The 2-part title of this post refers to the 2 themes of the new issue of JCMC. One part is on social aspects of search engines (edited by Eszter Hargittai) and the ohter is on online religious stuff (edited by Charles Ess, et al). The table of contents is below my sig. Jen Kayahara and I have an article in the Searching section that is relevant to the "lurking" discussion this list has been having. Two points: 1. I want to repeat the obvious, but oft-forgotten, truism: people have lives off-line too. (even me.) Many readers/lurkers carry the info back to their off-line contacts, or send email comments about what they have read to their friends. 2. Jen & I found (using "Connected Lives" data) that there is a dialectic between getting info offline and checking it online, then discussing it offline, then discussing it online, etc. Indeed, we make a giant leap from our small Toronto sample and hazard a guess/supposition that the two-step flow of communication idea is much less viable in the Internet age. It's so easy to gather info and to communicate that there is often a multi-step flow of communication. Barry Wellman _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _____________________________________________________________________ http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue3/ Special Theme I: The Social, Political, Economic, and Cultural Dimensions of Search Engines Eszter Hargittai, Guest editor 1. The Social, Political, Economic, and Cultural Dimensions of Search Engines: An Introduction Eszter Hargittai This collection explores how search engines are embedded in social processes and institutions that influence how they function and how they are used. 2. Heuristic and Systematic Use of Search Engines Werner Wirth, Tabea Böcking, Veronika Karnowski, and Thilo von Pape Different types of cognitive processing of search results may occur, depending on situational demands and the Web experience and domain-specific involvement of the user. 3. In Google We Trust: Users' Decisions on Rank, Position, and Relevance Bing Pan, Helene Hembrooke, Thorsten Joachims, Lori Lorigo, Geri Gay, and Laura Granka Users have substantial trust in Google's ability to rank search results by their true relevance, even when abstracts are manipulated to be less relevant. 4. Searching for CultureHigh and Low Jennifer Kayahara and Barry Wellman Torontonians first obtain cultural information from interpersonal ties or other offline sources and then turn to the Web for efficiency and up-to-date information. 5. Learning to Search and Searching to Learn: Income, Education, and Experience Online Philip N. Howard and Adrienne Massanari Years of online experience, frequency of use, and sophistication with multiple search engines can overcome socio-economic status in predicting how active a person is in searching across different topics. 6. Is Relevance Relevant? Market, Science, and War: Discourses of Search Engine Quality Elizabeth Van Couvering Fairness and representativeness are not key determiners of search engine quality in the minds of search engine producers. Rather, they invoke alternative standards of quality, such as customer satisfaction and relevance. 7. Equal Representation by Search Engines? A Comparison of Websites across Countries and Domains Liwen Vaughan and Yanjun Zhang A study of search engine coverage of websites in four domains from four countries finds that U.S. sites received higher coverage rates than their counterparts in other countries. 8. Google Bombing from a Time Perspective Judit Bar-Ilan The behavior of Google bombs over time seems to be dependent on the type of Google bomb (humor, ego, or ideological) and on the community promoting the bombed page. Special Theme II: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Religion and Computer-Mediated Communication Charles Ess, Guest editor (with Akira Kawabata and Hiroyuki Kurosaki) 9. Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Religion and Computer-Mediated Communication Charles Ess (with Akira Kawabata and Hiroyuki Kurosaki) Individually and collectively, the articles in this collection highlight characteristics that foster or hinder religions' migration online. 10. Diaspora on the Electronic Frontier: Developing Virtual Connections with Sacred Homelands Christopher Helland Diaspora religious groups use the Internet for long-distance ritual practice and cyber pilgrimage to connect to their homelands. 11. Internet Use among Religious Followers: Religious Postmodernism in Japanese Buddhism Kenshin Fukamizu Japanese Buddhists who participate in online interaction have a more critical attitude toward their faith systems than their non-Internet using counterparts. 12. Online-Religion in Japan: Websites and Religious Counseling from a Comparative Cross-Cultural Perspective Akira Kawabata and Takanori Tamura The new Shinto-derived religions Konko-kyo- and Tenrikyo- provide successful Internet-based religious counseling services. 13. Conflict and Intolerance in a Web Community: Effects of a System Integrating Dialogues and Monologues Mitsuharu M. Watanabe Users less tolerant of different views post more often to the BBS than to the weblogs of the Spiritual Navigator system, which is designed to balance conflict with stability. 14. Who's Got the Power? Religious Authority on the Internet Heidi Campbell There is a need to distinguish layers of authority in online religious contexts in terms of hierarchy, structure, ideology, and text. 15. Islam, Jihad, and Terrorism in Post 9/11 Arabic Discussion Boards Rasha A. Abdulla Message exchanges on three Internet discussion boards in the Arab and Muslim world shed light on how Muslims viewed the attacks from a religious point of view. 16. Islam and Online Imagery on Malaysian Tourist Destination Websites Noor Hazarina Hashim, Jamie Murphy, and Nazlida Muhamad Hashim Malaysian tourism destination organizations display few Muslim images on their websites. 17. Virtually Sacred: The Performance of Asynchronous Cyber Rituals in Online Spaces Stephen Jacobs Designers envisage the Christian Virtual Church and Hindu Virtual Temple websites in terms of conventional notions of sacred space and ritual performance. 18. Technological Modernization, the Internet, and Religion in Singapore Randolph Kluver and Pauline H. Cheong Technological modernization and religion co-exist and mutually reinforce one another within the Singaporean context, according to religious leaders.