Altho I wonder if IM has mostly given way to texting. Haven't checked the data, though. Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________ On Tue, 30 Jun 2009, Robert Mason wrote:
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:08:36 -0700 From: Robert Mason <rmmason@u.washington.edu> To: Barry Wellman <wellman@chass.utoronto.ca>, aoir list <air-l@aoir.org> Subject: RE: [Air-L] in dis-praise of the Chronicle
Barry, your next-to-last paragraph is on target, IMO: think of all the predictions of "death of...because of the introduction of..." [AM radio...FM radio; radio...TV; movies...TV;...the list goes on]
It's not true of all technologies, of course, but it's true for communications technologies/media.
Bob
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Barry Wellman Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 4:08 PM To: aoir list; Denise N. Rall; Catherine Middleton; Peter Timusk Subject: [Air-L] in dis-praise of the Chronicle
I was appalled by the Chronicle's article -- especially the headline -- on the putative death of e-lists such as this one.
First, they gave no systematic evidence, just some anecdotes. Although the article was more nuanced than the headline: "on the one hand, on the other hand." Yet, still anecdotes.
Second, they ignored the organizational ecology research that has shown that some organizations die and some get born all the time.
Third, the posts by my fellow Canucks Catherine Middleton and Peter Timusk clearly showed the difference between 140 character Tweets (which I do a fair amount) and posts to this list (ibid). Both of their posts were too nuanced to be short tweets.
Fourth, as Marc Smith can show you, even the older Bulletin Boards are still thriving.
Indeed, my hunch is that each communication form adds on to the other, rather than displacing it, which is why I never get much writing done (today's excusive, anyway).
Happy Canada Day to All (except Janet Napolitano),
Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________
S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________
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