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K-12 Game Simulations with Chat Component?
by MSJANEW＠aol.com 23 Aug '03

23 Aug '03

I am researching game simulations that use instant messaging and/or email as a design component. Have you encountered anything cool you can recommend? I would love to see something like this with an educational dimension. Better yet--anything with a health/sports dimension. Thanks.

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New participation opportunities: Conference on Universal Usability
by Shari Trewin 22 Aug '03

22 Aug '03

The 2nd ACM Conference on Universal Usability is seeking extended abstracts on late breaking research in Universal Usability. We are particularly looking for papers from the social science, economics, communications and sociology community in order to build bridges between researchers in these disciplines and interface designers. We are also seeking applicants for the CUU 2003 Doctoral Consortium. The conference will be held in downtown Vancouver, Canada from November 10 ?11, 2003. See http://sigchi.org/cuu2003/ for conference details. Special rates for early conference registration are available until October 13, 2003. Doctoral Consortium The CUU 2003 Doctoral Consortium provides an ideal opportunity for doctoral students to explore their research interests in an interdisciplinary workshop, under the guidance of a panel of distinguished research faculty. The Consortium will be held on Sunday November 9, 2004. Ten (10) students will be invited to attend and discuss each student's work in turn. Student participants will have a poster of their work exhibited at the main conference. Students will receive complimentary conference registration, and reimbursement of travel, accommodation and food. For application details, see the conference website at http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigchi/cuu2003/studentinfo.htm. The deadline for submission is Monday September 22, 2003, 5:00 p.m. (1700) Pacific Standard Time. Abstracts on Universal Usability The CUU conference is focused on understanding and guiding those elements of human-computer interface design that affect the ability of a universal collection of people to effectively use and gain benefit from computer applications. Thus, the conference accepts papers in universal accessibility such as interface designs that support screen readers for the blind, but it is also keenly interested in the social nature of accessibility. For example, CUU would like to attract research from those individuals working on the digital divide, in particular, details on the ways in which different socio-economic groups find it difficult to have access to computers and to the Internet. Computers are currently designed for the western knowledge worker with an assumption of infrastructures that support complex exchanges and a robust power supply. A cultural and cost-based redesign has the potential of bridging the digital divide. Thus, research on the nature, extent and characteristics of this gap are solicited. The conference is also interested in research on how different groups respond affectively to various interfaces and how specific applications leave users disturbed about potential invasions of privacy or control ? enough so that usage is avoided or limited. A key belief in hosting this conference is that software and computers are cultural objects that have embodied in their design a set of features that clearly state ?who? the software and computers are designed for. The focus of the conference is thus, to develop an understanding of how to create these cultural objects so that they speak to a universal audience. Suggested topics for universal usability abstracts include the following: 1. Digital divide issues in Africa, Indonesia, Poor America, etc. 2. Affective or Emotional Computing 3. Designing interfaces for multiple languages and cultures 4. Trust issues in networked applications 5. Computer training for the computer illiterate 6. Gender differences in responses to computerization, e.g., the automobile Prepare a two-page extended abstract of your research in the ACM Conference Publications Format ( http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html ), including: title, author information, abstract, keywords, research summary, and references. E-mail this abstract in PDF format to cuu2003-lbr(a)universalusability.org by the deadline of Monday, September 22, 2003, 5:00 pm (1700) Pacific Standard Time (PST). Accepted abstracts will be available as part of the Proceedings on the conference website. They will not be published in the print Proceedings. At least one author from each accepted abstracts will be required to present the paper at the conference in November. Presenting authors must register for the conference. This call for extended abstracts is also available on the CUU 2003 web site at: http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigchi/cuu2003/call.htm#Abstracts Shari Trewin CUU2003 Publicity Chair

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CFP: Universal Usability
by Nancy Baym 22 Aug '03

22 Aug '03

Call for Participation - Abstracts on Universal Usability The Second Conference on Universal Usability is seeking extended abstracts on late breaking research in Universal Usability. The conference will be held in downtown Vancouver, Canada from November 10 -11, 2003. See http://sigchi.org/cuu2003/ for conference details. We are particularly looking for papers from the social science, economics, communications and sociology community in order to build bridges between researchers in these disciplines and interface designers. The CUU conference is focused on understanding and guiding those elements of human-computer interface design that affect the ability of a universal collection of people to effectively use and gain benefit from computer applications. Thus, the conference accepts papers in universal accessibility such as interface designs that support screen readers for the blind, but it is also keenly interested in the social nature of accessibility. For example, CUU would like to attract research from those individuals working on the digital divide, in particular, details on the ways in which different socio-economic groups find it difficult to have access to computers and to the Internet. Computers are currently designed for the western knowledge worker with an assumption of infrastructures that support complex exchanges and a robust power supply. A cultural and cost-based redesign has the potential of bridging the digital divide. Thus, research on the nature, extent and characteristics of this gap are solicited. The conference is also interested in research on how different groups respond affectively to various interfaces and how specific applications leave users disturbed about potential invasions of privacy or control - enough so that usage is avoided or limited. A key belief in hosting this conference is that software and computers are cultural objects that have embodied in their design a set of features that clearly state "who" the software and computers are designed for. The focus of the conference is thus, to develop an understanding of how to create these cultural objects so that they speak to a universal audience. Suggested topics for universal usability abstracts include the following: 1. Digital divide issues in Africa, Indonesia, Poor America, etc. 2. Affective or Emotional Computing 3. Designing interfaces for multiple languages and cultures 4. Trust issues in networked applications 5. Computer training for the computer illiterate 6. Gender differences in responses to computerization, e.g., the automobile Prepare a two-page extended abstract of your research in the ACM Conference Publications Format ( http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html ), including: title, author information, abstract, keywords, research summary, and references. E-mail this abstract in PDF format to cuu2003-lbr(a)universalusability.org by the deadline of Monday, September 22, 2003, 5:00 pm (1700) Pacific Standard Time (PST). Accepted abstracts will be available as part of the Proceedings on the conference website. They will not be published in the print Proceedings. At least one author from each accepted abstracts will be required to present the paper at the conference in November. Presenting authors must register for the conference. -- Nancy Baym http://www.ku.edu/home/nbaym Communication Studies, University of Kansas 102 Bailey Hall, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS 66045, USA Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org

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Call for Entries: TARGET BLANK: 17. STUTTGARTER FILMWINTER - FESTIVAL FOR EXPANDED MEDIA
by Benjamin Fischer 22 Aug '03

22 Aug '03

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ENGLISH VERSION SEE BELOW! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TARGET BLANK: 17. STUTTGARTER FILMWINTER - FESTIVAL FOR EXPANDED MEDIA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Film Video Neue Medien Installation Performance Vortraege Festival 15.-18. Januar 2004 Warm Up 9.-14. Januar 2004 http://www.filmwinter.de Target Blank - der Stuttgarter Filmwinter geht in die 17. Runde - stets auf der Suche nach Innovativem, Kritischem und Unbekanntem in der Medienkunst und Filmkultur, nach den Zwischenzonen und Freiraeumen im Medienbetrieb. Nach dem Rekord von ueber 1300 Einreichungen beim letzten Festival sind alle Film-, Medien- und Kunstschaffende herzlich eingeladen, ihre Arbeiten in den Bereichen Film, Video, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, Internet, Installation und Performance fuer den kommenden Filmwinter einzusenden. Einreichung Online-Projekte koennen direkt ueber die Festival Website http://www.filmwinter.de eingereicht werden. Anmeldeformulare fuer Film, Video, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, Installation und Performance koennen im PDF-Format heruntergeladen werden. Deadline fuer Einreichungen: 15. September 2003 Preise In den Sektionen Film/Video und Neue Medien werden Preise in Hoehe von ueber 11.500 EUR vom Publikum und unterschiedlichen Jurykommissionen vergeben. Team-Work-Award Die Hoppe-Ritter Kunststiftung stiftet EUR 2.000,- fuer eine Film- oder Videoproduktion, die von einem Team realisiert wurde. Norman 2004 Preis der Jury fuer Film und Video in Hoehe von EUR 1.500,- Preis der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart fuer Neue Medien Zwei Preise in Hoehe von insg. EUR 4.000,- gehen an Arbeiten aus dem Bereich CD-ROM/DVD-ROM oder an Projekte im Internet. Milla & Partner Preis Preis fuer Medien im Raum (Installationen) in Hoehe von EUR 2000,- DASDING-Publikumspreis Publikumspreise in den Bereichen Film/Video und Internet in Hoehe von jeweils EUR 1.000,- Sowie weitere Preise und die heissbegehrte Wand 5-Ehrenauszeichnung Neben den beiden Wettbewerben fuer Film/Video und Neue Medien wird das Festivalprogramm mit Spezialreihen, Panels, Praesentationen und Musikevents ergaenzt. Weitere Informationen: Wand 5 e.V. im Filmhaus Friedrichstr. 23 A D - 70174 Stuttgart Germany Tel: +49-711-226 91 60 Fax: +49-711-226 91 61 Mail: wanda(a)wand5.de http://www.filmwinter.de http://www.wand5.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TARGET BLANK: 17TH STUTTGART FILMWINTER - FESTIVAL FOR EXPANDED MEDIA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Film Video New Media Installation Performance Lectures Festival, January 15-18, 2004 Warm Up, January 9-14, 2004 http://www.filmwinter.de Target Blank - the 17th edition of the Stuttgart Filmwinter is looking for innovative, critical, and unknown posititions in media art and film culture. After the record of 1300 submissions at the last festival the organizer Wand 5 cordially invites filmmakers, media producers, and artists to submit their work. Productions in the field of film, video, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, installation, and performance are very welcome. Submission Internet-projects may be submitted online on the festival's website http://www.filmwinter.de. Entry forms and regulations for submissions in the field of film, video, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, installation, and performance can be downloaded as PDF-file. Deadline for submission: September 15, 2003 Awards In the sections film/video and new media prizes amounting more than 11.500 EUR will be awarded by the audience and various jury commissions. Team-Work-Award The Hoppe-Ritter Art Foundation endows an award of EUR 2.000 for a team production in the field of film and video. Award of the Jury Award of the Jury for film and video of EUR 1.500 State Capital Stuttgart Awards for New Media These awards of EUR 4.000 go to an independently produced work on CD-ROM/DVD-ROM or to a project published on the internet/www. Milla & Partner Award Award for media in space (installations) of EUR 2.500 DASDING-Audience Award Audience award for film/video and internet of respectively EUR 1.000 as well as further prizes and the popular honourable mention by Wand 5 Besides the competitions for film/video and new media a wide range of special programmes, panels, presentations and music events will be offered. Further information: Wand 5 e.V./Filmhaus Friedrichstr. 23 A D - 70174 Stuttgart Germany Tel: +49-711-226 91 60 Fax: +49-711-226 91 61 Mail: wanda(a)wand5.de http://www.filmwinter.de http://www.wand5.de

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digital divide reading for syllabus
by myildiz＠indiana.edu 22 Aug '03

22 Aug '03

Dear Ulla, My colleague Dr. Kaya Bensghir and I very recently wrote a conference article entitled "Combatting Digital Divide by Using Internet Cafes as a Public Policy Tool (in Turkey)". It is an academic article, but not a very long one; and it contains the first nation-wide field research on Internet-cafes as a public policy tool to narrow digital divide. It is my understanding that it satisfies both 1 and 2. Let me know if you are interested in looking at it for potential use in your syllabus and I will send you the latest draft. Best regards, Mete Mete Yýldýz Ph.D. Candidate and Visiting Lecturer School of Public and Environmental Affairs Ýndiana University, Bloomington

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FW: [chineseinternetresearch] use of the internet in the chinese rave scene
by Randolph Kluver (Assoc Prof) 22 Aug '03

22 Aug '03

Ulla, this might be relevant to your query about non-US perspectives also. Randolph Kluver School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological University 31 Nanyang Link Singapore, 637718 (65) 6790-5770 Fax (65) 6792-4329 -----Original Message----- From: lokkie(a)lokman.nu [mailto:lokkie@lokman.nu] Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 7:21 PM To: chineseinternetresearch(a)yahoogroups.com Subject: [chineseinternetresearch] use of the internet in the chinese rave scene http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com/newsite/jvs_papers/netfxinchina.htm John von Seggern and STAFFER3. "Network Effects: Use of the Internet in the Chinese Rave Scene." 26 Feb 2002. <http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com/netfxinchina.htm>. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- NETWORK EFFECTS: USE OF THE INTERNET IN THE CHINESE RAVE SCENE I have spent the past two years as a graduate student at the University of Hong Kong, where my work has focused on the emerging Internet music scene. The international music world has been going through a period of extraordinary change and restructuring during this time because of the accelerating use of the Internet at every stage in the processes of musical production, distribution and reception. In this paper, I will focus on the developing electronic dance music scene in China, a particular area of interest for me, and examine some of the ways it has been affected by the advent of the Net; I also want to look at what some of the larger social implications of these phenomena might be. The significance of Net access for musicians in a country where the flow of information is heavily restricted and censored can hardly be underestimated, as I hope to show. My material here is based in part on my own experiences as a DJ and musician working in China during the period 1995-2001. I have prepared this paper in consultation with STAFFER3, a pseudonymous American techno producer who lives and works in Beijing, and his involvement has been crucial to the development of the ideas I am presenting here. BACKGROUND Since the first raves were held in Beijing in 1995, a sizable electronic dance music scene has grown up in the People.s Republic of China. Going clubbing has become a popular activity among a significant segment of the country.s growing urban middle class, and an indigenous ecology of Chinese DJs, MCs, producers and promoters has emerged. This is a phenomenon limited not only to the country.s largest cities; dance clubs playing various techno-derived musics can be found in many smaller cities as well, at least in China.s wealthier regions. I relocated to Hong Kong in 1995 to work in the city.s popular music industry and I have witnessed the rapid growth of this new Chinese club culture firsthand on my frequent trips into mainland China. I first became interested in dance music culture in 1997 as I became aware of the rapidly growing club scene in Hong Kong at that time, and events on the other side of the Chinese border seemed to be following a similar course. Large modern clubs attracting hundreds or even thousands of clubbers every weekend appeared to be springing up everywhere I went in China, perhaps filling a void for a growing middle class with increasing amounts of disposable income but relatively few entertainment options to spend it on. During this same period in the late 1990s, Internet usage has also become widespread among members of this same middle class, and according to the China Internet Network Information Center, the Internet continues to experience phenomenal growth in China. A CNNIC survey released in January 2002 reports that there are now over 33 million Internet users in China, a nearly 50% year-on-year increase. Internet use has been increasing most rapidly among the group most attracted to the dance club scene, young urban dwellers in their 20s and 30s. I became interested in possible connections between this increase in Internet and the rapid growth of the Chinese club scene as I observed a number of interesting Net-related phenomena within the dance music scene. Hearing Chinese DJs spin a variety of imported and domestic trance, techno, and house music at clubs in Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere, I wondered where they were learning about and obtaining all the music they were using. On a February 2001 visit to Club Focus, one of the largest clubs in Guangzhou, I learned that some of the DJs there were playing MP3s downloaded from the Web and burned on recorded CDs in their live sets. This seemed to explain the uncanny musical erudition of DJ Andrew and others whom I met in Guangzhou as well -- how were they able to keep up so well with developments in the international music scene, I wondered? One of the DJs from Focus later told me that some of them used the Internet to search for information about dance music around the world. Discussing this topic with more DJs and clubbers in China, I began to see a number of distinct effects of the rapid increase in Net usage on the nascent Chinese club scene: local DJs and producers were using the Internet to obtain new tools for producing and distributing their own music; websites were springing up to inform users about new developments in the Chinese scene and provide new opportunities for participants to communicate with one another; and music makers and clubbers alike were using the Net to learn about and obtain new music from both domestic and international artists. I will now look at each of these "network effects" in more detail. THE INTERNET AS SONIC ARMS SMUGGLER Chinese DJs and dance music producers are now using many of the same software tools used by other electronic music producers around the world, and they are obtaining them from the same source: the Internet. Most Chinese producers depend completely on the Net for information about new developments in music software, either downloading new programs directly onto their computers or copying them from friends who have already done so. The online availability of such powerful software tools, as well as a wealth of information about how to use them, now makes it possible for musicians in China to keep up with new developments in electronic music production and obtain at least some of the latest technologies at the same time as their colleagues overseas. This is a very significant change when we consider that it has always been very difficult for independent musicians in China to get access to the technologies of contemporary music; import restrictions and other barriers have meant that contemporary music equipment typically costs twice as much in China as it does in the United States, when it is available at all. Computer hardware is relatively inexpensive now, however, even for some mainland Chinese, and there are powerful software tools on the Internet that can be had cheaply or for free. Increasing numbers of young Chinese are using computers to create their own dance music and upload it to the Internet, where it can be shared with a community of other producers and club music fans. YESDJ.COM As an example of how participants in the Chinese dance scene are connecting and forming communities on the Internet, I would like to look at Yesdj.com; this is one of the more extensive websites used by Chinese DJs and producers to exchange information on how to produce their favorite styles of music and where to find music software. This heavily-trafficked site also provides users with frequently updated lists of the most popular dance tracks and CDs in China, with links to downloadable MP3 samples; when I last checked, the most popular CD on the site was by well-known south China techno-rap group MP4, and tracks from the CD had been downloaded over 65,000 times according to the site statistics. Yesdj.com also provides forums for clubbers to discuss the latest developments in Chinese dance music and for DJs, MCs, producers, promoters and others actively involved in the scene to make contact with their counterparts across China. Although it is impossible to gauge the precise extent to which Internet-based communications have contributed to the rapid growth of the Chinese dance music scene, I believe that websites such as Yesdj.com and mailing lists of event schedules such as those operated by Beijing clubs Vogue and Orange have played a very significant role. It is important to note that besides the Internet, there are virtually no other forms of mass communication available to the Chinese dance community. Access to print media is strictly controlled in China, and information on non-government sponsored cultural activities is extremely difficult to come by. It is impossible, for example, for Chinese dance promoters to simply take out advertisements for their events in local magazines. In the recent past, information about dance events could be communicated only by word of mouth or by the distribution of party fliers, but Chinese clubs are now increasingly making use of the Internet for this purpose. INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE: MP3 FILE SHARING ACROSS THE GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA In addition to bringing new tools for producing music to electronic musicians in China and tremendously facilitating the circulation of information within their scene, the Internet is also having a massive impact in terms of the vastly increased access to music from outside China which it has brought to its users. The Chinese government strictly controls all cultural imports, including music, and most imported dance music recordings are completely unavailable through legal channels. As Internet usage has increased in China over the past few years, the Net has started to become the main source of information about music for more and more young urban Chinese. DJs and producers, many of whom have their own computers with Net access, rely increasingly on the Web to learn about the latest trends in dance music styles around the globe. Virtually all of the major DJs in Beijing, for example, use the Internet extensively to keep up with international music trends, learning about new styles at the same time as their counterparts in other countries. As I noted earlier, some Chinese DJs even use music downloaded from the Net in their live sets, making their own compilations of MP3 files of music from China and abroad and recording them on CDRs; I have observed DJs at some of the largest clubs in Shanghai and Guangzhou using these CDRs in the DJ booth. Among some in the Chinese underground hiphop scene, only tracks which have been downloaded are considered truly "underground" and thus valuable, while any music which is available for purchase in physical form is seen as being tainted by commerciality to some degree. RECORDING THE FUTURE In considering the long-term effects of these developments in the context of modern Chinese society, we might recall the oft-quoted ideas of Jacques Attali about music as a predictor of social change: Music is prophecy. Its styles and economic organization are ahead of the rest of society because it explores, much faster than material reality can, the entire range of possibilities in a given code. It makes audible the new world that will gradually become visible, that will impose itself and regulate the order of things; it is not only the image of things, but the transcending of the everyday, the herald of the future (Attali, p. 11). It is easy to be critical of Attali for his vagueness and sweeping generalizations. Yet the ideas he first presented in his book Noise in 1977 seem to be resonating more strongly than ever at present, with many writers on digital music culture both in academia and in the popular media citing Attali.s ideas to help explain the phenomena they observe on the Internet. If we are willing to grant some degree of truth to what Attali is saying, that music may indeed be a "herald of the future" in some sense, we can only be led to consider some startling possibilities about the future of modern China. The rapidly evolving Internet-based music scene on the mainland may have radical implications for a society based on the principle of monolithic state control of information. The Chinese government has been very active in efforts to combat the spread of dissident activity and "harmful opinions" on the Internet, even going so far as to construct a security firewall around the entire country which ensures that CNN.com (for example) cannot be freely accessed by Chinese Web surfers. Nonetheless, the government.s control over the flow of information into and out of China has already been seriously weakened by the Web. A report prepared in January 2000 by the United States Embassy in Beijing explains this situation in more detail and raises questions for the future: The Chinese government filters the flow of information into China. Dissident groups mail thousands of electronic periodicals into China. They constantly switch originating addresses to evade filtering. Some foreign websites are blocked but Chinese surfers often use proxy servers to evade the Great Red Firewall. Email from China cannot reach certain foreign addresses but using a foreign email account (such as Hotmail) can solve that problem. The old Chinese saying "For every measure taken on high there is a counter measure down below" is illustrated by the wide use of anti-filtering countermeasures (US Embassy report, 2000). Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace have studied the political impact of the Internet in China in greater detail, noting that while many observers continue to believe that rising use of the Internet poses an insurmountable threat to authoritarian regimes, the reality in China is that the government has managed to control the impact of the Net to some degree and in the short term via both reactive and proactive strategies (Kalathil and Boas, 2000). However, other commentators look to the future and question how long any kind of effective control can be maintained. Kalathil and Boas themselves outline some of the specific mechanisms by which authoritarian regimes can be gradually undermined by the Internet: ONE Exposure to outside ideas and lifestyles may spur a revolution of "rising expectations" as citizens begin to wonder why they are denied rights and freedoms enjoyed by the people of other nations. (It is believed that this was an important factor in the revolutions in Eastern Europe which overthrew the Communist regimes there, although television rather the Internet was the crucial media technology there.) TWO The widespread use of email, Internet chat rooms and the Web by ordinary citizens may contribute to a greater degree of "ideational pluralism" as more and more information which contradicts the official party line becomes available to users. THREE Civil organizations may use the Internet for the dissemination of information among members and for large-scale organization. (The most striking example of this in China thus far has been the Falun Gong, a banned religious organization.) Kalathil and Boas note that these civil organizations have often played a crucial role in undermining authoritarian regimes elsewhere. FOUR The Internet creates new opportunities for entrepreneurship and wealth creation. FIVE Finally, Net usage provides increased scope for foreign influence within countries hitherto isolated from the world community by censorship and control over the free flow of information. Looking again at the Chinese dance music scene, we can clearly observe the operation of many of the mechanisms identified here. The Internet has contributed significantly to the spread of new musical ideas in China, encouraging a greater degree of musical pluralism; websites and mailing lists are routinely used by participants in the scene to communicate with each other and to organize and promote dance events; the rapidly growing dance music scene is creating new economic opportunities for some young Chinese in the underground economy; and there is an increasing degree of foreign musical influence due to the access to music and information from overseas provided by the Internet. If Attali is right and developments in music do foreshadow changes in other social practices, then the long-term success of China.s efforts to control public discourse on the Internet must be placed in doubt, with potentially profound consequences for the future of the country.s political system. Although the dance scene is not overtly political for the most part, it should be noted here that there are already signs of a developing "ideational pluralism" among its participants which may have significant political overtones. An article in Asiaweek magazine in May 2001 noted early signs of politicization within the Chinese dance scene, such as the popularity of a locally-produced dance track called "No Communist Party." Taking its melody from a song associated with the Cultural Revolution, the lyrics ridicule Communist Party icon Lei Feng, the selfless PLA soldier who has been held up as a model of good character to generations of Chinese students. THE DRIVING FORCE OF CHANGE? Some observers of the Internet music scene even follow Attali.s trajectory one step farther and argue that the drive to distribute music on the Internet has itself become a cause of future change in other areas and not just a predictor of it. They point especially to software tools developed for the purpose of distributing music that may ultimately have a far greater impact when applied in other areas. Freenet, a decentralized and anonymous music file trading system, provides us with an interesting example here. Freenet makes it possible for users to trade any kinds of digital data files among themselves completely anonymously, without fear of being identified by government authorities or copyright holders. Ian Clarke, the founder of Freenet, has reportedly been contacted by someone who is already using his software in a totalitarian, Middle Eastern country to share information banned by the government (van Buskirk, 2000). Technologies developed to share music such as Freenet, which enable users to communicate on a mass scale with no possibility of governmental censorship, may ultimately play a key role in evading the mechanisms of online control identified by Kalathil and Boas. CONCLUSIONS As I have tried to show here, increasing Internet usage among participants in the Chinese dance scene seems to be contributing significantly to the rapid growth of that scene. Participants are exposed to a wide variety of new ideas and lifestyles through the widespread use of email, chat rooms and the Web, members of the community are using the Net to organize and promote their activities, and new opportunities for entrepreneurship and wealth creation are emerging within the scene: these characteristics of the new dance subculture illustrate specific ways in which I believe the Internet is acting to significantly reduce the Communist government.s control over the Chinese population as the government loses control of the flow of information. Bearing in mind again Attali.s idea of music as prophecy, I wonder about what kind of messages we might read from the chaotic freedom of the main dancefloor at Club Rojam in Shanghai, where on any given weekend more than a thousand clubbers might typically be found dancing to a mix of electronic beats from all over the world... BIBLIOGRAPHY Attali, Jacques. Bruits; essai sur l'economie politique de la musique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1977. Published in English as Noise: the political economy of music, tr. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985. China Internet Network Information Center. January 2002. 17 Feb 2002 <http://www.cnnic.net.cn/develst/rep200201-e.shtml>. DJ Tadi. Homepage. 18 Feb 2002 <http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/233/tadi.html>. Freenet. 6 Dec 2001 <http://freenet.sourceforge.net>. Kalathil, Shanthi and Taylor C. Boas. "The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Information Revolution and World Politics Project, Working Paper #21, July 2000. 18 Feb 2002 <http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/wp21.asp>. Oster, Shai. "It.s My Party." Asiaweek 18 May 2001. 20 Feb 2002 <http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,109279,00.html >. US Embassy Beijing. "China.s Internet Information Skirmish." Jan 2000. 5 Dec 2001 <http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/english/sandt/webwar.htm>. van Buskirk, Eliot. "How Music Is Changing the Internet." 26 Nov 2000. 5 Dec 2001 <http://music.cnet.com/music/0-1652424-7-2130087.html?st.mu.2130086.txt. 2130087>. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT <http://rd.yahoo.com/M=261419.3724993.5015550.1269402/D=egroupweb/S=1705 004924:HM/A=1724960/R=0/SIG=136uf918b/*http://ads.x10.com/?type=href&lin eid=3724993&property=egroupweb&aposition=HM&random=1061464879471298> <http://us.adserver.yahoo.com/l?M=261419.3724993.5015550.1269402/D=egrou pmail/S=:HM/A=1724960/rand=329097097> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: chineseinternetresearch-unsubscribe(a)egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .

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RE: [Air-l] digital divide and non-US perspective on web readings
by Randolph Kluver (Assoc Prof) 22 Aug '03

22 Aug '03

Ulla, it will probably be too late for this semester, but forthcoming (supposed to have been out by now) from RoutledgeCurzon is Asia.com: Asia Encounters the Internet, full of chapters exactly like what you are looking for, including the digital divide in Asia, the social and political consequences of the Internet in various Asian nations, including Singapore, Malaysia, China, Japan, Korea, India, Indonesia, etc. http://www.routledge-ny.com/books.cfm?isbn=0415315034&CFID=1030848&CFTOK EN=88801308 If you want, I could probably send you one or two early versions of the chapters in the book, but they won't be the final version. Look at the chapter titles, and let me know which ones you would be interested in. Randolph Kluver School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological University 31 Nanyang Link Singapore, 637718 (65) 6790-5770 Fax (65) 6792-4329 > -----Original Message----- > From: Ulla Bunz [mailto:bunz@scils.rutgers.edu] > Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 10:11 PM > To: Air List > Subject: [Air-l] digital divide and non-US perspective on web readings > > > I am requesting help to finish my syllabus. > > I'm looking for two or three readings (total, not each) on two topics: > > 1) digital divide (preferably a reading that does NOT focus > on race, and something that is recent) > > 2) a non-US perspective on how the web has/is changing our > lives, the way we communicate, etc. The class is called > "Communication and Social Change" and too much of what we're > doing is US-focused, so I want to include a different perspective. > > I'm looking for short articles/reports (not full blown > journal articles) and even popular press articles, preferably > available online. The readings are used as discussion > stimulants, so they can be controversial (like the recent > posting to this list how you can now divorce via SMS in Malaysia). > > Though general pointers are welcome, due to time pressures I > would much appreciate being directed to specific articles > rather than entire websites. > > If you prefer, reply directly to bunz(a)scils.rutgers.edu. > Thanks so much! > > Ulla > > ---------------------------------------------------- > Ulla Bunz > Assistant Professor > Department of Communication > Rutgers University > 4 Huntington Street > New Brunswick, NJ 08901 > Email: bunz(a)scils.rutgers.edu > ---------------------------------------------------- > > > > _______________________________________________ > Air-l mailing list > Air-l(a)aoir.org > http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l > >

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digital divide and non-US perspective on web readings
by Ulla Bunz 21 Aug '03

21 Aug '03

I am requesting help to finish my syllabus. I'm looking for two or three readings (total, not each) on two topics: 1) digital divide (preferably a reading that does NOT focus on race, and something that is recent) 2) a non-US perspective on how the web has/is changing our lives, the way we communicate, etc. The class is called "Communication and Social Change" and too much of what we're doing is US-focused, so I want to include a different perspective. I'm looking for short articles/reports (not full blown journal articles) and even popular press articles, preferably available online. The readings are used as discussion stimulants, so they can be controversial (like the recent posting to this list how you can now divorce via SMS in Malaysia). Though general pointers are welcome, due to time pressures I would much appreciate being directed to specific articles rather than entire websites. If you prefer, reply directly to bunz(a)scils.rutgers.edu. Thanks so much! Ulla ---------------------------------------------------- Ulla Bunz Assistant Professor Department of Communication Rutgers University 4 Huntington Street New Brunswick, NJ 08901 Email: bunz(a)scils.rutgers.edu ----------------------------------------------------

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Microsoft's In-House Sociologist
by Art McGee 20 Aug '03

20 Aug '03

http://news.com.com/2008-1082-5065298.html CNET News August 19, 2003 Microsoft's In-House Sociologist By Paul Festa, Staff Writer Ever get the feeling your Usenet newsgroup list is being watched? By Microsoft? If so, consider yourself right. Thanks to the expertise of sociologist Marc Smith, Microsoft is keeping a close eye on newsgroups and other public e-mail lists, which it has identified as the Internet's undervalued "knowledge management application." In Microsoft's research and development labs, Smith has spent the past several years slicing and dicing data about messages and message authors in an ambitious effort to help people make sense of the newsgroup manifold -- the hordes of know-it-alls, flame warriors, spammers and neophytes who, by Smith's estimate, last year numbered more than 100 million in the Usenet network of e-mail threads, or newsgroups. Smith's idea is that you can tell a lot about the quality of data by tracking its newsgroup contributors' social habits -- a notion that holds promise for sorting through millions of messages, and peril for a online world increasingly skittish about invasions of privacy. Following the launch of Microsoft's NetScan application for analyzing newsgroups and the people who post to them, Smith spoke to CNET News.com about NetScan, about Microsoft's interest in e-mail lists and about an application under development that would link objects in the real world to an array of online information. CNET News [CN]: How did a guy like you get to work for a company like Microsoft? Marc Smith [MS]: I'm a sociologist. I've now been at Microsoft Research about four-and-a-half years. Microsoft has a few social and cognitive psychologists, but I'm the only sociologist. [CN]: Which means what, exactly, in the context of technology employment? [MS]: A sociologist studies the attributes of relationships and the group of relationships that add up to a collective or a community. As a technology group, our mandate is to both explore and to build tools to study the phenomenon that we could call online community. We sociologists don't like to use the term "community," particularly -- we like to refer to them as social cyberspaces. [CN]: What's wrong with "community"? The word seems to come up all the time when we talk about the Internet. [MS]: When we say "community," perhaps what we really are looking at is a special case of a broader phenomenon that sociologists call collective action, when a group of people do something together. And this turns out to be the No. 1 thing people do with their computers: It's to send each other e-mail. The No. 2 thing is to send groups of people e-mail -- to join the list of people who like to knit, or who like Microsoft products. [CN]: So why exactly does Microsoft need a resident sociologist? [MS]: Microsoft has a big investment in online communities, and has not had until recently many tools to enhance that investment. What Microsoft wants around communities is what every enterprise does, which is a peer-support, knowledge-management application. And that means that if you go into Usenet, you'll find 3,000 Microsoft public newsgroups, with 1.5 million people posting 10 million messages. And that's 2002 -- and it's going to more than double this year, because it more than doubled in '01. We don't see traffic flagging at all. [CN]: My impression was that the use of e-mail lists was on the decline. [MS]: To the contrary! It's on the rise. Usenet alone -- which is a backwater in that most people don't know where it is and how to find it -- on Usenet alone there were 13.1 million unique identities who used Usenet in 2002, and by that we mean that they were a contributor and wrote at least one message. How many people read the message? We have no idea. That number is invisible and is fragmented over a half-million servers that are not sharing their data. But conservatively you could estimate that there are 10 readers for every writer, so that makes it 130 million Usenet users per year. And that's a small number compared to majordomo lists, or things like Yahoo Groups, and the number of people who have a bulletin board on things like UltimateBBS. [CN]: What are you doing with these lists, from a sociological standpoint? [MS]: What we are about is the thread. It turns out that the core sociological data type of the Internet is not IP (Internet Protocol) numbers, or any of that stuff, it's threaded conversations. And it's amazing how little It turns out that two-thirds of all threads in Usenet, in 2002, had a whopping two messages. investment has been put into adding value to the core data structure of the Internet, which is the conversational thread. I can illustrate that by suggesting that when you sit in front of your e-mail client, simply try to sort your messages by thread size. [CN]: And by size of the thread you mean...? [MS]: I mean the number of messages, the number of generations of messages, the breadth of the conversation. If eight people reply to a message, it has a breadth of eight. If 12 reply, it's 12. And it turns out that the frequency distribution of thread properties is very illuminating. It turns out that two-thirds of all threads in Usenet, in 2002, had a whopping two messages. And two-thirds of all authors are the people who write a message, post once one day, and never again. [CN]: Is that indicative of a spam problem? [MS]: No, those aren't spammers, they are the people who post once, get their answer and go away happy. They post a message that says they can't print, then they get their answer. What newsgroups are is a form of knowledge management application. What they are about is leveraging the collective knowledge of large numbers of people. [CN]: So how is it useful to know that people are getting their printing questions answered? What can you do with that information? [MS]: What you can do is say, "Let's look at how many times each of those unique IDs posted. Twenty-four million times? That's your spammer." Humans have a limited capacity to type and send and think up messages, while software is virtually free from those constraints. What we do is say, "By looking at these properties, the structure of authors, threads and newsgroups, we can determine a lot of things that are good predictors of value." Here's an example: Let's say you have a newsgroup with 22,000 messages posted there per month. You have a problem! What should you read? We have some suggestions. In an existing browser, you can see the messages sorted by date, sorted by size or sorted alphabetically, and this is not very useful. What we want to say is, "There are different vectors through this content space, different ways of slicing into the data, the conversation, that are more likely to bring valuable information." For instance, what are people talking about? What we've done is highlight the 40 threads that got the most number of messages in this period -- day, week, month, year. And we'll say, "Here are 40 really big threads." How do you know those are good? We're not sure they were good, but these were the things that got people really excited and engaged in this newsgroup. That's one vector. [CN]: But what about the guy who gets his printer fixed in two messages? [MS]: And you can legitimately argue that. "What about small threads of high value? How can you help me find them?" The answer is that we are, by leveraging latent structural data that is itself a product of collective behavior. You have lots of individuals working on their own. If there were only one person writing Web pages, Google wouldn't work. But Google Groups doesn't do what we do to Usenet. We're doing something useful to Usenet. We're not yet a search engine, we're a research project. And we will eventually be doing things related to the full text of the message. Let's look at the individual who posts to a list. Does he show the pattern of participation over time that is an indicator of a valuable contributor? The question you should raise is, "What do you mean by value?" One man's flame warrior is another man's poet. It's not for us to tell you. But we do give you tools to sort patterns of difference. Let me tell you how to find someone who gives really good technical support answers using our author tracker. It's a way to slice a vector into the content space that measures how dedicated are the people to this newsgroup. Basically, it asks, "Are you a regular?" [CN]: And what will that indicate? [MS]: Regulars are value contributors. But you could say, "You are sorting people by -- and we do -- how many days they come back." For example, you go into some of our tech support newsgroups, and you'll find that there are I'm a social scientist -- I don't know the difference between good and bad, only the difference between difference. People who have contributed every day in the month. OK, those are regulars. But how do you know they have value? It's not just the number of days you come back. There are three other metrics, which tend to be ratios. One is the ratio of replies: How many times did you reply to someone else, or start a thread? Spammers may show up every day, but they don't reply. With a very low reply-to-post ratio, I would say that that is a person who starts a lot of conversations but never replies to anyone else, and it's probably a spammer. Showing up every day is not enough -- you have to respond to other people. It's also thread-to-post. How many threads did you touch, how many messages did you write? If you wrote 10 times, all into one thread, that's a low ratio. You have a high conversational concentration. [CN]: Is that good or bad? [MS]: I'm a social scientist -- I don't know the difference between good and bad, only the difference between difference. Do I like flame warriors? Or don't I? A high reply-to-post indicates a flame warrior, because they tell you you're an idiot and they put all their messages into a few threads -- so they also have a low thread-to-post ratio. If you want to find the answer person, flip that ratio around. They differ from the flame warrior in the following way: Both show up every day, and both reply. The answer person answers a post once or twice, then moves on. We've seen people post 500 messages in one week in one thread. If you have that much time on your hands -- it's not to say that it's a good thing or a bad thing, but a different thing. We give you the opportunity to say, "I just came here because I can't print." We will guide you to the very real group of people who are dedicated, for whatever reason, to not just computer technology, but answering questions about knitting, horseback riding, dogs -- you name it. And the way to do that is to start looking at the social accounting metadata about authors. [CN]: So could all of this ultimately add up to a better search engine? [MS]: If things go well, we'll have a better search engine. This remains early, initial research, but our results look promising. Reranking results based on social histories does do a better job, and I do believe we will deliver interfaces that will find people who are debators, fine, but also those who are answer people...It turns out that people have a lot to give each other. There's a lot of knowledge to share, and 2 percent of every population is motivated to be a knowledge sharer. Most of us have to rely on signs or symbols that suggest a person is reliable. With doctors you have their diplomas, the way the office looks, and most important, who referred you -- these are all indicators that we rely on. We are trying to create analogous tools for online environments where that data is latent, is not manifest in the interfaces visibly. [CN]: When you talk about a reputation system, I'm reminded of the eBay system. [MS]: We're similar but different -- eBay is an explicit feedback system, and we are an implicit feedback system. With eBay, buyers rate sellers, and sellers rate buyers, after they conduct a transaction. It's what people say about you. But there are real problems with this -- most of all inflation, the "Beverly Hills-adjacent" problem. If you read the L.A. real estate section, everything is "Beverly Hills-adjacent." So there is this tendency to inflate. There have been empirical studies of reputation ratings at eBay that suggest that just going by reputation ratings at eBay is not an indication that you're not going to get a fraudulent transaction. [CN]: Tell me about the AURA (Advanced User Resource Annotation) project. [MS]: AURA is about extending NetScan: "What if you could use NetScan with a pocket computer and attach threads to things?" We use the Toshiba e740 and a Compact Flash bar-code reader, run AURA software, and can walk up to any bar-coded object, any ISBN-coded object, scan it, and the device brings back information about that object...We imagine being able to walk up and down the aisle of a grocery store and have a handheld computer rate everything with a green light, a red light, a skull and crossbones. In Hong Kong, during the height of the SARS outbreak, there was a system that could tell you which buildings had had confirmed SARS cases. Now that's a reputation system. [CN]: It's easier to do this with products than with, say, people. [MS]: People are one thing, but objects -- all the books on my shelves, all the food in my kitchen, the artworks in the hallway -- we at Microsoft have bar-coded every one of them. AURA is going to become a navigation tool. You can print a bar code for a penny and slap them on things. Which we do -- and then Facilities comes along and scrapes them off. [CN]: It seems that once Microsoft starts tracking the behavior of individuals, you're asking for trouble. What about privacy? [MS]: I think it's a very important thing. And we have built NetScan to protect what I think are legitimate claims for privacy. Like a Net spider, NetScan takes publicly accessible documents off the Internet, and it respects metadata that says "Leave me alone!" There is the robots.txt file that says, "You can look at this but not that." With Usenet there is one that says "Leave my messages alone," and we respect that. We will not store your messages if you put that in them. [CN]: Couldn't a spammer just put that in his or her messages, so you wouldn't be able to identify them as a spammer? [MS]: That's a possibility, and that's something we would have to respect. But the system still would not fail, because a person with no reputation is a person who has a reputation. "Let me tell you about the people who the system has shown to have value." We're about letting the cream float the top and not about letting the other stuff sink. [CN]: How can you reassure someone who might be concerned that it's not such a good idea for computers to be keeping track of our belongings and our whereabouts? [MS]: I'm not sure, but we're leaking data all over the place now. And on the one hand, that has utility for other people. On the other, there's a privacy risk. In some ways, consider us a form of performance art. Would you like to see you? This is potent. We accept that and hope we can offer people good prophylactics against loss of privacy. And that may mean keeping multiple IDs and e-mail addresses. Ultimately we may have to fragment our identities. Copyright (c) 2003 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

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CFP: Mobile Entertainment Conference
by Jason Rutter 20 Aug '03

20 Aug '03

MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT: USER CENTRED PERSPECTIVES A conference organised by CRIC, University of Manchester Supported by the European Commission: mGain (IST-2001-38846) 25th - 27th March 2004 Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester Liverpool Road Manchester, England. www.mobile-ent.org The international conference Mobile Entertainment: User Centred Perspectives is being organised by the ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation & Competition (CRIC) in Manchester as part of the European Commission funded mGain project. It aims to bring together research on technologies, services, content, policy and consumption in relation to mobile entertainment. Papers are invited on all areas of mobile entertainment and user needs from researchers in academia, industry and policy areas. The conference organisers particularly welcome empirically-driven, case-study based and practitioner-motivated research. Papers will be invited on, but not restricted to the following: User Perspectives Consumer behaviour User ethnographies Usability Comparative studies Mobile communities Mobile-mediated communication Content Delivery Location-based Services Cross media provision Peer-to-peer service Location-based services Personalization & adaptive interfaces Mobile Entertainment Business New Markets & business models Work and labour Marketing 3G Customer relationship management Policy & Legal Aspects IPR, copyright & DRM Access Content regulation & certification Health, effects & protection Security, trust & credibility Innovative Entertainment Services: User-centred technologies Pervasive and ubiquitous entertainment Wearable entertainment devices Edutainment Foresight & Futurology Users beyond 3G Immersive mobile technologies Abstracts for both standard paper presentations and poster sessions are welcome. Paper presentations should be planned to take 20 minutes followed by 10 minutes of questions and discussion. Posters will be displayed throughout the event but time will also be dedicated for authors to answer questions of the work presented. The submission process is the same for all type of presentations. Abstracts providing an overview of the work to be presented and details of data or models used should be no more than 4000 characters long (approx 650 words) long and must be submitted via the conference web site at www.mobile-ent.org. The conference language is English. The Student Paper Competition Registered students will have the opportunity to win a free place at the conference and contribution towards travel and accommodation expenses. Papers for consideration for this competition can be on any theme relevant to the conference and must be submitted by 12th Jan 2004. Full details are available on the conference web site. In addition to paper and poster presentations a varied programme of events will take place during the conference: Workshops: A workshop exclusively for students and researchers at the beginning of their careers will take place prior to the conference on Wed 24th March. This is free to registered delegates and support with accommodation costs for the night of 24th March may be available. A number of thematic/birds of a feather workshops and a session exploring industry/academia links will take place at the conference. Further details of these will be made available on the conference web site as they are confirmed. Social & Networking Events: 24th March: Pre-registration welcome and showcase. This event will involve short presentations from developers and solution providers and informal networking. This event will be organised in conjunction with the International Games Developers Association (IGDA). 25th March: A wine reception in the newly opened Money Gallery of the Manchester Museum with key speakers and buffet. 26th March: The conference dinner followed by night at a top Manchester club for the younger (or young at heart) delegates. Key Dates: Registration begins 25th Aug 2003 Deadline for abstracts: 22nd Sept 2003 Feedback on acceptance: 31st Oct 2003 Preliminary programme published: 21st Nov 2003 Deadline student paper competition 12th Jan 2004 Early-bird registrations ends: 23rd Jan 2004 Deadline for Camera Ready Copy: 26th Jan 2004 Jason Rutter Karenza Moore ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition, The University of Manchester, Harold Hankins Building, Booth Street West, Manchester, M13 9QH www.cric.ac.uk -- Dr Jason Rutter Mobile Entertainment: User Centred Perspectives - 25-27th March 2004 www.cric.ac.uk/cric/mobconf.htm Digital Games Industries: Developments, Impact and Direction - 19-20th September 2003 www.cric.ac.uk/cric/workshops/dgi/ ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition (CRIC), The University of Manchester, Harold Hankins Building, Booth Street West, Manchester M13 9QH. UK Ph: +44 (0)161 275 6859 Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 7361 www.cric.ac.uk/cric/Jason_Rutter

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