- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Re: [Air-l] migration literature?
by Denise N. Rall 14 Apr '03

14 Apr '03

Dear Greg - This book was posted here in January 03. >From Usenet to CoWebs: Interacting with Social Information Spaces Christopher Lueg and Danyel Fisher, eds. London: Springer-Verlag. January, 2003 Price: US$49.95 http://www.ics.uci.edu/~danyelf/projects/book.html This book appears to have sections that are germane to the migration discussion. Also, we had some conversation on dying networks (PLATO) etc. earlier this year. I would search the archives for this discussion as it was linked specifically to what allows networks to migrate onto the WWW and/or what causes them to die. Lots has been written on the USENET migration that the following book alludes to. Apologies if you are the person who posted these notes previously, I wasn't paying too much attention to the author. Denise (LONG POST NOT WELL EDITED FOLLOWS RE: THE BOOK TITLE ABOVE) This list has periodically discussed ways of dealing with data online: at the end of last year, for example, we talked about ways of extracting usenet data, and what one might do with it. I believe that this book might help address some of these questions, and gives an overview of some of the techniques now available. >From Usenet to CoWebs: Interacting with Social Information Spaces Christopher Lueg and Danyel Fisher, eds. London: Springer-Verlag. January, 2003 Price: US$49.95 http://www.ics.uci.edu/~danyelf/projects/book.html FROM THE INTRODUCTION This volume explores ways to look at, and instrument, spaces for social awareness. We want to learn how to look at a space, and understand what is going on with the group that inhabits it. We want to come to a space to learn what it has to offer. We want to build new spaces that open themselves to productive exploration, both to researchers and to participants. These are tasks for statisticians and designers, sociologists, anthropologists, and technologists to work together to explore, characterise, and build these spaces. Through this book, we ask what aspects of an online group are important to its participants. What tools do we have to measure online groups, and what do those measurements mean? What are appropriate tools for the researcher to use to examine the group? What tools might be brought to the group to examine itself? We also try to understand a second question: How can we take advantage of the specific characteristics of social information spaces to build new or enhance existing interfaces to these spaces? Different kinds of spaces have been built with different attributes: some are highly controlled spaces, carefully limiting what sorts of contributions can be made to the space, while others grant a high degree of freedom to their users. These technical attributes partially drive the social abilities of users. Because software can be used to restrict certain types of use, software drives the culture, norms, and understandings in the groups. Differences in user interfaces can be affect the participants' experience of the space-as well as the ability to study the groups, and the ability to collect data from them. These differences will delineate some of the abilities to measure and understand the spaces, and will shape the conversation happening within the spaces. Researchers have enjoyed extensive access to social information spaces. Usenet is publicly accessible and discussion lists are often easy to join, so an anthropologist can lurk quietly, asking questions of a few key informants but remaining largely hidden. Online spaces have been a popular domain of study: a researcher of virtual worlds once commented half in jest, "every MUD has its own ethnographer." The longer tradition of formal online research has been dominantly qualitative, as those public spaces allowed for close examination. From this tradition has emerged a rich variety of projects, from examinations of individuals and their social interaction, to larger-scale issues of group overload and crises of filtering. Our emphasis in this volume, however, is with an eye to fine-grained, quantitative studies. Quantitative researchers take advantage of the fact that online spaces are easily amenable to computer analysis. Of course, some aspects of online interaction can be invisible to quantitative techniques. Although these types of studies may never fully convey the texture of a space, they can be powerful tools for describing many of the important group behaviours and attributes. They have the ability to process large amounts of data at once, allowing visualizations to interactively compare different data sets. Quantitative methods can therefore be very good at highlighting potentially interesting sites for closer future study. TABLE OF CONTENTS Part I: Introduction to Online Studies and Usenet 1 Introduction: Studying Social Information Spaces -- Danyel Fisher 2 "A Standing Wave in the Web of Our Communications": Usenet and the Socio- Technical Construction of Cyberspace Values -- Bryan Pfaffenberger Part II: Studying Spaces 1 Measures and Maps of Usenet -- Marc Smith 2 The Dynamics of Mass Interaction -- Steve Whittaker, Loren Terveen, Will Hill, Lynn Cherny 3 Conversation Map: A Content-Based Usenet Newsgroup Browser -- Warren Sack 4 Silent participants: Getting to know lurkers better -- Blair Nonnecke and Jenny Preece Part III: Enhancing Spaces 1 Computer Mediated Communication among Teams: What are "Teams" and how are they "Virtual"? -- Erin Bradner 2 CoWeb - Experiences with Collaborative Web spaces -- Andreas Dieberger and Mark Guzdial 3 From PHOAKS to TopicShop: Experiments in Social Data Mining -- Brian Amento, Loren Terveen, and Will Hill 4 GroupLens for Usenet: Experiences in Applying Collaborative Filtering to a Social Information System -- Bradley N. Miller, John T. Riedl and Joseph A. Konstan 5 Exploring Interaction and Participation to Support Information Seeking in a Social Information Space -- Christopher Lueg Appendix: Studying Online Newsgroups ===== "Stupidity is not just a lack of content; it's also a process" Denise N. Rall, Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & PhD student, School of Education, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW, 2480 Australia Phone +61-2-6624-8627 Fax +61-2-6624-8637 Office (Tuesdays) (02) 6620 3577 Mob 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/edu/research/deniserall/index.html __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo http://search.yahoo.com

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MelbourneDAC registrations
by Adrian Miles 14 Apr '03

14 Apr '03

Hi apologies for the cross postings that inevitably occur, This is a reminder that registrations for the 2003 Melbourne Digital Arts and Culture (melbourneDAC) conference closed on April 11th. Quite a few people have been in touch about extending the registration date, while they await the outcome of funding applications and the like. We are more than happy to accommodate these problems, so if you wish to still register please get in touch! This is the 5th International Digital Arts and Culture conference to be held, and the first to be held outside of North America and Norway. Digital Arts and Culture (DAC) is an international conference series initiated in 1998 by Espen Aarseth, of the University of Bergen. It's intention is to bring together the best new researchers and artists working in the fields of new media, games, and interactive hypermedia to share ideas, problems, and debates. This year's event continues this with an exhibition of digital artworks and four days of conference activities designed to foster debate and dialogue around significant new themes in new media culture and practice. A conference announcement list is available at: http://monaro.adc.rmit.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/dac/ A list of presenters is available at: http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/presenters.html Registration information is available at: http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/registration.html regards Adrian Miles conference chair MelbourneDAC acknowledges the financial assistance of RMIT University, the Australian Film Commission, and the partnership support of Experimedia, State Library of Victoria, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, and InterMedia, University of Bergen. -- + MelbourneDAC2003 digital arts and culture conference [http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/] + interactive desktop video developer [http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/] + hypertext rmit [http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au] + InterMedia:UiB. university of bergen [http://www.intermedia.uib.no]

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Al-jazeera: evil hackers vs. evil structure
by Christian Sandvig 14 Apr '03

14 Apr '03

Bram Dov Abramson wrote: > The NY Times ran a pretty good piece on this > (http://www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/2003-April/019695.html) If you liked the NY Times piece, you'll like this commentary from The Register (UK) from a few days earlier: Al Jazeera's web site - DDoSed or unplugged? By John Lettice 27/03/2003 http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29984.html The interesting thing about the Al-Jazeera story is that at first it seems to be about "those evil hackers" again. But underneath is a poignant example of how the legal structure of the Internet constrains speech. Because an Internet ISP has nothing resembling a nondiscrimination duty (unlike, e.g., a telephone company) and ISPs are often protected from liability for censorship (e.g., the "good samaritan" blocking and screening clause in the US Telecoms Act of 1996), this produces a recipe for overbroad private censorship. Any hacking only makes unpopular views even more likely to be rejected by ISPs; the Register piece calls unpopular content the "poisoned chalice". Another facet of this story is about how the technical (as opposed to legal) structure constrains speech. While Al-Jazeera was down, did anyone try to find extremely controversial non-Western media coverage on the Internet (e.g., Al-Jazeera's footage of civilian dead or British soldiers)? I did, and it is very difficult to find the controversial pictures on the Web (I found only a few grainy screen shots). But you can easily find MPEGs of several controversial Al-Jazeera stories on peer-to-peer networks. Christian -- http://www.niftyc.org/

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Economic Viability of Open Access Publishing
by Art McGee 14 Apr '03

14 Apr '03

http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v04/i02/Willinsky/ John Willinsky, Scholarly Associations and the Economic Viability of Open Access Publishing, Journal of Digital Information, 4, 2 (April 9, 2003) Abstract: "The paper considers a number of economic issues that scholarly associations are confronting in moving their journals online, with a focus on the possible viability of an open access or free-to-read format. It explores the current content overlap between subscription-based and open access sources, and considers how these redundancies favor open access publishing and indexing. It utilizes the tax returns for 20 US non-profit scholarly associations to analyze current publishing revenues against costs, arguing that the associations could make up the loss of revenue posed by the open access publishing model through cost savings and other revenue sources, while serving their membership better through the increased readership in an era of declining subscriptions. While the decision to publish journals in an open access format is by no means simply an economic one, the viability of open access publishing warrants serious consideration by scholarly associations that are currently determining what this new medium may mean for the circulation of knowledge." -end-

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NYC Conference on War: Aesthetics, Politics, Technologies, 5/2-5/3
by Gina Neff 14 Apr '03

14 Apr '03

------ Forwarded Message Thundergulch, the new media initiative of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in association with: Vera List Center for Art and Politics World Policy Institute Computer Instruction Center at The New School Presents The Future of War: Aesthetics, Politics, Technologies May 2-3, 2003 The New School Swayduck Auditorium 65 Fifth Avenue, Ground Floor (at 13th Street) What do the Department of Defense and the computer gaming industry have in common? What kinds of strategic alliances is the Pentagon making with Hollywood? How is the American Institute of Architects connecting with the military's designs for a "new security environment?" Are artists collaborating with, exposing, or resisting the military by deploying technologies of simulation, data surveillance, tracking, and computer vision in their work? A group of internationally renowned panelists explore these and other questions in The Future of War: Aesthetics, Politics, Technologies, a two-day conference that examines the increasingly complex exchanges between the military, the entertainment industry, the computer industry, the media and artists. What impact do these exchanges have on war, technology and related visual cultures in the American public sphere? The conference looks at war not simply as a utilitarian means to an end but as a cultural process involving particular ways of seeing, narrating, and imagining. The conference will focus on the architectural spaces of war, the cinematic language of Hollywood combat films, online gaming and military simulations, and the computer and installation work of artists. Conference Schedule Friday May 2, 2003 2:30-9:30 pm Presentation of New Media Works 2:30-5:30 pm Reception 5:30-7:00 pm The Aesthetics and Politics of Technologized Warfare 7:00-9:30 pm Saturday May 3, 2003 10:00 am-7:00 pm Architecture, Violence, and Social (In)security 10:00 am-12:00 pm War and the Cinematic Imaginary 1:00-3:00 pm The Virtual Battlefield: Computer Gaming, Modeling, Simulations 3:30-5:30 pm Roundtable Discussion 6:00-7:00 pm Schedule of Events Friday May 2, 2003 2:30-5:30 pm Presentation of New Media Works Audience members join conference participants and local artists for a preview of works with informal discussion. Participants include: Matt Adams, artist Alex Galloway, artist/scholar Joy Garnett, artist/curator Natalie Jeremijenko, techno artist/engineer John Klima, artist Carl Skelton, digital artist/teacher Eddo Stern, artist/game developer Lebbeus Woods, architect 7:00-9:30 pm The Aesthetics and Politics of Technologized Warfare Radar, 3-D computer graphics, tracking devices, covert data-gathering, robots, and computer vision have become ubiquitous technologies of warfare and play an integral role in maintaining "homeland security." These technologies have long been a rich source of interest to artists engaged in the subjects of surveillance, control, and military imaging. Curators, artists, and human rights activists examine ways in which art exposes the depersonalization of violence, and resists the erosion of privacy and civil rights. Panelists: Joy Garnett, artist/curator; Natalie Jeremijenko, techno artist/engineer, Yale University and New York University; Tom Keenan, director, Human Rights Project, Bard College; Thomas Y. Levin, curator/media theorist, Princeton University. Moderator: Helen Nissenbaum, professor, Department of Culture and Communication, New York University Saturday May 3, 2003 10:00 am-12:00 pm Architecture, Violence, and Social (In)security New media artists and architects discuss the impact of violence, political terrorism and social (in)security on architecture and public space. Reflecting on physical and virtual spaces of war, panelists question assumptions about architecture's physical and psychological permanence. They will consider ways in which digital technologies limit and enable public perception of the built environment and spatial innovation. Panelists: Benjamin Bratton, cultural theorist/media architect, Southern California Institute of Architecture; Keller Easterling, associate professor, Yale School of Architecture; and Eyal Weizman, architect, Rafi Segal/Eyal Weizman Architects, Tel-Aviv, Israel. Moderator: Kadambari Baxi, architect/media designer, Martin/ Baxi Architects 1:00-3:00 pm War and the Cinematic Imaginary Collaborations between Hollywood, network televsion and the Pentagon have become commonplace. The shaping of popular culture through film and television intertwines with political strategies for legitimizing new modes of surveillance and criminalization. Panelists examine the causal relationships between the business of war and show biz. Panelists: Matt Adams, artist, Blast Theory performance collective, Great Britain; Allen Feldman, recurring visiting professor, Anthropology of Everyday Life Program, Center for Humanities Studies, Ljubljana; Michael Shapiro, political scientist, University of Hawaii. Moderator: McKenzie Wark, author/media theorist 3:30-5:30 pm The Virtual Battlefield: Computer Gaming, Modeling, Simulations What role does the military-industrial complex play in the increased virtualization and digitalization of war and weaponry? Does this new emphasis on the virtual nature of war decrease its connection to reality, territory and the body? An interdisciplinary panel explores the new technologies of imitation and simulation, and the coordinated efforts of computer programmers, artists, and the gaming industry to advance the state of immersive military training and online recruitment. Panelists: James Der Derian, professor, International Relations, Watson Institute; Peter J. Dombrowski, associate professor, Strategic Department of the U.S. Naval War College; and Eddo Stern, artist/game developer, University of Southern California Graduate School of Cinema and Television. Moderator: J.C. Herz, principal, Joystick Nation 6:00-7:00 pm Roundtable Discussion Join conference participants in an informal discussion about the questions, issues, and themes raised during panel sessions. Moderator: Allen Feldman, recurring visiting professor, Anthropology of Everyday Life Program, Center for Humanities Studies, Ljubljana *Conference participants are subject to change* Subway Directions F to 14th Street & 6th Avenue 1/2/3/9 to 14th Street & 7th Avenue 4/5/6/L/N/Q/R/W to 14th Street-Union Square A/C/E to 14th Street & 8th Avenue Journal Square and Hoboken PATH trains to 14th Street & 6th Avenue Admission is free. Registration is encouraged. Seating is first come, first served. Register online at www.lmcc.net/futureofwar/main.html. For more information or to register by phone call 212-219-9401 x400. Conference Advisory Committee: Wayne Ashley, curator, Thundergulch, the new media initiative of LMCC James Der Derian, Watson Institute research professor of international relations and professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst Sondra Farganis, director, Vera List Center for Art and Politics, The New School Allen Feldman, recurring visiting professor, Anthropology of Everyday Life Program, Center for Humanities Studies, Ljubljana Joy Garnett, artist/curator Moukhtar Kocache, director, Visual and Media Arts, LMCC Thomas Y. Levin, culture and media theorist, professor at Princeton University Michael Randazzo, director, Computer Instruction Center, The New School Stephen Schlesinger, director, World Policy Institute, The New School Funders This conference is made possible with funding from American Express Company, May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, and in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. ------ End of Forwarded Message

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Re: Aljazeera back on line
by Bram Dov Abramson 14 Apr '03

14 Apr '03

jeremy hunsinger (jhuns(a)vt.edu) 12-4-2003: >there has been some discussion on this on elsewhere, apparently they >were akamai'd before, but akamai may have voided the contract, but >getting hold of the actually records of this would be pretty tough. The NY Times ran a pretty good piece on this (http://www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/2003-April/019695.html) For what it's worth, it seems that the site is now hosted in Sophia-Antipolis (so-called "Telecom Valley" near Nice, in France) by a data centre operator called NavLink. Who, in turn, is apparently a Delaware-registered company run out of Sophia-Antipolis that does a large chunk of its business in the Middle East, with offices in Beirut and in the tax-free Dubai Internet City. cheers Bram

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Art + War
by trebor scholz 12 Apr '03

12 Apr '03

http://79days.net http://get-carded.net "79 Days" (English version) links a live image search of current war reporting to a database of media coverage of the Kosovo war and interviews with Kosovars and Serbs. http://79days.net "Get Carded" is an art activist e.card site that allows open submission. The site launches with anti-war cards by 80 artists. http://get-carded.net Trebor Scholz

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by info＠saemsot.com 12 Apr '03

12 Apr '03

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2 opportunities from Europe: EU- IST Event - Milano, 2-4 Octobe r 2003
by Monica.Murero＠MERIT.unimaas.nl 12 Apr '03

12 Apr '03

Dear All, 1) A new Call for Ideas for Conference Workshops and Research Exhibits (May 5th), and 2)a call to present candidacies to the European IST Prize (May 15th) are now available. Best! Monica Murero AoIR Conference Chair - Maastricht 2002 Latest IST 2003 News * IST 2003 <http://europa.eu.int/information_society/istevent> Calls for Proposals Launched: Deadline May 5 The Calls for Ideas for Conference Workshops and Research Exhibits have just opened for IST 2003, to be held on October 2-4 in Milan in partnership with SMAU, one of Europe's largest ICT events. These Calls are open to all players in the sector, whether they are funded at the European, national or regional level, or even entirely within the private sector, and represent a unique opportunity to shape one of the most influential Information Society events of the year. The Calls close on May 5, and will be followed by a interactive Call for Networking Sessions. Read more and get involved through http://europa.eu.int/information_so <http://europa.eu.int/information_society/istevent> ciety/istevent * European IST Prize: Deadline 15 May The European IST Prize is the most distinguished European Prize for innovative products and services in the field of Information Society Technologies. Organised by Euro-CASE with the support of the IST Programme, it is open to companies or organisations from 33 countries with an innovative IST product with promising market potential. Applications close on May 15. The 20 Winners, each receiving EUR 5,000, will be announced in June and will exhibit at the IST 2003 event <http://europa.eu.int/information_society/istevent> . Three of them will be awarded the Grand Prize, worth EUR 200,000 each, at the EISTP Award Ceremony, held on the event's first day (October 2). More: http://europa.eu.int/information_so <http://europa.eu.int/information_society/istevent> ciety/istevent Profile <http://europa.eu.int/information_society/services/subscribe/index_en.ht m> | Information Society <http://europa.eu.int/information_society/newsroom> Newsroom | Information Society Website <http://europa.eu.int/information_society> | Contact <mailto:infso-newsroom@cec.eu.int> Us

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peace
by david silver 11 Apr '03

11 Apr '03

i attach a few preemptive apologies to this post: apologies if the topic strays from what some believe to be appropriate discussion areas for the list, apologies for leaping to a soapbox to exclaim a personal position. i am writing to inquire why there is so much silence regarding a topic that deserves a bit more than silence. the historian in me wonders what future historians will think when they look back into the archives of lists like air-l and notice that while the world is on fire, there were only a handful of posts about it. why is this? i run a resource center which puts me in communication with a ton of international scholars, most of whom like us focus their academic interests on the internet and digital culture. over the last few weeks, i've received a few dozen emails asking me about americans' positions about the impending war with iraq. i'm very nervous about being some kind of spokesperson for a country as large and diverse as the US but i'm equally nervous about some of the ideas they are getting from the press. (example: today's washington post reports a poll saying 7 out of 10 americans support a war with iraq, with or without UN support.) i think it's important to say that i live and thrive in seattle, a particularly progressive (in some ways) city that has a history of political action -- in the last few years along: the anti-WTO protests; indymedia.org, which started in part (please: if i'm wrong here someone correct me) in seattle; curbside recycling, which has spread to much of the country -- and cultural creation: jimi hendrix; grunge bands like nirvana and pearl jam; and in nearby olympia, the riot grrl movement. so perhaps my reality is tweaked (*always* a possibility, i freely and proudly admit), but here in seattle there is a massive anti-war movement: seen in the streets, on campuses, on storefronts and homes, and with furious and earnest INTERNET USE to organize, education, mobilize, and give counsel. while the mainstream media may portray americans as standing firmly behind their president select, there are massive numbers that think this war (and the series of wars that many of us fear will follow), the way in which it has been developing unilaterally, and the global disarray it will produce are insane, dangerous, undemocratic, and, well, suicidal. through talking with friends and colleagues -- via interpersonally, through the phone and letters, and especially OVER THE INTERNET -- i have come to believe that it is not only in seattle. such beliefs can be found throughout the country, as well as of course throughout the world. with HELP FROM THE INTERNET i have learned that many global protestors understand this: recent protests seem to me to be more anti-bush than anti-american but i could be wrong. i would love to hear more about this from anyone who cares to post. if some believe this has little to do with internet research, i offer, again, my preemptive apologies. but i think we are missing a massively important topic here: as my friend jay babcock has taught me, this war -- if and when it happens -- will be the first (or one of the first, that can certainly be debated) INTERNET WAR. by the phrase, jay means and i agree the first major war that will be conducted since a critical mass has gone online. what are the repercussions? it's possible -- i say possible; please save the "you technological determinist!" flames -- that the net's distributive nature and massive user base will allow a more free flow of information from the front lines. if and when the war begins, will we see gifs and jpegs of killed civilians, bombed out cities and villages, and general horror that will not be shown on CNN and fox news? will we read -- in the form of emails, list postings, and blogs, to name a few -- first hand accounts of what's going down rather than the canned press releases being fed to american (and others?) media outlets? perhaps an early example of this -- one that i, as a jew who has grave reservations about israeli imperialism, am a bit nervous to post in fear of fostering misguided anti-semitism -- can be found here: <http://www.palsolidarity.org/rachel.htm>. any interest in discussing this? peace, david

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