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Contents contributed and discussions participated by David Toews

David Toews

MPR: Social networking and relationships - 0 views

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    Interesting interview involves great researcher Nancy Baym. Recent studies suggest that social networking sites do not lead to isolation, as some feared at first.
David Toews

Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Critical Information Studies For a Participatory Culture (Pa... - 0 views

  • Tim O'Reilly's concept of "web 2.0" was first promoted at a 2004 conference of key industry leaders and later spread via his "What is Web 2.0" essay.
  • There is an urgent need for serious reflection on the core models of cultural production, distribution, ownership, and participation underlying "web 2.0."
  • those of us who have long advocated for a more "participatory culture" need to better define our ideals and identify and confront those forces that threaten the achievement of those ideals
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  • A participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one's creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices. A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another. Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement.
  • I have been seeking to better understand the mechanisms by which consumers curate and circulate media content, rejecting current discussions of "viral media" (which hold onto a top-down model of cultural infection) in favor of an alternative model of "spreadability" (based on the active and self conscious agency of consumers who decide what content they want to "spread" through their social networks.
    • David Toews
       
      Jenkin's critique here is really important - the ideology of 'viral' is often pernicious.
  • This new emphasis on "participatory culture" represents a serious rethinking of the model of cultural resistance which dominated cultural studies in the 1980s and 1990s.
  • In this new context, participation is not the same thing as resistance nor is it simply an alternative form of co-optation; rather, struggles occur in, around, and through participation which have no predetermined outcomes.
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    [these] remarks for the "critical information studies" panel ... represent a pretty good summary of some of the things I've been thinking about and working on over the past few years - Henry Jenkins
David Toews

Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Critical Information Studies For a Participatory Culture (Pa... - 0 views

  • we need to look at both agency and structure and so we need to end the theoretical conflict in favor of identifying shared goals
  • we need to develop strategies for decreasing the role of ignorance and fear in public debates about new media
  • The participation gap refers to these other social, cultural, and educational concerns which block full participation.
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  • he new "hidden curriculum" is shaping who feels empowered and entitled to participate
  • the model of expressive citizenship suggested by the MacArthur Foundation's emphasis on New Media Literacies
  • we need
  • While schools and libraries may represent the best sites for overcoming the participation gap, they are often the most limited in their ability to access some of the key platforms -- from Flickr and YouTube to Ning and Wikipedia-- where these new cultural practices are emerging.
  • We need to continue to push for alternative platforms and practices which embrace and explore the potential of collective intelligence
  • As John McMurria has noted, the most visible content of many media-sharing sites tends to come from members of dominant groups
  • danah boyd and S. Craig Watkins are arguing that social networks act like gated communities, cementing existing social ties rather than broadening them
  • social divisions in the real world are being mapped onto cyberspace, reinforcing cultural segregation along class and race lines
  • the segregation of cyberspace may be difficult to overcome
  • While corporations are asserting a "crisis of copyright", seeking to police "digital "piracy," citizen groups are seeking to combat a "crisis of fair use" as the mechanisms of corporate copyright protection erode the ability of citizens to meaningfully quote from their culture.
  • the debates over "free labor" represent the most visible part of a larger effort of consumers and citizens to reassert some of their rights in the face of web 2.0 companies
  • In his recent book, Dream:Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy, Stephen Duncombe makes the case for a new model of social change which is playful and utopian, channels what we know as consumers as well as what we know as citizens, and embraces a more widely accessible language for discussing public policy.
  • there is a need for critical theory which asks hard questions of emerging cultural practices
  • There is also a need for critical utopianism which explores the value of emerging models and proposes alternatives to current practices.
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    What follows might be described as a partial agenda for media reform from the perspective of participatory culture, one which looks at those factors which block the full achievement of my ideals of a more participatory society.
David Toews

beamtenherrschaft - 0 views

  • Second International Workshop on Story-Telling and Educational Games (STEG'09) CALL FOR PAPERSSecond International Workshopon Story-Telling and Educational Games (STEG'09)in conjunction with the8th International Conference on Web-based Learning (ICWL 2009),Aachen, Germany, August 19-21, 2009.
  • Social Network Analysis Conferences in 2009 2009 seems to be a great year for social network analysis and computer science. Here is a list of conferences I am aware of.
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    A research blog about information systems, complex networks, technology enhanced learning, social software, communities of practice, web 2.0 and more
David Toews

Review of T.L. Taylor's Play Between Worlds - 0 views

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    A gamer evaluates an ethnographer's description of Everquest.
David Toews

Digital Anthropology M.A. - 0 views

  • INTRODUCTORY TEXTS FOR COURSE Boellstorff. T. Coming of Age in Second life (Princeton 2008) Cameron, F. & Kenderdine, S., Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage: A Critical Discourse (MIT 2007) Horst, H. and Miller, D. The Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communication (Berg 2006) Kalay, Y.E. et al, New Heritage: New Media and Cultural Heritage (Routledge, 2008) Ito. M et. al. Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media. (MIT Press: forthcoming Kelty, C. Two Bits: the cultural significance of free software. (Duke 2008) Macdonald, S. & Basu, P., Exhibition Experiments (Blackwell 2007) Miller, D. and Slater, D. The Internet: an Ethnographic Approach (Berg 2001) Parry, R., Recoding the Museum: Digital Heritage and the Technologies of Change (Routledge, 2007) Tilley, C., Keane,W. Kuchler,S. Rowlands, M. Spyer, P. Handbook of Material Culture.(Sage 2006) Were, G. 'Out of touch? digital technologies, ethnographic objects and sensory orders'. In Chatterjee, H. (ed.) Touch in Museums (Berg 2008)
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    Check out England's newest MA in Digital Anthropology!
David Toews

A Socially-Just Internet - 0 views

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    A new article by David Toews (aka SL's Need Writer) asks: how can internet researchers incorporate the goals of peace and social justice? The key is focussing analysis on how newmedia social actors resist the imposition of agency by forming serious play groups.
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