Nicole: My read on this article, as a person who works in electronic media on the corporate side now and formerly worked the news and advertising side, any publicity is good publicity when it is written up in The Post. I live in the Washington area and there are a lot of major institutions and historic ones too, and these folks know the real value of AOIR. Anyone with a little bit of curiosity will do their own checking on the web and find out what we are really all about as a group. By the way, I like Danah's work too and social networking was part of my dissertation and continues to be part of my ongoing research that I also utilize when I am creating content, blogs, and video productions. I am sure that you are aware that some of the old school versus new school thing will always be an issue in academia. We don't have to worry about folks who are probably a little jealous of us. What we need to do is to continue to support one another like we almost always do! I hate to sound like a producer, but many of us often say ... "Reporters always put a slant on stuff!, And actors are always trying to interpret when I just gave them direction!" LOL! -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Nicole B Ellison Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 7:24 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] snide, cute, ignorant, surprising Hi, Having spoken with Monica I was also very disappointed by the snarky tone of the article. I was actually excited by the topic - social network studies as an academic discipline - but the points that were pulled out of our interview were nowhere near the most interesting ones (in my mind at least). Namely, that this field is one that is particularly important to study from a variety of different disciplinary lenses and methodologies. My point about AOIR (which didn't make it into the article) was that it was particularly vital for this reason - that it helps to prevent situations where scholars in different disciplines are saying the same thing but not citing one another. That's what I value about this organization. I guess the juicy "young scholar resented by sheeplike professors who cite one another and use big words unnecessarily" angle was too juicy to resist. But it is a shame that this vibrant area of research is presented as just the flavor of the month. Nicole _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/