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Liu He

Boeder - 6 views

shared by Liu He on 21 Nov 11 - Cached
  • Habermas
  • Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit
  • yet their format effectively prevents interaction and deprives the public of the opportunity to say something and to disagree
    • alperin
       
      i'm confused as to how electronic mass media prevents interaction. I guess its in comparison to meeting in the salons? 
    • Howard Rheingold
       
      from Habermas view, the way that more people were influenced by radio, print, and the nascent television culture by a few who controlled the programming, combined with the emerging craft of public relations, with all the transmission of information going one-way from the few to the many. Habermas might see the #OWS as more akin to the salons -- the part where people engage in rational critical debate about the issues that effect their lives. But what Habermas didn't count on and personally refused to answer to me was the effect of Internet-based media on the public sphere. If he has a clue, he isn't talking. And I suspect that he lacks a clue. He once said that he doubted real discourse could happen in "a series of chat rooms." I've learned over the years that "series of chat rooms" is a signal that the person expressing an opinion about social media actually knows next to nothing about the subject. More interesting might be what Adorno and Horkheimer had to say.
  • ...40 more annotations...
  • advertising
  • the media serve as vehicles for generating and managing consensus and promoting capitalist culture rather than fulfill their original function as organs of public debate
  • arguments are transmuted into symbols to which one cannot respond by arguing but only by identifying with them.
    • alperin
       
      maybe this is the answer to my question above
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I agree that it is difficult to have true debates with electronic media when it is ultimately controlled by someone else. How much freedom can you have when the tools you are using are monitored? But I think social media plays a large role in organizing people to participate in the real world public sphere.
    • S Chou
    • Liu He
       
      That's interesting. Who are those using the Internet? What do they want to use Internet for? What can they achieve?
  • critical publicity distinct from the state and the economy
  • "critical theory"
    • alperin
       
      If you're curious about Critical Theory, there is a course offered next term: http://cl.ly/Byxe . Its called Critical Pedagogy, but it will be a great introduction to critical theory.
  • cooperation rather than competition
  • Mitchell Stephens
    • alperin
       
      prof at the ed. school at Stanford
    • alperin
       
      I should add that Habermas is still writing and publishing, including on issues of around media:  Political Communication in Media Society: Does Democracy Still Enjoy an Epistemic Dimension? The Impact of Normative Theory on Empirical Research. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2006.00280.x/full
  • The prospect of the technical capabilities of a near–ubiquitous high–bandwidth Net in the hands of a small number of commercial interests has dire political implications. Whoever gains the political edge on this technology will be able to use the technology to consolidate power.
  • "the Internet is dominated by white, well off, English speaking, educated males, most of whom are USA citizens,"
    • alperin
       
      I don't have recent numbers, but this has changed significantly since 1996. Although there is still an imbalance, I am sure the demographic that has access is not as easy to define as it was in the mid-90s
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I found this link - it seems the majority of internet users are in Asia. I wondered why I don't come across more Chinese sites. Perhaps it's because I don't seek them out particularly being an English speaker. But maybe it's not really the users that are important. I might argue that it's the producers of content that are highly affecting the discourse online and the demographics described here are fairly accurate. It's one thing to have access to the internet and be a consumer of content, but another to have the time, energy and be educated enough to contribute in meaningful ways.
    • Jennifer Bundy
    • S Chou
       
      I would also add the power of (wielded by) search to this discussion.
    • alperin
       
      I once asked the head of Google Scholar about adding a 'language' feature on the search. He replied: "can you think of an example where your search does not define the language you want results in?" ... i.e. if you searched for chinese words, you'd get chinese results.
    • Liu He
       
      Language could be a barrier to forming "one" Internet that involves all participants in the world. Otherwise we are unable to communicate effectively.
  • "What public relations does, in entering public debate, is to disguise the interests it represents — cloaking them in appeals such as ‘public welfare’ and the ‘national interest’ — thus making contemporary debate a faked version"
    • alperin
       
      I like the use of 'fake' here
  • the media are the public sphere
    • alperin
       
      do you agree?
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Not completely, although this might change after our class when we talk about the definition of public sphere. I think the public sphere is free of the political influence that can be found in popular media, but media does drive topics of debate in the public sphere and can be a forum for discussion. But my feeling is that conversations in the public sphere lead to political action and I'm not sure that is congruent with media that is influenced by political parties
    • alperin
       
      Given that this article was published in 2005, I am surprised by the inclusion of this outdated notion. Does the author think its accurate? Did the reviewers also?
    • alperin
       
      This reminds me of Francis Fukuyama's End of History. Somehow supposes that liberal democracy is the best form of government, and that we can only hope to refine it/tweak it. If we assume this is true, then past forms of democracy seem like a fair basis of comparison. I am not a fukuyamaist.  http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rizkhan/2010/11/201011111191189923.html
  • The concept of the civil society appears to be dated in what is essentially a network society.
  • unitary character of the public sphere
  • transforming
  • In a sense, the public sphere has always been virtual: Its meaning lies in its abstraction.
    • Howard Rheingold
       
      "The public sphere," like "democracy" is a reification: there's no real "thing" there. It's an abstraction to describe a bundle of interrelated behaviors and situations that do happen: people either do or do not have freedom from fear of arrest when making public political statements; governments either do or do not let people know how decisions are made; people do or do not discuss issues that concern them; "public opinion" (another reification) either does or does not influence policy. Taken together, these constitute the idea of the public sphere. That it is a bundle of ideas, and therefore "virtual," does not mean it is unreal.
  • some ideas are more useful than others
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I do find it's easy to find validation for your ideas on the internet because so many people are involved. And some ideas are just not the best...
  • consumerism poses a threat to the public sphere
  • a mode of discourse is already established, which actively discourages other modes
  • New communications technologies are being used in ways that extend democratic communication practices. As networks become structurally decentralised, ever wider publics gain access to them in ways that lead to an increase in the rate and density of public exchange.
  • lost much of its original political character in favour of commercialism and entertainment.
    • S Chou
       
      How much of politics today would you qualify as commercialism and entertainment? 
    • Liu He
       
      Journalism may be in bigger crisis in terms of that
  • public debate has shifted from the dissemination of reliable information to the formation of public opinion
  • New forms of citizenship and public life are simultaneously enabled by new technology and restricted by market power and surveillance.
  • a cathartic role, allowing the public to feel involved rather than to advance actual participation
  • public sphere is not just a "marketplace of ideas" or an "information exchange depot," but also a major vehicle for generating and distributing culture.
  • "transparency"
  • tendency towards concentration of power when no adequate measures are taken to counteract this process
  • Theoretically, a network is both able to disperse and to concentrate power.
    • S Chou
       
      Is this operating under the assumption of one constant network? It seems that new technologies allow for the rapid rise, fall, and constant creation of new networks possible - which seems to counteract this tendency.
  • transnational and specialist news media increasingly serve a well–educated elite, while national and local media increasingly cater to the taste of disempowered social groups for whom globalisation only poses a threat
  • Dominant currents in the philosophy of technology thus essentialise technology, decontextualise it, and abstract it from culture and human meaning
  • it is on the verge of extinction.
    • Liu He
       
      Isn't it exagerated?
  • public sphere’s pre–eminent institution, the press
    • Liu He
       
      Is journalism today still the key to the formation of public opinion?
  • If their ability to form political will, debate issues and influence society is expanded by the Internet, this is no way resembles a truly participative discourse of democracy
  • Notions of commodification and commercialisation still have their relevance in today’s mass communication theory: They pose a permanent threat to the cultural quality of media products and cannot be ignored.
  • He believes that the Internet can reverse the tide of public disdain for the media by providing a user experience that is immediate, interactive, and intimate. Bardoel (1996) points out that because of the increasing individualization and segmentation in communication such notions as "community" and "public debate" should be taken less for granted
  • "instrumental journalism."
  • Publicity loses its critical function in favour of a staged display; 4
  • Rather, the public sphere transcends these physical appearances as an abstract forum for dialogue and ideology–free public opinion, a lively debate on multiple levels within society. Interesting in this regard is that the German word for public relations is Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, which could both be translated as "work within the public sphere" or "work on the public sphere."
Liu He

The New Atlantis » Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism - 3 views

  • On social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook, our modern self-portraits
  • carefully manipulated
  • interactive
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • ephemeral
  • Does this technology, with its constant demands to collect (friends and status), and perform (by marketing ourselves), in some ways undermine our ability to attain what it promises—a surer sense of who we are and where we belong?
  • There are sites specifically for younger children, such as Club Penguin
    • S Chou
       
      What's in it for young children and social networking media? Here is what they tell parents: http://www.clubpenguin.com/parents/ 
  • the activities social networking sites promote are precisely the ones weak ties foster, like rumor-mongering, gossip, finding people, and tracking the ever-shifting movements of popular culture and fad. If this is our small world, it is one that gives its greatest attention to small things.
  • entrenched barriers of race and social class undermine the idea that we live in a small world. Computer networks have not removed those barriers.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Computer networks maybe increasing the barriers between communities just through access
    • alperin
       
      Work I've read on real social networks (such as a network of every MSN Messenger conversation) show that the average shortest path length is < 8. Of course, this is still restricted to people who are digitally connected, but MSN is a relatively low technological barrier.
    • S Chou
       
      The digital divide can be hard to keep track of given the page of technological change, but here is an interesting (if slightly dated) place to start: http://wireless.ictp.it/simulator/
  • protean selves
  • Today, our self-portraits are democratic and digital
  • one giant living dynamic learning experience about consumers
    • S Chou
       
      Actual article, if anyone is interested in the business point of view. http://customerlistening.typepad.com/customer_listening/2007/01/pg_boosts_socia.html
  • certain kinds of connections easier, but because they are governed not by geography or community mores but by personal whim, they free users from the responsibilities that tend to come with membership in a community.
  • The secret is to tie the acquisition of friends, compliments and status—spoils that humans will work hard for—to activities that enhance the site.
    • S Chou
       
      Implies that, on some level, real human needs are being met.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      The antedote on choosing between 2 pages - is it because we are blindly following based on numbers or is the pattern about authenticity (more people=more reliable)? Maybe the two are inseparable and it doesn't really matter...
  • Real intimacy requires risk—the risk of disapproval, of heartache, of being thought a fool. Social networking websites may make relationships more reliable, but whether those relationships can be humanly satisfying remains to be seen.
  • level of social involvement decreases
    • S Chou
       
      Does not mean causality.
  • people you might have (should have?) fallen out of touch with—it is now easier than ever to reconnect to those people
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      This brings up the idea that maybe there is a reason that we lose track of people or outgrow them. Now, with Facebook it is very awkward to acknowledge that you are no longer friends - and that it's not necessarily a bad thing
  • we should be asking isn’t how closely are we connected, but rather what kinds of communities and friendships are we creating
    • S Chou
       
      Are there different expectations around social networks and their consumers/users/people? In other words, why do we seem more offended by a social network calling their target audience consumers than we would say, a shampoo company?
    • S Chou
       
      Like multi-tasking, which originated in reference to computers, is this another instance of computer-based concepts and languages seeping into our cultural sense of self? 
    • S Chou
       
      MySpace hosts a population of primarily young people, to what extent is age and maturity not being considered in this argument? 
    • S Chou
       
      Does this argument ignore the degree to which social networks are pathways and representations of friendship, and not the end-all-be-all?
  • Vital statistics, glimpses of bare flesh, lists of favorite bands and favorite poems all clamor for our attention—and it is the timeless human desire for attention that emerges as the dominant theme of these vast virtual galleries.
  • “an entirely new way for consumers to express their individuality online.” (It is noteworthy that Microsoft refers to social networkers as “consumers” rather than merely “users” or, say, “people.”)
  • it relies on e-mail to determine whether “any two people in the world can be connected via ‘six degrees of separation.’
Liu He

The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin - The Garrett Hardin Society - Articles - 5 views

  • In our day (though not in earlier times) technical solutions are always welcome.
    • alperin
       
      a truism?
    • S Chou
       
      An assumption.
  • courage
    • alperin
       
      Now I know where the inspiration came for the scene from the greatest hacker movie of all time (spoiler alert): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHWjlCaIrQo
    • alperin
       
      " This is the "lesson" scene from the movie War Games. Where we learn that the only way to win in Nuclear War is not to play."
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  • It is fair to say that most people who anguish over the population problem are trying to find a way to avoid the evils of overpopulation without relinquishing any of the privileges they now enjoy.
  • the solution they seek cannot be found
  • The population problem cannot be solved in a technical way, any more than can the problem of winning the game of tick-tack-toe.
  • "Space" is no escape
    • alperin
       
      this is the equivalent of not playing
    • alperin
       
      at this point, I am beginning to get impatient. Enough set up, lets get to the point.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Agreed. And the tone of the preceeding few paragraphs is really pessimistic...
  • We want the maximum good per person; but what is good? To one person it is wilderness, to another it is ski lodges for thousands. To one it is estuaries to nourish ducks for hunters to shoot; to another it is factory land. Comparing one good with another is, we usually say, impossible because goods are incommensurable. Incommensurables cannot be compared.
    • alperin
       
      OK. Now we're defining useful concepts. If we're going to talk about the 'commons', then we have to understand how each of us uses (and appreciates) different aspects of the commons. The fact we see different things of value, does not take away from its 'common'ality
  • Any people that has intuitively identified its optimum point will soon reach it, after which its growth rate becomes and remains zero.
    • alperin
       
      I questions this. By this definition, the way we've structured modern economies will ensure we never reach the optimum. Our economies are set up to always keep growing.
  • The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
  • As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?" This utility has one negative and one positive component. 1) The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since the herdsman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is nearly +1. 2) The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since, however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular decision-making herdsman is only a fraction of -1.
    • alperin
       
      you will always hear the tragedy of the commons explained with the use of these sheep. These three short paragraphs summarize it nicely.
    • Liu He
       
      Is it because it happens in the agricultural society? Almost every economics text book begins with such a story.
  • Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit--in a world that is limited.
    • alperin
       
      and this phrase summarizes it even more succinctly
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      My only problem with the cattle or sheep analogy is that there is someone making the decision about whether or not to add more. His argument seems to be concerning the optimal population of humanity. If that were the case, we would be akin to the cattle. And do the cattle have any idea of the tragedy of the commons? Who would be the higher authority figure weighing the costs and benefits of adding one more?
    • alperin
       
      I don't understand what he's trying to say here with the parking meters.
    • S Chou
       
      Yeah, there is an odd analogy here that free parking is just like the commons but this doesn't really work for me because parking slots are a set and clearly defined resource. The city as a whole does not lose parking or destroy by making it free (although you could make the argument that they lose some tax revenue). There just isn't really a comparable tragedy here. On the other hand, if the city had allowed for parking ANYWHERE, on lawns, in public parks, on sidewalks, that might make more sense to me.  
    • Liu He
       
      so the key would be the scarcity of resources?
  • Plainly, we must soon cease to treat the parks as commons or they will be of no value anyone.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Are they true commons though? The park is run by the government, who could limit traffic through them by raising the cost of entry
    • S Chou
       
      I agree here. A number of national parks all have different barriers to entry, and they certainly have regulations around taking, littering, hunting etc. 
  • In a reverse way, the tragedy of the commons reappears in problems of pollution.
  • The calculations of utility are much the same as before.
  • openly abandon the game--refuse to play it.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      in regards to collective action - does this relate to a feeling of hopelessness if it doesn't seem like the problem can be solved or "won"? This seems to be the case for large scale problems like environmental issues.
    • S Chou
       
      Another way to not play is to deny the existence of the problem.
    • Liu He
       
      sometimes it is impossible to quit "playing", if the game is part of our life.
  • tendency to assume that decisions reached individually will, in fact, be the best decisions for an entire society
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Not completely sure about the "tendency to assume"...maybe people can convience themselves of this, but on some level there are decisions that we know are not good for an entire society
  • pollution problem is a consequence of population
    • S Chou
       
      The pollution problem is also a consequence of technology as individual people have the capacity to make greater environmental footprints than ever before. 
  • One does not know whether a man killing an elephant or setting fire to the grassland is harming others until one knows the total system in which his act appears.
  • Parents who bred too exuberantly would leave fewer descendants, not more, because they would be unable to care adequately for their children.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Curious connection to the tendency now in the US to have only one child and focus one getting advantages for that one
    • Jennifer Bundy
  • our society is deeply committed to the welfare state
  • To couple the concept of freedom to breed with the belief that everyone born has an equal right to the commons is to lock the world into a tragic course of action.
  • "double bind
  • Some people have proposed massive propaganda campaigns to instill responsibility into the nation's (or the world's) breeders.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Keep comming back to the idea that birth rate drops as nations become more developed. Example in China, birth rate would have dropped even without one child policy. Best way to limit population = work on poverty / technology issues?
    • alperin
       
      Yes, and certainly it is not about having propaganda campaigns
  • it must be presented rationally--in words
    • alperin
       
      I am not convinced it has to be in words. but yes, presented completely and rationally.
  • commons, if justifiable at all, is justifiable only under conditions of low-population density.
    • alperin
       
      @Jenn: why did you highlight this? what is it saying to you?
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      It just seemed like the main point he was trying to get across and I wanted to be able to come back to it
  • There is almost no restriction on the propagation of sound waves in the public medium.
  • "Who shall watch the watchers themselves?"
    • S Chou
       
      Pop culture reference time! Watchmen (comic and/or movie) and All along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan).
    • S Chou
       
      And who ARE the watchers? Depends on who you ask. 
  • Freedom To Breed Is Intolerable
  • There is a feeling that the United Nations is "our last and best hope,'' that we shouldn't find fault with it;
    • alperin
       
      oh, not so many people still have such hopes for the UN. Do you?
  • People vary. Confronted with appeals to limit breeding, some people will undoubtedly respond to the plea more than others. Those who have more children will produce a larger fraction of the next generation than those with more susceptible consciences. The difference will be accentuated, generation by generation.
    • alperin
       
      I don't fully buy this argument about conscience. Is it proven that it is a genetic trait? On the other hand, this argument does hold for creating more inequality and poverty in todays society: people with higher levels of wealth have fewer babies, concentrating the wealth in smaller and smaller groups of people, while the poor are trapped in cycles of poverty in growing numbers...
  • The argument assumes that conscience or the desire for children (no matter which) is hereditary
    • alperin
       
      oh, good. I thought the text overlooked this point (see my comment above)
  • "Responsibility," says this philosopher, "is the product of definite social arrangements." Notice that Frankel calls for social arrangements--not propaganda.
  • We need not actually forbid a citizen to park as long as he wants to; we need merely make it increasingly expensive for him to do so.
  • persuasion
    • alperin
       
      another great radio show, all about the advertising industry (very well produced and entertaining) http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/
  • The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
  • Every new enclosure of the commons involves the infringement of somebody's personal liberty.
  • a criterion of judgment and a system of weighting are needed
    • S Chou
       
      This seems to relate to the proliferation of "like" buttons and our growing need/ability/expectation to crowd source opinion.
  • To conjure up a conscience in others is tempting to anyone who wishes to extend his control beyond the legal limits.
  • a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences,
  • a desired technical solution is not possible.
  • "no technical solution problems,"
  • it is the acquisition of energy that is the problem.
  • When this condition is met, what will be the situation of mankind? Specifically, can Bentham's goal of "the greatest good for the greatest number" be realized?
  • However, by any reasonable standards, the most rapidly growing populations on earth today are (in general) the most miserable. This association (which need not be invariable) casts doubt on the optimistic assumption that the positive growth rate of a population is evidence that it has yet to reach its optimum.
  • so the tragedy of the commons as a cesspool must be prevented by different means, by coercive laws or taxing devices that make it cheaper for the polluter to treat his pollutants than to discharge them untreated.
  • How do we prevent such action? Certainly not by trying to control his behavior solely by a verbal appeal to his sense of responsibility. Rather than rely on propaganda we follow Frankel's lead and insist that a bank is not a commons; we seek the definite social arrangements that will keep it from becoming a commons. That we thereby infringe on the freedom of would-be robbers we neither deny nor regret.
Liu He

Everyone - Think Before You Post (English) - YouTube - 0 views

shared by Liu He on 03 Dec 11 - Cached
    • Liu He
       
      But can un-friendly people annoy or hurt you online as much as they do in real life? I think in people's mind there is still a big difference in virtual identiy and real life identity. People may feel much more uncomfortable only if the annoying side of online life spill over into the real life.
alperin

Boston Review - Cass Sunstein: The Daily We - 4 views

  • increasingly engaged in a process of “personalization” that limits their exposure to topics and points of view of their own choosing
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Validating what you already believe in. We had a discussion about this when talking about why/when people use peer recommendation sites like Yelp
    • Liu He
       
      A cycle of bias!
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      It's interesting that almost none of these services (aside from Tivo and Intertainer, Inc?) are still around. But the ideas that they had about personalization have lived on. They had the right idea, perhaps before anyone else. Why did they fail?
    • Liu He
       
      That's an interesting topic. Perhaps in his time there are dozens or even hundreds of similar services, much more than the five cases here. But only very few of them have survived the fierce competitions in the market.
    • alperin
       
      it could be just that their business models weren't right. Online businesses are easy to start (engineers are good at implementing them), but then turning a profit is another story. Many of the great websites operated for ages in the red, only surviving on investors believing in the idea.
  • people should be exposed to materials that they would not have chosen in advance.
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  • Unanticipated encounters
  • are central to democracy and even to freedom itself
  • many or most citizens should have a range of common experiences
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      In some ways these two requirements are the basis for the standard school system as well.
    • alperin
       
      but its too much of a burden on the school system to provide the basis for all our common experiences. These must continue well into adulthood, which means we should still have them outside of our school years.
  • consumers can entirely personalize (or “customize”) their communications universe.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      how close are we to this now? and is it a utopian dream?
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I mean in personalizing our internet experience, not in the course of everyday life as will be outlined here...
    • alperin
       
      the only place we have some encounters with things we don't expect is with searches. Sometimes, random things come up that are unexpected. Otherwise, yes, we get what we want. At best, we get a bit of exposure because someone we follow links to things we don't necessarily expect. 
  • many people are using it to produce narrowness, not breadth.
  • there is a difference of degree if not of kind.
  • dramatic increase in individual control over content, and a corresponding decrease in the power of general interest intermediaries, including newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Not sure if I agree completely with this. I think the decrease in power might just be more subtle use of power
    • S Chou
       
      I feel like this overstates the original power of general interest media, as well as the "general" piece of it. 
    • alperin
       
      I also think that these general interest media content providers are still alive and well, providing general interest content over the internet. How many ways can I get reality tv?
    • alperin
       
      and less tonge-in-cheek, most people still read the NYTimes, the Guardian, CNN, Fox, etc. Be it online, tv, or in print. There are a million ways to personalize your experience, but most people opt for the traditional sources for the majority of their news and then may dig deeper with personalized choices.
  • chance encounters,
  • When people see materials that they have not chosen, their interests and their views might change as a result.
  • common framework for social experience.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Is the increase in fragmentation made up for by the fact that news/experiences on the Internet can travel instanteously to large numbers of people if they go viral?
  • group polarization
  • groups of people, especially if they are like-minded, will end up thinking the same thing that they thought before—but in more extreme form.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I've read articles and heard from people that political parties now are much less likely to compromise with each other than in the past. A couple of questions: Do you think that's true or just a typical exaggeration that happens as the past fades away from public memory? If it is true, do you think the rise of individualizing content on the Internet and subsequently polarizing views of large groups of people have contributed to it as a reflection in the political parties?
  • If your position is going to move as a result of group discussion, it is likely to move in the direction of the most persuasive position defended within the group, taken as a collectivity
  • the group as a whole moves, as a statistical regularity, to a more extreme position
  • group polarization is likely to have fueled many movements of great value
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Appreciate pointing out the positives of group polarization as well. Sometimes we get bogged down in the negatives of a topic
  • it is extremely important to ensure that people are exposed to views other than those with which they currently agree,
  • In a heterogeneous society, it is extremely important for diverse people to have a set of common experiences.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Builds community
  • congregate around a common issue, task, or concern
  • enjoyment
  • people who would otherwise see one another as unfamiliar can come to regard one another as fellow citizens, with shared hopes, goals, and concerns
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Goes back to communities included shared experiences and the thoughts on how time spent together leads to a community
  • to show how consumer sovereignty, in a world of limitless options, could undermine that system
  • Websites might use links and hyperlinks to ensure that viewers learn about sites containing opposing views
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      would this just encourage more overt disparaging remarks?
  • The basic question is whether it might be possible to create spaces that have some of the functions of public forums and general interest intermediaries in the age of the Internet.
    • S Chou
       
      Part of this argument seems to assume that qualities of balanced reporting do not apply to websites as well. As more brand name news agencies weigh in online does this change the need to a degree?
  • As a result of the Internet, people can learn far more than they could before, and they can learn it much faster.
    • Liu He
       
      Yes, knowledge is power. However, has the Internet forever changed our lives? Do we adapt to it or do we make it absolutely work for us? Does the technology also open a "Pandora's box" at the same time it emancipate us? Whenever I come through here, I often remember a saying that fortune and misfortune comes side by side.
    • S Chou
       
      Learning is not the same as accessing. 
  • the growing power of consumers to “filter” what they see.
    • Liu He
       
      Yes, it's interesting. What you can see depends on what you are looking for. A clairvoyant would tell you that you are not going to see something you don't want to see.
    • alperin
       
      This has been shown empirically to be true, like the now well-known 'tale of two blog-o-spheres'
  • involving unfamiliar and even irritating topics and points of view
    • Liu He
       
      This is one important reason that I still enjoy reading the newspaper, because I can "encounter" the information, news stories and points of views which might be surprising as well as fascinating.
  • group deliberation with like-minded people and insulation from alternate views breeds increasing extremism.
    • Liu He
       
      Form a bias -- confirm the bias -- leading to prejudice. Does it work this way?
  • general interest intermediaries expose people to a wide range of topics and views and at the same time provide shared experiences for a heterogeneous public.
  • exposures help promote understanding and perhaps, in that sense, freedom
  • If the public is balkanized, and if different groups design their own preferred communications packages, the consequence will be further balkanization
  • raise questions about the idea that “more speech” is necessarily an adequate remedy—especially if people are increasingly able to wall themselves off from competing views.
  • “consumer sovereignty,” which underlies much of contemporary enthusiasm for the Internet
    • S Chou
       
      Ties to Habermas, but puts more power in the hands of the consumer.
  • As a result of the Internet, cascade effects are more common than they have ever been before.
    • S Chou
       
      An argument for media literacy.
  • New technology can expose people to diverse points of view and creates opportunities for shared experiences. People may, through private choices, take advantage of these possibilities. But, to the extent that they fail to do so, it is worthwhile to consider private and public initiatives designed to pick up the slack.
  • in a free republic, citizens aspire to a system that provides a wide range of experiences
  • Hence their views may shift when they see what other people and in particular what other group members think.
    • Liu He
       
      What's interesting is that sometimes when I do group readings, I feel that other people's comments on the page may have more or less influence on my formation of opinions. It is especially obvious when we do group readings on the paper.
  • social comparison
  • when group discussion tends to lead people to more strongly held versions of the same view with which they began, and if social influences and limited argument pools are responsible, there is legitimate reason for concern.
  • often becomes quite entrenched, even if it is entirely wrong.
  • This is a simple matter of numbers.
  • To the extent that choices proliferate, it is inevitable that diverse individuals, and diverse groups, will have fewer shared experiences and fewer common reference points.
  • voluntary self-regulation.
  • voluntary self-regulation.
  • advertisers are willing to spend a great deal of money to obtain brief access to people’s eyeballs
  • a well-functioning democracy depends on far more than restraints on official censorship of controversial ideas and opinions. It also depends on some kind of public sphere
Liu He

Howard Rheingold - Why the History of the Public Sphere Matters - 4 views

    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I wonder how the public sphere as a democratic process will play out as in a global internet where other countries do not value democracy in the same way
    • Liu He
       
      I think there is a difference between the interest of the dictators and the interest of public in some countries. For the people, knowledge could be power.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      It seems that the examples pointed out have in common people that had the time to have these discussions in the public sphere, such as the more affluent or educated. Will the internet as the public sphere allow an average working person to also participate?
    • S Chou
       
      The idea of a life-or-death need to participate is also interesting. Are there other means of moving large groups of people from theory to action? 
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      A general question - has there been any other instances in human history of many-to-many communication?
    • Howard Rheingold
       
      Science fiction fans used to circulate letters, and Joseph Priestley got the system of scientific peer review started by sending letters to everybody who experimented with electricity, asking for details about their experimental equipment, methods, and results, then circulated these details among the community of "electricians" and recirculated their replies. But this wasn't really many-to-many, and of course, very slow. I can't really think of much else. Anybody?
    • S Chou
       
      Does the public school system count? 
    • Liu He
       
      The Public Forum of ancient Rome? It is a public meeting place for open discussion and the center of Roman public life for centuires.
    • alperin
       
      the first academic journals, including Philosophical Transactions, were a result of letters circulated by Oldenburg, to the different scientists (like Newton). Like the electrician's letters Howard describes above, this was slow, but it was many-to-many, and the results were eventually circulated via printed works.
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    • Liu He
       
      Lippermann raised the question whether the public is educated enough to self-govern. In his words,the unsuspecting public is a herd of sheep and could be easily misled. John Dewey said in response that this is perhaps why we need better journalism. Is this also the case in the Internet age? Is the public armed with the new technology necessarily more educated? Does journalism have a new role?
    • alperin
       
      Dewey also promoted free public education, under the belief that the way to a healthy public sphere was through educating the masses.
Howard Rheingold

Best content in COMM 182/282 2011 | Diigo - Groups - 3 views

    • Howard Rheingold
       
      How do you think the affordances of social media change the nature and/or dynamics of the public sphere?
S Chou

3 Necessary Conditions for Human Cooperation « Bokardo - 0 views

  • People will act selfish if there is no future to the relationship.
    • Liu He
       
      Have some doubts here. Although the knowledge of future cooperations change our behaviors right now, do we tend to act selfish all the time when we know there is no future to the relationship?
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I feel like this will be come less and less true as virtual communication increases and the power of networking grows. Even if you won't meet a person directly I think people are becoming more apt to believe they might have someone in their network that would lead to a strong connection
    • S Chou
       
      At the same time, virtual communication removes the physical and more reciprocal long-term repercussions of not cooperating so this might turn into one of those double-edge situations.  
    • Howard Rheingold
       
      I think your doubts have illuminated something important. People do act selfishly. But not all the time. The assumption that people are overwhelmingly selfish sets the stage for a self-fulfilling prophecy. But people act altruistically, cooperatively, even heroically toward others -- even strangers -- all the time.
  • If people can’t identify who they’re dealing with, then they can’t hold that person accountable.
    • Liu He
       
      Yes identity is imporant. But are we missing something else here? Even if we can "identify the person as someone to the system he is in and the person we are dealing with", as what the author says, can we hold this person accountable? Is that enough?
    • S Chou
       
      We would have to identify, but still hold personal choice and ultimate responsibility for our choices. Being able to hold someone else accountable is really just the first step to any cooperation among strangers. After time, history and relationships form, and that should move us well beyond identity and accountability alone.
  • Thus having a positive record of behavior leads to cooperation.
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  • We have learned to assume
    • S Chou
       
      Interesting how this statement is phrased. "Learned" implies that there was a time when we didn't count on indicators of past behavior, and "assume" points out that we may still have more learning to do.  
  • no repercussions
S Chou

Howard Rheingold: The new power of collaboration | Video on TED.com - 1 views

    • alperin
       
      prisoners dilema described around min 7
    • alperin
       
      The description of the two kinds of prisomer's dilemas can be heard at http://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/cooperation-and-conflict
    • alperin
       
      13:00 - people who punish cheaters see activation in the reward parts of the brain
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      This makes sense about why people don't take the 90-10 split in the money game mentioned earlier
    • S Chou
       
      Altruistic punishment as the glue that holds society together. How would you distinguish altruistic punishment from non-altruistic forms?
    • alperin
       
      min 16:00 eBay solved the prisoner's dilema by turning the prisoner's dilema into the insurer's game
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    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I've got to read Smart Mobs!
    • S Chou
       
      Check out Howard! The article is interesting too. http://edge.org/3rd_culture/rheingold/rheingold_print.html  
    • S Chou
       
      The SPLIT here is almost exactly like what happens on the Golden Balls TV show! 
Howard Rheingold

Your brain vs technology: How our wired world is changing the way we think | Page 4 | H... - 3 views

  •  
    He discusses another study conducted in a lecture class where half the students were allowed to have their laptops open and the other half had to keep them shut. At the end of the lecture the two groups were tested on retention of information - the group without laptop access did "a significantly better job" of recalling what they'd just been taught. "When you think about it, it's not a big surprise - you're not distracted. On the other hand, despite that, we're seeing more and more schools embrace the idea of allowing their students to have their laptops with them and have rich wi-fi connections in classrooms,
  •  
    This long article attempts to be even-handed about the debate regarding the effects on the brain of using digital media. A key assertion, which has yet to be backed up by sufficient contemporary empirical research, but which makes sense in light of what is known about neuroplasticity, is that the human brain adapts very well to its environment and now that exposure to digital media on screens is a very significant portion of the environment for many people, brains are changing -- and not necessarily in beneficial ways -- to adapt to the media environment. The empirical evidence will come in over the next 5-10 years and this argument will be closer to settled. For the time being, I think it pays to keep an open mind in both directions.
Liu He

Network Capital: an expression of social capital in the Network Society | Acevedo | The... - 4 views

    • alperin
       
      this journal is using the software I write, Open Journal Systems :)
  • positive externalities like the decentralization of initiative-taking and the spreading of responsibilities in a more democratic and participatory governance structure.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Assumption that these would be positive? Direct democracy is not necessarily the best choice if the people participating in it are not keeping up with remaining educated about issues. The statement "decentralization of initiative-taking" remindeds me a lot of Stanford. Is it effective to be so decentralized?
    • Liu He
       
      Not always. Yes, Jenn is right. Will people's initiatives have a negative impact on the public goods if they are not clear about what they are participating and the potential effects of their participation?
  • genetic in our ability to pool together for common goals
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Only if they are in our "tribe"
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • product of personal community networks as well as of formally institutionalized groups.”
  • Network capital could then be understood as a measure of the differentiated value in the Information Age that communities structured as social networks generate on the basis of electronic (digital) networks for themselves, for others and for society as a whole.
  • social as well as economic terms
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Economic = marketing campaigns, things that go viral, bad reviews?
  • combination of attributes
  • communal cyberplace
  • individuals to behave as ‘global citizens’, and to become involved in actions and issues not bounded by their physical location.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Might be a problem if trying to push an agenda on another part of the world when you are not part of that culture/community. Especially if those that live there do not have access to the Internet and so can't participate in matters that affect them
    • Liu He
       
      The concept of "global citizen" sometimes is tricky. People have a limited view of the world, especially of the international affairs they actually are unfamiliar with. And sometimes the view is distorted, when people rely heavily on certain news media's coverages and editorials concerning what happens abroad.
  • ‘all for the love of it’
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Or for self promotion?
  • global citizen will have more possibilities to become involved in social causes, with lesser constraints of place or time.
  • social cohesion is critical for advancing human development
  • Participation, trust, solidarity and reciprocity, grounded in a shared understanding and a sense of common obligations
    • Liu He
       
      Trust, reciprocity and volunteer activities seem to be at the core of social capital.
  • It is a result of cooperation via electronic networks, and in turn fosters the habit of such cooperation.
  • volunteer action and contributions
  • Benefiting from the Internet, neither distance nor time constraints irrevocably limit the involvement of a significantly wider group of participants, many of whom may undertake this participation as volunteers
  • The collaborative working methods are sure to resonate with some of the people involved, who would apply them later in other spheres. Some of the relationships initiated by the projects would become lasting human bonds, either for professional or personal purposes.
  • by the distributed methods and electronic technologies which are inherent to networked operations in our days
alperin

danah boyd - "Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing community into being on social n... - 4 views

shared by alperin on 29 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Based on an internal understanding of the audience, participants override the term “Friend” to make room for a variety of different relationships so that they may properly show face.
  • When “my friend” is used to describe a person, it has performative qualities
  • What differentiates social network sites [6] from other computer-mediated communication sites is the feature that allows participants to articulate and publicly display their relations to others in the system
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • fake Profiles were developed to aid in this process.
    • S Chou
       
      People will find ways to connect by group interests even if the site does not have specific channels for doing this.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Yes - this goes along with user-created features on social networking sites that was mentioned in the forums. (like the hashtag searches on Twitter)
  • By tying Friendship to privacy settings, social network sites encourage people to choose Friends based on what they want to make visible.
  • what’s the loss in Friending them?
  • The process of removing a Friend on MySpace signals a shift in relationship status that is often not easily articulated in everyday life. There is no clear social script for ending a friendship
    • S Chou
       
      Here is another instance of something new being publicly articulated through social networks. Is the impact here more personal, societal, or both?
  • Top Friends requires participants to expose backstage information. In a culture where it’s socially awkward to reject someone’s Friendship, ranking them provides endless drama and social awkwardness.
    • S Chou
       
      This "four degrees" affordance takes a significantly different approach than Facebook, the dominant social network today. Do you think that part of the shift towards more private and restricted networks comes out of backlash from previous sites that allowed users to access thousands of profiles all at once? 
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Good question - I wonder if anyone in class has experience using Friendster and could shed some light on this. I never used Friendster but would be interested to hear how it compared to Facebook and Myspace...
    • alperin
       
      I was briefly on frienster. The thing to keep in mind is that nobody had any experience on social networking when Friendster made inroads. If you recall, at the beginning, you could only browse profiles of people who were in your 'network'. The network was first defined by your university, then you could pick a city. It was not until much later that Facebook opened it up so you could search for people anywhere.
    • S Chou
       
      How much of this has to do with the average age of the user? 
    • alperin
       
      I imagine age is correlated to where on this list you fall, as well as your marital status, and geographic location. There must also be a link to different personality types. But I assume you're right that age is the highest determinant.
  • Rather than having the context dictated by the environment itself, context emerged through Friends networks
  • This completely inverts the norms in early public social sites where interests or activities defined a group
  • People define their community egocentrically
  • Friends are a critical signal in conveying the expected social boundaries
  • properties that have been present in all mediated spaces persist, complicating many social behaviors on these sites. Four properties in particular play a key role: persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences
  • Social network sites are not digital spaces disconnected from other social venues — it is a modeling of one aspect of participants’ social worlds and that model is evaluated in other social contexts
    • alperin
       
      @Sarah: do you think this is true? My sense is that it is only partially true, as social network sites also create a space that does not have a parallel/equivalent in the offline context. It is completely new, and enabled by the digital environment.
  • In thinking about Friendship practices on social network sites, it is crucial to evaluate them on their own terms
  • gateway friends
    • alperin
       
      these are bridges in Granoveter's (1973) sense 
  • meaning of Friendship
    • alperin
       
      I can't help but think of Facebook, and how it has once again forced us to rethink the meaning of friendship. Originally in who we added, and now in what 'list' we add people to
  • They primarily found that Friendship stood for: content, offline facilitator, online community, trust, courtesy, declaration, or nothing.
  • In short, it’s socially awkward to say no
    • alperin
       
      Facebook got around this problem by giving you the option to 'ignore'. This is much less socially awkward than saying 'no' outright.
    • alperin
       
      it may only be a difference in word choice, but I find it effective
    • alperin
       
      Even among 'older' (late 20s) myspace users, I remember the Top 8 being something that was talked about. It was acknowledged as silly to care, but people did look to see if they were Top 8, and thought carefully before removing someone from their Top 8...
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I remember when this was used as well but don't remember much drama associated with it. I guess 8 was enough for me at the time to get in my close friends! I wonder if something like this would go over well now that people do follow closely so many people
  • I also suspect that a study of non-American practices would introduce entirely different dynamics.
    • alperin
       
      we never seem to get to the non-American... its too bad, because I imagine it is very different.
  • the boundaries between friends and acquaintances are quite blurry and it is unlikely that there will ever be consensus on a formula for what demarcates a friend.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Is this magnified even more with sites like Facebook where people have 500+ "friends"?
  • the Web site’s creators put an end to their collecting and deleted both accounts. This began the deletion of all Fakesters in what was eventually termed the Fakester Genocide
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Sounds like the creators of Friendster were not very adaptable to what the needs of the users were. I wonder if this ultimately led to the downfall?
  • Unless you’re always randomly rotating these people
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      sounds like a lot of work!
  • context collision when people from different facets of their lives joined the site.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Same as context collapse?
    • alperin
       
      I think so...
  • participants there write their community into being through the process of Friending
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Decentralization of community?
Jennifer Bundy

Social network: Facts, Discussion Forum, and Encyclopedia Article - 5 views

  • The power of social network analysis stems from its difference from traditional social scientific studies, which assume that it is the attributes of individual actors—whether they are friendly or unfriendly, smart or dumb, etc.—that matter. Social network analysis produces an alternate view, where the attributes of individuals are less important than their relationships and ties with other actors within the network. This approach has turned out to be useful for explaining many real-world phenomena, but leaves less room for individual agency, the ability for individuals to influence their success, because so much of it rests within the structure of their network.
    • Liu He
       
      Interesting findings. Will this approach be able to explain why sometimes a person's success seems to rely more on the relationships with people working around him rather than his own ability?
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      This has a "whole are greater then the sum of the parts" idea. I think too that we are in an age of greater collaboration in general and success is dependent on how you work with other people
  • six degrees of separation
  • Guanxi Guanxi Guanxi describes the basic dynamic in personalized networks of influence, and is a central idea in Chinese society. In Western media, the pinyin romanization of this Chinese word is becoming more widely used instead of the two common translations—"connections" and "relationships"—as neither of...&nbsp;(关系)
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • One study has found that happiness Happiness Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources....&nbsp;tends to be correlated in social networks. When a person is happy, nearby friends have a 25 percent higher chance of being happy themselves. Furthermore, people at the center of a social network tend to become happier in the future than those at the periphery. Clusters of happy and unhappy people were discerned within the studied networks, with a reach of three degrees of separation: a person's happiness was associated with the level of happiness of their friends' friends' friends.
    • Liu He
       
      Does it underscore the importance of sharing happiness? Will you always make people in your social network if you share your happiness with them? Does the social networking sites make use of the theory in their designs?
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I remember the Facebook status' started out as very emotion-based (Jennifer is...). I think they do use emotion as part of their designs. The thing to keep in mind is that people need to be motivated enough to share information in a scoial network, which usually means people are at the extremes of the emotional scale.
  • Smaller, tighter networks can be less useful to their members than networks with lots of loose connections (weak ties) to individuals outside the main network.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      This relates to what we talked about last week with some people having a lot of friends / weak ties on social networks and some only having a few strong ties.
  • instrumental social links (gesellschaft)
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      This interpretation sounds like most of our social ties are gesellschaft in the form of instrumental social links
  • sample of twins
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      This study seems a little questionable (without knowing more about methods). Did the twins know each other? I know I had some friends that were twins and they sort of always came as a pair so it makes sense that they would have the same friends
S Chou

Barry Wellman - Physical Place and Cyber Place: The Rise of Personalized Networking - 1 views

  • Rather than fitting into the same group as those around them, each person has his/her own "personal community" (Wellman and Leighton 1979; Wellman 1999a).
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I wonder how the idea of a personal community fits into someone's identity. Particularly teens or young adults, who are still forming their identity. Does creating a group of people in a community centered on you prolong or expediate the process of identity formation?
    • S Chou
       
      SC - The Boyd article touches on this, and it seems like identity formation is as complicated as ever. I'm not sure if constant egocentric self-articulation changes the process of identity formation so much as it magnifies and reveals the process itself. People have always had to ultimately form and articulate identity on their own terms, in conversation/negotiation with groups and communities.
  • individuating nature
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I see a duality in this individuating nature with the uprising of collective action online. Can the two really exist together and both thrive? Maybe this is similar to the "seemingly-conflicting" ideas of democracy and capitalism?
    • S Chou
       
      SC - There is certainly individual choice and formation of individual identity within aspects of collective action. Social networks seem to make the connection and dissemination of both much more visible and active than before.
  • forecast a century ago by E.M. Forster 1909
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Reference to a recommended reading from Week 3 - The Machine. If you haven't read it was an interesting little sci-fi short story that was a quick read
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  • Just as employers complain about workers' use of the Internet for personal matters, family members complain that their loved ones are tied to their computers during their supposed leisure hours
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Is internet use leading to collapsing contexts offline as well?
    • S Chou
       
      Our ties to place are getting increasingly transformed by increasingly mobile technology. We are so used to defining context in terms of geographic location that I definitely think contexts are collapsing everywhere. 
  • Contextual sense and lateral awareness will diminish.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      A little concern about this idea - if you're not exposed to something, how do you know if you do or don't like it? Connecting to education, this gets at the idea of choice: should we let kids choose to study what they are interested in, or are there some things that everyone "just needs to know"?
    • S Chou
       
      SC - There are two interesting strings to follow here, the idea of increased globalization and access to new ideas, and the idea of increased autonomy and personal choice. On one hand, we have access to more knowledge than ever but on the other hand we have greater ability to filter, ignore, and not participate since group norms hold less power over individuals. Maybe the key here is to teach kids to be interested, and to have the tools/skills needed to pursue their interests. 
  • the spread of wireless towers to physically isolated and impoverished "fourth world" areas
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I feel like this might be exaggerated (and this was written back in 2001!). I know of, and have been in, plenty of countries/areas where people do not have easy access to cell phones, much less the internet. Even in the United States, there are large groups of people - of all ages - that are not comfortable using a computer because of access issues
    • S Chou
       
      SC - This also paints a picture of technology use as only for global good, not for increased advertising, consumerism, and replicating power structures/agendas that already exist. I do not agree with the idea that increased communication is necessarily better.
  • neighbourhoods are not important sources of community.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      This is quite a generalization...I wonder if there is some data on this somewhere. Public schools in most of the country are still very much community-based and these interactions can drive a lot of community feeling. And I still come in contact with a lot of people that live near family.
  • decreased commitment of each milieu to its inhabitants' well-being.
  • People must actively maintain their sparsely-knit ties and fragmented networks.
  • No more are people identified as members of a single group; they can switch among multiple networks.
  • development of person-to-person connectivity has been influenced more by innovations in communication than in transportation.
  • "The nuclear family may be on a comeback," a Rogers ATT mobile phone advertisement says on Toronto radio (CFMX, Feb. 13 2000:0813EST) with no sense of irony. Dad is bowling with the boys, Mom is on the road making presentations, son Dick is at his computer club, and daughter Jane is out of town visiting her biological Dad. Yet they all can stay connected at low cost through flat-rate national mobile phone calling.
  • norms of this inherently person-to-person system foster the intrusion of intensely involving private behaviour into public space
  • totally self-absorbed
  • , and they seem to think that the impact of their actions on other people are absolutely inconsequential.
  • Women have set the rules of the community game in place-to-place relationships and borne the burden of community keeping. If person-to-person community means that it is every person for him/herself, then we might expect to see a gendered re-segregation of community (as in Elizabeth Bott's England, 1957) with the possibility that men's communities will be smaller than networking-savvy women (Wright 1989; Moore 1990; Wellman 1992a, Bruckner and Knaup 1993).
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Are there gender differences in the number of connections men have online vs. women? Maybe could look at Facebook friends?
    • S Chou
       
      SC - Yeah, this seems like an assumption of Wellman's that I'm not sure I agree with.
  • Research shows that people interact happily and fruitfully online (for the most part) and in ways similar to face-to-face contac
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Appears to be meeting the human needs that were brought up in the first class
  • Will the Internet promote two-person interactions at the expense of interactions happening in group or social network contexts?
  • these are always deliberate choices.
  • Agency is a need as well as an analytic category.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      But how does agency fit in with social norms? It was brought up in discussion that people are expected to always be available in some way
    • S Chou
       
      SC - I think personal agency definitely gets overrun by some social norms, the difference between work norms and other community norms will yield different effects on agency as well. 
  • The bad news is that schools do not formally teach networking skills.
  • Fortunately, poorer groups in society have always networked heavily for the want of other resources. The problem will be to move from local networking and migrant networking to cyber-networking (Lomnitz 1977; Roberts 1978, Espinoza 1999). It may be then that network capital may provide a partial way of coping with a lack of other forms of capital.
  • The Internet's very lack of social richness can foster contact with more diverse others.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I don't think this prediction came to pan out...
  • Despite the Internet's potential to connect diverse cultures and ideas, people are drawn to online communities that link them with others sharing common interests or concerns. They may be more diversified than "real life" community in their gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, but they still communicate about only a limited set of topics and ideas.
  • They are truly in cyberplaces, and not just cyberspaces
  • Participants in online groups have strong interpersonal feelings of belonging, being wanted, obtaining important resources, and having a shared identity.
  • Many ties operate in both cyberspace and physical space, used whatever means of communication is convenient and appropriate at the moment.
  • This is a time for individuals and their networks, not for groups. The all-embracing collectivity (Parsons 1951; Braga and Menosky 1999) has become a fragmented, personalized network. Autonomy, opportunity, and uncertainty rule today's community game.
  • Yet the rapid emergence of computer-mediated communications means that relations in cyberplaces are joining with relations on the ground
  • it is when technological changes become pervasive, familiar and boring, that they affect societies the most
  • relations in cyberplaces are joining with relations on the ground
    • S Chou
       
      Joining in complicated ways that involve navigating the impact of new technology. Definitely not literal or exact transfers of relationship. Joining/replacing/transforming?
  • become less aware of the importance of gospel music to southern Americans, farm news to midwesterners, and hip-hop to northeastern city dwellers
    • S Chou
       
      Does this imply that society in general will become a more homogenous? 
  • personalization need not mean individual isolation
  • truly personal communities
  • Telephones allow much more body movement and glances at others than does personal computing
    • S Chou
       
      Does the fact that physical acts of personal computing are so independent of others contradict with ideas of social networking as increased connectivity? To what degree does our physical behavior impact our experience with technology?
  • They regard their email address and alias as parts of their personal identity
  • Their awareness and behaviour is totally in private cyberspace even though their bodies are in public space.
  • email supports (a) within-network broadcasts; (b) personal communications between one or multiple friends, and (c) public address systems to strangers
  • digital computer networks convey more information per second than analogue telephone networks
  • Would we be wiser to wonder if online interaction will develop its own strengths and create its own norms and dynamics?
  • privatization may be responsible for the lack of informal help given to strangers who are in trouble in public spaces
  • People must maintain differentiated portfolios of ties to obtain a variety of needed and wanted resources
  • people with strong ties are more likely to be socially similar and to know the same persons, they are more likely to possess the same information. By contrast, new information is more apt to come through weaker ties better connected with other, more diverse social circles.
  • Where person-to-person community is individualizing, role-to-role community deconstructs a holistic individual identity
  • Cyberspace fights against physical space less than it complements it
  • false dichotomy
Jennifer Bundy

Real name sites are necessarily inadequate for free speech « Social Media Col... - 4 views

  • . When people do this offline, they do it in situations: temporally and spatially bounded contexts for action.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      These sound like third place locations
  • Being online is being encoded and having that which is encoded available to some party other than those immediately present
  • Online is on-the-record. Offline is off-the-record.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • performance of impression management into the process of curation
  • Curation means selecting objects for display
  • Impression management means selectively presenting an idealized version of one’s self specific to that context.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      Impression management - the key word is "idealized". These sites are making things much more transparent, which might not be all bad
  • Collective
  • the myth of selective sharing
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      They are inadequate for free speech only if you don't want to be associated with what you are saying, which is not an issue of the tool but rather a preference of the person. Many people own their statements in the public sphere (politicians, leaders, etc). Real name sites are just giving the average person the opportunity to do the same - people just have to realize that what they might be saying is available to anyone to hear
    • Liu He
       
      Yes, real name sites do have a reason to exist on the Internet. Meantime, I remembered Facebook's Marketing Director, Randi Zuckerberg, claimed several months ago that anonymity on the Internet has to go away, because people behave a lot better when they have their real names down. And people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors. Is an Internet in which everyone has to use their real name necerraily be more polite?
  • , the curator won’t even give you the choice to begin with.
    • Jennifer Bundy
       
      I see how this applies to Google+ but not really Facebook or Twitter. Google+ doesn't give you the option to select, other then circles, who will see your posts. And I guess Facebook is moving this way too. Does he mean that these sites give people the option to search for you without you knowing? Like Twitter or Google+ will suggest people for you to follow? But in all of them you still have to accept the people as followers and you can control privacy so I have a hard time understanding how you don't have agency in that.
  • In addressed media we are trusting our recipient. In non-addressed media we are trusting our curator, not our recipient.
    • Liu He
       
      Excellent point.
  • That’s a sea change of difference as we’re placing trust not in the hands of our known and targeted audience, but in the designers of these spaces and their algorithms.
    • Liu He
       
      People like the dissidents in Egypt and Iran and Libya, whose like to use social networks to further their cause was made much more dangerous by Facebook's blocking of pseudonyms.
  • Reading posting, Google circles are only good for directing your broadcasts to limited private groups.
Liu He

"Incantations for Muggles: The Role of Ubiquitous Web 2.0 Technologies in Everyday Life" - 7 views

  • Perhaps the magic is not in the technology, but in the practices that emerge from the seedlings we put out into the world? Perhaps our technologies are nothing more than pitiful efforts to replicate the magic that we do not fully understand.
    • Liu He
       
      Look at history. Mankind has not changed biologically. But human society has been undergoing continuous development through the harnessing of information and knowledge in the form of various technologies. Can the technologies affect our value systems, power structures, everyday routines and environment?What drives this development? Will future society be divided between those living in either physical or virtual reality?
    • alperin
       
      JPA: Some would argue that we have started to change biologically. Our brains are adapting to technologies, we've been thinking of the wiring of our brain in a different way as it interacts with technology more and more.  I would also say that the answer to the question "can the tech affect our value systems, power structures, ...?" is a resounding YES. But the technology is not developing itself, we drive this development and I don't think it will ever be possible to disentangle those living in physical and virtual reality.
    • Liu He
       
      Yes, you are correct! So does that mean even we don't fully understand the potential of ourselves? What does the author mean when he say the "magic" of technology? Is it by adapting to technologies that we "re-wire" our brain and discover the "magician" in ourselves?
  • If you want to understand the success of a social technology, you can't stare at the technology. You need to understand the social practices that make it flourish. Technologies succeed when they support what people already do, what they want to do, and what they're required to do. Technologies become ubiquitous when people stop thinking them as a technology and simply use them as a regular part of everyday life.
  • &nbsp;Life stages are not simply biological - they are socially constructed, legally enforced, and architecturally bounded. Life stages are generalizations - they do not apply to everyone, but at the same time, they are constructed as "normative" by society. This is why Hollywood can make movies called "The 40-year-old Virgin" and everyone laughs. Because life stages are primarily socially constructed, they are bounded by culture.
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • Should we build technology to promote what we believe should be people's priorities? Or should we build technology that supports the priorities that most people have?
  • Life stages are not simply biological - they are socially constructed, legally enforced, and architecturally bounded. Life stages are generalizations - they do not apply to everyone, but at the same time, they are constructed as "normative" by society. This is why Hollywood can make movies called "The 40-year-old Virgin" and everyone laughs. Because life stages are primarily socially constructed, they are bounded by culture.
  • I want to address four key life stages that i think are relevant to folks interested in social media: 1) Identity formation and role-seeking (aka youth)2) Integration and coupling (aka 20somethings)3) Societal contribution (aka "adults")4) Reflection and storytelling (aka retirees)
  • If you want to understand the success of a social technology, you can't stare at the technology. You need to understand the social practices that make it flourish. Technologies succeed when they support what people already do, what they want to do, and what they're required to do. Technologies become ubiquitous when people stop thinking them as a technology and simply use them as a regular part of everyday life.
  • The reason that i bring these corporate practices up is because they really affect how systems are designed, deployed, and allowed to evolve. If you want to think about people, you need to understand how technological and corporate decisions interface with people's lives and practices. Who are the real stakeholders? The users or the stockholders?
  • when people engage with technology, amazing things happen. The magic isn't the technology... it's the stories and connections, the sharing and ideas. It's the way these technologies serve people's lives. More importantly, it's the way technologies serve the lives of *everyday people*, not just technologists.
  • This is quite different from the society that you and i were used to growing up. We were used to having walls. We assumed that the norms were set by the environment and that you behaved differently in synagogue than in the pub and that was AOK. Context was key but context depends on there being walls. Online, there are no walls. The walls have come crumbling down. You can cross through spaces with the click of a few keystrokes and it's impossible to know what speech will spread where. The moment a conversation spreads, it changes contexts.
  • So how do we cope? Most people go with the ostrich solution. If you can't see it, it doesn't exist, right? If you don't see the strangers staring at your virtual existence, they don't exist, right? The other proposed solution is being a luddite - avoiding all technology. Either way, we're talking avoidance.
  • The spells of technology are complicating the magic of people. Architecture is getting altered. While people adapt the technologies to meet their needs, their lives have to adapt to the ways in which the technology alters reality. It's a confusing time and technology is playing a huge role in the confusion.
  • &nbsp;I want to address four key life stages that i think are relevant to folks interested in social media: 1) Identity formation and role-seeking (aka youth) 2) Integration and coupling (aka 20somethings) 3) Societal contribution (aka "adults") 4) Reflection and storytelling (aka retirees)
  • Should we build technology to promote what we believe should be people's priorities? Or should we build technology that supports the priorities that most people have?
  • Problem is that technology is more often the property of a corporation, not the passion of an individual. Corporations have different incentives, often umbrella-ed under the mythical "shareholders." Shareholders want monetization and growth. Monetization requires that a particular group obsess over your technology, either to willingly dish out fees to use it or to be so active that they might click on ads. Growth demands that you can't really target a niche population - you need to go for the masses.
  • The reason that i bring these corporate practices up is because they really affect how systems are designed, deployed, and allowed to evolve. If you want to think about people, you need to understand how technological and corporate decisions interface with people's lives and practices. Who are the real stakeholders? The users or the stockholders?
  • &nbsp;when people engage with technology, amazing things happen. The magic isn't the technology... it's the stories and connections, the sharing and ideas. It's the way these technologies serve people's lives. More importantly, it's the way technologies serve the lives of *everyday people*, not just technologists.
  • This is quite different from the society that you and i were used to growing up. We were used to having walls. We assumed that the norms were set by the environment and that you behaved differently in synagogue than in the pub and that was AOK. Context was key but context depends on there being walls. Online, there are no walls. The walls have come crumbling down. You can cross through spaces with the click of a few keystrokes and it's impossible to know what speech will spread where. The moment a conversation spreads, it changes contexts.
  • This is quite different from the society that you and i were used to growing up. We were used to having walls. We assumed that the norms were set by the environment and that you behaved differently in synagogue than in the pub and that was AOK. Context was key but context depends on there being walls. Online, there are no walls. The walls have come crumbling down. You can cross through spaces with the click of a few keystrokes and it's impossible to know what speech will spread where. The moment a conversation spreads, it changes contexts.
  • So how do we cope? Most people go with the ostrich solution. If you can't see it, it doesn't exist, right? If you don't see the strangers staring at your virtual existence, they don't exist, right? The other proposed solution is being a luddite - avoiding all technology. Either way, we're talking avoidance.
  • perhaps we lose track of what friendship and connection mean
  • if we stare solely at the technology, we lose track of the true magic that exists around us
  • US-centric
    • alperin
       
      ugg. forgive my annoyance. but why does all the commentary we come across excuse itself in this way? I suppose I should be happy that, at least, boyd acknowledges it.
  • impression management
  • Techno-dreamers
    • alperin
       
      this is me!
  • The value of Twitter has to do with baseline co-presence
    • alperin
       
      i like this concept. 'baseline co-presence'
alperin

Brainstorms: Rheingold Interviews Turkle - 0 views

  • It seems to me quite understandable that at moments when the unthinkable becomes possible, there are these dramatic paradoxes in our approach to issues -- but it means that when the paradoxes become apparent, technology is there to blame.
  • Computers and communication networks are not drugs.
    • alperin
       
      Is Sherry dismissing important aspects of addition? It is not just the amount of a substance that makes it bad, it is also the way, context, and reason for why it is consumed. So it is possible to get addicted to the Internet in a way that is detrimental to your personal development. Each person will have a different amount of 'online' they can handle. We can think of it as tolerance, for which we each have a different threshold, and which our usage patterns help determine.
    • S Chou
       
      SC - I agree, you could make the argument that drugs are also complex channels that different people use in different ways. By saying that X amount of heroin use is never a good thing, she's operating out of the assumption that all drugs are necessarily bad in any amount, which is also not true. 
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The fear is of making too many of our encounters into transactions.
S Chou

Brainstorms: Rheingold Interviews Turkle - 0 views

  • in this sense, he is within my view, even as I write alone.
  • hybrid
  • It feels liberating.
    • alperin
       
      The use of the word liberating seems interesting. It suggests that Turkle sees the presentation of herself through writing is somehow different that in person. Furthermore, it makes us consider how even the medium (i.e. email) changes our sense for how we should present ourselves, even if the audience is the same.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • is a concretization of another way of thinking about the self, not as unitary but as multiple
  • What good parenting provides is a relational field in which we become increasingly expert at transitions between self states.
    • alperin
       
      do you agree? Is this really the role of parenting?
    • S Chou
       
      SC - This is another way of saying that good parents take responsibility for socializing their children and teaching them to express themselves appropriately, right? In that case, yes.
  • One has a new context
    • alperin
       
      I would strike context and put venue. The internet is a place to negotiate these transitions.
  • not in terms of constructing a one but of negotiatiating a many
    • alperin
       
      I like this, though I am not sure I agree. I like the idea of thinking of the identity as multiple, but something inside me wants to think of it as one. One single identity with multiple expressions? Perhaps its just a semantic game, but one I am tempted to play.  Where do you stand on it?
S Chou

Brainstorms: Rheingold Mind to Mind with Sherry Turkle - 1 views

  • What is this activity doing to our minds?
  • object-to-think-with
    • alperin
       
      What do you think about this "object-to-think-with" characterization? is it out of date now? does it still apply?  I content that this is not the case, computers and networks are not an "object-to-think-with", but perhaps an "object-to-think-through". We don't think WITH the machine, but rather a medium through which to convey our thoughts.
    • S Chou
       
      SC - that's an interesting distinction. I would agree that calculators seem much more like objects-to-think-with while computers allow for a much broader range of interactions including self expression. I think Turkle's point about the power of computers to shape and influence our thoughts still stands though. 
  • ...2 more annotations...
    • alperin
       
      You are welcome to follow the links. Several are annotated with Diigo as well
  • Are we living life on the screen or in the screen?
    • alperin
       
      this is a nice distinction. ON or IN. Where are you living yours?
    • S Chou
       
      SC - I like to think that I'm ON the screen because the idea of living IN the screen makes me uncomfortable, but I can't deny that the majority of my personal and professional interactions are now mediated through a screen. I'm sure that some of my relationships are more grounded now IN the screen purely out of necessity, I just hope that people don't confuse the two versions of me - to the extent that they're different to begin with. 
alperin

Brainstorms: Rheingold Interviews Turkle - 0 views

  • When you present yourself as a person of another gender, you quickly realize things about "being" that gender in social interactions that might have been invisible to you before.
  • deconstruct our simulations.
  • Cyberspace is a new arena for experimenting with social practice.
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