society in catalonia
by Barry Wellman 28 Nov '03

28 Nov '03

For the Catalan readers of the AoIR list, you may well be interested in this new publication: Manuel Castells, Imma Tubella, Teresa Sancho, Isabel Diaz de Isla, and Barry Wellman. 2003. _La Societat Xarxa a Catalunya._ Barcelona: Random House Mondadori, 2003. price: 19.23 Euros. An earlier version is available in English and Spanish at www.uoc.es (uoc is the Open University of Catalonia). 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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Re: [Air-l] online interview
by Annette Markham 28 Nov '03

28 Nov '03

Hi Daniela, If you're seeking to understand the way online environments compel researchers to rethink basic taken-for-granted features/practices of interviewing, I talk about these in my book _Life Online_ (AltaMira, 1998). I address these issues more specifically in a forthcoming chapter on the topic (in Clive Seale, et. al, Qualitative Research Practice, Sage, 2004). I have a draft copy on my website: http://ascend.comm.uic.edu/~amarkham/writing/seale.htm If you're searching for qualitative interview techniques generally, I recommend a great collection edited by Gubrium and Holstein called _Handbook of Interview Research_. This book contains a chapter by Chris Mann and Fiona Stewart (authors of the book mentioned in a previous message by Boris) Annette At 01:57 PM 11/27/2003 -0200, you wrote: >Dear friends, >I am conducting a research project on online courses and I´m planning to >interview some students online. Is anyone on this list familiar with some >papers/books/sites where people write about the methodology of conducting >online interviews or the methodology of researching in the Internet, in >general? > >Thank you very much for your time, >best regards, >Daniela Papelbaum > > > >_______________________________________________ >Air-l mailing list >Air-l(a)aoir.org >http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l ****************************** Annette N. Markham, Ph. D. Department of Communication University of Illinois at Chicago 1007 W. Harrison St (m/c 132) Chicago, IL 60607-7137 amarkham(a)uic.edu http://ascend.comm.uic.edu/~amarkham/ ******************************

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Access to online learners.
by Helen Scott 28 Nov '03

28 Nov '03

Greetings to All. But of interest principally to online tutors/learners: I am a PhD student at the University of Portsmouth, U.K. I am using the Grounded Theory methodology to research the main issues facing adult online learners and how these issues are resolved. I plan to conduct online interviews with online learners worldwide. As you may know the research methodology which I am using, looks for patterns across interviews rather than focusing on individuals. It also allows the substantive area to emerge. So to begin with I would like interview as many types of adult online learners as I can i.e. studying in different disciplines, countries, educational levels and be they full time or part time students, learning principally online on-campus or @distance. Please can you help? I need access to online learners and would be grateful for any help that you can give me in finding online learners who would be prepared to be interviewed. If you have responsibility for online adult learners and would be prepared to forward a message on to them on my behalf, that would be wonderful. I would also be very happy to discuss my plans and approach with you in more detail or tailor my approach according to any concerns that, as steward for your learners, you might have. Please also see http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/scotth for more online contact details. Regards Helen Scott helen.scott(a)port.ac.uk Dept. Information Systems & Computer Applications 1-8 Burnaby Terrace Portsmouth Hants PO1 3AE U.K.

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Danah Boyd -- social network software
by Barry Wellman 28 Nov '03

28 Nov '03

Folks, Social network software is becoming hot,so much so that even the New York Times has noticed it, with a nice article on the front page of the Circuits section on Nov 27 2003. (A U.S. holiday celebrating Immigration, Early Imperialism & Family Bonding.) Basically, the software creates possibilities to link friends, friends of friends, etc. and to locate people with shared interrests -- although it also has the possibility for organizational and police surveillance (who is talking with whom in my organization? what are Al-Qaeda's links? who is Wellman hanging out with?) The article is keyed around the rather unique and always interesting Danah Boyd, a sociological grad student at the School of Information Management and Systems, Univ of California Berkeley. A pix of her with bright red hair graces the front page. Those who attended the recent Toronto AoIR conference may remmeber Danah's costume then: as I recall, a white bunny-eared fleece hat topping a pink jump suit. 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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research - writing, printing, computing
by Luiz Carlos Baptista 28 Nov '03

28 Nov '03

Hi all, I'm new on the list. I have recently finished my PhD in Communications at Universidade Nova, Lisbon, Portugal. My PhD is about Erving Goffman's concept of "frame" and its relations to cognition and the formal features of human interaction. Parts of my research have been summarized in an article, "Framing and Cognition", in the book "Goffman's Legacy", published in the US by Rowman & Littlefield. At the moment, my research interests include what I call "logotechnics" or "linguistic technologies": the development of systems which reproduce what, according to Noam Chomsky, is the most important characteristic of human language, its "discrete infinity" (the production of an infinite number of structures by the recursive combination of a finite number of elements). Each "logotechnique" could be understood as a set of procedures for developing specific kinds of "cognitive artifacts". Writing would be the fundamental "logotechnique", giving rise to printing (its mechanization) and computing (its automatization). I believe a proper understanding of the latter must take into account the effects of the former. For instance, as regards the Internet and the spread of digital media, the so-called "digital revolution" is, in a sense, the process of "generalization of writing" - since, for the first time, almost every form of human representation can be "translated" to digital form through programs written, in the last instance, in binary code. I hope this stuff makes sense to you. Anyway, it's still in an earlier phase, open to comments, criticisms and developments. Best regards, Luiz Carlos Baptista lucabaptista(a)sapo.pt lucabaptista(a)hotmail.com

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on the web, research work proves ephemeral
by Lokman Tsui 28 Nov '03

28 Nov '03

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8730-2003Nov23?language=printer By Rick Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, November 24, 2003; Page A08 On the Web, Research Work Proves Ephemeral Electronic Archivists Are Playing Catch-Up in Trying to Keep Documents

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