March 2013
2 posts
6 tags
Ship of Fools →
“the magazine of Christian unrest”
5 tags
“In [Tricia] Wang’s theory, a network like Facebook, which enforces real name...”
– oh i love it i love it i love it. i love it. yes. thank you tricia. thank you.
From An Xiao Mina’s The Social Ties That Unbind (via kenyatta)
I’m really big into talking about identity creation and the internet. This will be rumbling around my head for a while.
(via meganwest)
I love Tricia....
February 2013
1 post
8 tags
Google searches expose racial bias, says study of... →
as reported on BBC.
it may be that the search engines are reflecting society’s own prejudices
emphasis added
November 2012
1 post
10 tags
Hyman Victor: re-animating the past on Facebook →
a great-grandson discovers documents about his great grandfather. Creates a Facebook profile for him. Fascinating way to memorialise the past in the present.
HT @davidfg
October 2012
1 post
10 tags
September 2012
5 posts
10 tags
“What mainly goes up… is not the core network but the number of casual...”
– The Social Brain Hypothesis (Dunbar, 1998) tested on Facebook, using generic behavioural closeness metrics (number of friends who people a) post on their wall, status updates or photos; or b) message/chat with), by the social network’s in-house sociologist Cameron Marlow.
from The...
8 tags
...how headlines can be more easily misunderstood... →
from the readers’ editor at The Guardian
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“People often wander around cemeteries and look at gravestones and wonder who...”
– Interactive gravestones: how the dead live on, online
The Guardian
timely. just finished editing the chapter on death yesterday.
6 tags
Power lunching with wizards and warriors →
as powerful as the Fortune 500? As the Bilderberg Group? A 2006 article on the We Know World of Warcraft guild, by Daniel Terdiman
6 tags
How Anonymous Picks Targets, Launches Attacks, and... →
Quinn Norton’s exquisite deconstruction of the Anonymous hacker collective, describing in as much poetic detail as Julian Dibbell did in 1993 in the Village Voice about the text-based community LambdaMOO, the stages this de-organised organisation went through to become a fully-fledged and untied community capable of “focused, disruptive action.”
August 2012
3 posts
8 tags
...the subject, even if not normatively... →
Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51(3), 629-636.
An overview on PsychWiki.
the original article’s abstract:
The effects of two different types of social influence upon individual judgment were investigated: normative and informational. Prior studies...
8 tags
“A little later a beastlord joined the group… Networking through blood...”
– in Jakobsson, > & Taylor, T.L. (2003). The Sopranos Meets Everquest: Social Networking in Massively Multiplayer Online Games. MelbourneDAC2003, Melbourne, Australia.
abstract:
This article explores the ways social interaction plays an integral role in the game EverQuest. Through our...
8 tags
Sonia Livingstone on Children and the Internet →
an excellent and balanced assessment of the evidence. Well worth a listen.
July 2012
13 posts
7 tags
10 tags
Working from home: leisure gain or leisure loss? →
Cameron, S. & Fox, M. (2011). Working from home: leisure gain or leisure loss? In Cameron, S. (ed.) Handbook on the Economics of Leisure: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd: 128-152.
Google Books link.
What I say about it in the work & leisure chapter:
when the world can be your workplace, and when a customer is now able to enter your shop at any time of day or night, if can impact life-work...
11 tags
Strategic identities in cyberspace →
Talamo, A. & Ligorio, B. (2001, Feb). Strategic identities in cyberspace. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 4(1): 109-22.
abstract only.
I leaned on this paper in my Masters in Social Psychology, focussing on the ways that kids use online systems in a similar way as offline systems to develop their sense of self.
abstract:
This paper aims at describing, according to the recent advances in...
11 tags
EU Kids Online →
Livingstone, S., Hadon, L, Gorzif, A & Olafsson, K. (2011). EU Kids Online. London School of Economics and Political Science.
full text pdf
Six years on from a first report about how kids in the UK use the web (some harrowing accounts about their not-so-critical consumption of content - intel on this is covered here by a long-time-ago-self: notes from the project director’s keynote...
11 tags
Cyberchondria: Studies of the Escalation of... →
White, R. W. & Horvitz, E. (2008). Cyberchondria: Studies of the Escalation of Medical Concerns in Web Search. Microsoft Research.
full text pdf
abstract:
The World Wide Web provides an abundant source of medical information. This information can assist people who are not healthcare professionals to better understand health and illness, and to provide them with feasible explanations for...
11 tags
“The experience of losing our ‘net connection becomes more & more like...”
– Sparrow, B., Liu, J., and Wegner, D. M. (2011, 5 Aug). Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips. Science, 333(6043): 776-778.
abstract only, tho I have access via LSE.
The advent of the Internet, with sophisticated algorithmic search engines, has made...
7 tags
“…a thirst for instant gratification and quick fixes and a lack of patience...”
– Imagining the Internet, a 2012 report from Elon University and the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
a kind-of abstract of the relevant attention section
Teens-to-20s to benefit and suffer due to ‘always-on’ lives. From their amazing ability to juggle many tasks to their thirst...
8 tags
“What counts most is what is most scarce now, namely attention.”
– Goldhaber, M. (1997). Attention economy and the Net. First Monday, 2(4).
full text pdf
abstract:
If the Web and the Net can be viewed as spaces in which we will increasingly live our lives, the economic laws we will live under have to be natural to this new space. These laws turn out to be quite...
9 tags
falling in love online: the difference between...
Two more papers from Monica Whitty, both of which are over a decade old, but are still v interes to consider, particularly as the rules of the game in even the leanest of media (text-only) are still the same as the richest (f2f).
First: what relationships mean
Whitty, M. & Gavin, J. (2001). Age/Sex/Location: Uncovering the Social Cues in the Development of Online...
13 tags
cyber-infidelity. some research.
Monica Whitty (@cyberpsy on twitter) is a prolific online relationship researcher. But rather than overwhelm this blog with post after post after post summarising her extensive work on cyber-infidelity, I thought I’d consolidate her work here. Read on for links, notes and quotes from three papers, including what kinds of relationships people develop online, why they cheat, and what online...
9 tags
LoveGeist: Love Landscape (a 2009 report for...
Whitty, M., Buchanan, T. & Watson, A. (2009). LoveGeist: Love Landscape. Match International.
full text pdf
note and quote:
We found that 43.3% of men and 61.9% of women had become fussier about who they date over the last year.
I wonder to what extent this is because of the process of dating via technology. As Bernie Hogan says in the OII report Me, My Spouse and the Internet,
in the past...
10 tags
From 1966: Sex differences in dating aspirations &...
Coombs, R. H. & Kenkel, W.F. (1966). Sex differences in dating aspirations and satisfaction with computer-selected partners. Journal of Marriage & Family, Vol 1: 62-66.
firewall. Abstract:
The structural-functional views of Talcott Parsons are used as the rationale for predicting sex differences in dating aspirations and partner satisfaction. Blind dates were arranged for 300 male and 300...
9 tags
Looking for Love in so many Places:...
Whitty, M. & Buchanan, T. (2009). Looking for Love in so many Places: Characteristics of Online Daters and Speed Daters. Interpersona 3(2).
full text pdf
abstract:
This study examined the characteristics of individuals who are more likely to engage in speed dating and online dating, and the types of people who are more likely to prefer these forms of dating. Older individuals and those who...
June 2012
17 posts
8 tags
Online Dating Romance Scam (report) →
Whitty, M. T. & Buchanan, T. (2012). The Online Dating Romance Scam: A Serious Crime. CyberPsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15(3), 181-183.
full text pdf
abstract
The Online Romance Scam is a relatively new form of fraud that became apparent in about 2008. In this crime, criminals pretend to initiate a relationship through online dating sites then defraud their victims of large...
9 tags
The Role of the Internet in Reconfiguring...
Dutton, W, H., Helsper, E.J., Whitty, M.T., Li, N., Buckwalter, J.G. & Lee, E. (2009) The Role of the Internet in Reconfiguring Marriages: a Cross-National Study. Interpersona, 3(2), 3-18.
abstract
This study explores the role of the Internet in reconfiguring marriages, introducing couples that meet in person and later marry, through a set of online surveys of married couples in Britain,...
7 tags
Andrew Hunt and Lisa Grosso
The first internet marriage, November 1996.
the marriage of Andrew Hunt from Wellington, Somerset, England, and Lisa Grosso from West Palm Beach, Florida, USA on November 1st 1996 is the first officially recognised joining in matrimony, live, of two people over the Internet.
11 tags
“How You Met Me: We describe the locations, relationships, and circumstances that...”
– Adamic, L. A., Lento, T.M. and Fiore, A.T. (2012). How You Met Me. ICWSM’12 short paper.
full text pdf
According to their analysis of responses of more than 2.5 million posts to the popular Facebook meme, “Leave one memory of how you met me…” from July 2010 to Nov 2011, the...
15 tags
“sharing personal information with students (on Twitter) can increase the...”
– Johnson, K. A. (2011). The effect of Twitter posts on students’ perceptions of instructor credibility. Learning, Media and Technology, Vol 36(1): 21-38.
full text pdf
A small-scale study that shows an increase in students’ perceptions of instructor credibility (competence,...
10 tags
“the public do not seek out foreign news online”
– Moore, M. (2010, Nov). Shrinking World: The decline of international reporting in the British press. Media Standards Trust.
Good overview of the shift in our interests in news consumption and news investigation based on a content analysis of four major UK newspapers during the period of 1979 and...
11 tags
“In our study we witnessed a divided blogosphere: liberals and conservatives...”
– Adamic, L & Glance, N. (2005). The political blogosphere and the 2004 US Election: Divided they blog. Proceedings of the 3rd international workshop on Link discovery, p.36-43.
full text pdf
A lovely example of the echo chamber effect in online conversations. In this paper, Lada and Natalie...
10 tags
“apparently trivial uses and features of SNS actually play an important role in...”
– Radovanovic, D. & Ragnedda, M. (2012). Small talk in the digital age: Making sense of phatic posts. In Proceedings of the #MSM2012 Workshop. 16 April 2012, Lyon, France.
pdf
A great position paper about how our apparent nonsense on twitter and facebook actually serves an important social...
9 tags
Online Jargon →
jargon from online communities
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Freetown Christiania (& the boundaries of... →
I often compare the idealism of online communities with the idealism of the Christiania commune in Copenhagen, DK.
Initially open and free, with an anything-goes attitude, as soon as peole who didn’t share their ideals moved in an exploited the openness and freeness, hierarchies and social structures emerged, dividing the group into people who believe in the original ethos and those who are...
9 tags
howard rheingold's | the virtual community →
A chapter on online community isn’t complete without reference to this.
Profoundly idealistic yet deliciously prescient, Rheingold’s loving description of the WELL - one of the most influential collections of people in the modern digital world - is an excellent primer in what was then a brand new phenomenon and what now seems almost invisibly commonplace.
11 tags
“Gemeinschaft (often translated as community) is an association in which...”
– Ferdinand Tonnies’ Gemeinschaft is a sociological definition of community that is distinct from its conceptual partner Gesellschaft.
from Wikipedia
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Online community, from The Oxford Handbook of...
This was a very useful chapter when I was writing about community and networks for my PhD thesis in 2009. Social Networks and Online Community, by Caroline Haythornthwaite, is a great overview of the main topics of interest in trying to untanlge the effects of the web on our social environment.
Here are a few of my notes:
* can community exist without a geographic touchstone? Haythornthwaite...
9 tags
This article analyses the emergence of complicit... →
Ibrahim, Y. (2008). The new risk communities: Social networking sites and risk. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 4(2): 245-253.
abstract only!
tho i have access to full text. it’s rather doom-heavy.
here’s the conclusion (emphasis added):
The popularity of social networking sites heralds the emergence of complicit risk communities where personal information...
9 tags
“the officer went to Facebook.com…Not only did it help him identify Chiles,...”
– Cop snares college pals in own Web - Chicago Tribune (3 August 2006)
This is one of the first reported incidents in which Facebook was used to identify a person who broke the law (picked up from this JCMC article from 2009. More recently, a Facebook photo was used as partial evidence to arrest a...
11 tags
Facebook's data pool: Europe vs. Facebook →
A detailed description of the categories of data that Facebook retains about its users, from last location, events (and RSVP status), emails (deleted and not) and alternative names to favourite quotes, friends, de-friends, pokes and “vanity”.
It comes from Austrian law student Max Schrems’ campaign to “make facebook more transparent”. He began using the service in...
8 tags
A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749 →
from The New York Times, 9 Aug 2006.
April 2012
22 posts
9 tags
“Does the Internet change how we die and mourn? An overview”
– Walter, T., Hourizi, R., Moncur, W. and Pitsillides, S. (2011). Does the internet change how we die and mourn? An overview. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 64(4): 275-302.
full text (pdf)
Very interesting overview of recent research. Here’s the abstract:
The article outlines the issues...
8 tags
“In traditional Chinese culture, people burn paper offerings for gods, ghosts,...”
– Bell, G. (2011, Dec). Life, Death, and the iPad: Cultural Symbols and Steve Jobs. Communications of the ACM, 54(12): 24-25.
7 tags
Daniel Leviton, 1931-2011 →
Dan Leviton taught me Death Education at the University of Maryland’s summer school in 1996 when I was topping up my credits for graduation from Oberlin College. It was the best class I’ve ever taken, and the notes that I took then have formed the backbone for the death chapter in Untangling the Web.
Here’s a (draft) excerpt from the introduction to that chapter:
It was the...
9 tags
“Web-based memorializing bears a diverse array of characteristics, only some of...”
– Foot, K., Warnick, B. and Schneider, S. M. (2005). Web-Based Memorializing After September 11: Toward a Conceptual Framework. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 4.
I’m not sure I agree with this. Online and offline memorialisation sites may have different forms, but I...
9 tags
“..all societies see death as a transition for the person who dies. How people...”
– from Parkes, C.M., Laungani, P. and Young, B. (1997). Death and Bereavement Across Cultures. Psychology Press: Hove, UK.
And a nice reality check for Modern (Wo)Man:
Each generation and each society has come up with its own solutions to the problem of death and has enshrined them in a complex...
9 tags
Mourning (Encyclopedia of Death and Dying) →
A trove of conceptual information on mourning from The Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. Topics on this page include conceptual development:
Concepts from three theoretically and clinically related domains are being incorporated into the thinking about mourning. Each has generated a number of important implications about mourning
distinctions from grief:
Grief refers to the process of...
12 tags
“spiritualism is an excellent focal point from which the various dynamics...”
– One example of the cultural contextuality of death practices and beliefs:
As with Victorian religion and society at large, spiritualism sought to successfully integrate the traditional spiritual beliefs with the new tenets and methods of science (and the new confidence inspired by science). One... 