Internet Based Collaboration and Organisation in Education Institutions - 20 views
I will post not much to try to draw these papers to the top of the list in an attempt to attract comment as it now is listed as 85 of 86 posts.
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Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? - 8 views
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Tamlin Dobrich on 25 Mar 12Manjoo, F. (2009, September 28). Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? is an article which suggests Wikipedia's achievement level has reached its peak and eventually will see its downfall. The article looks in depth at the potential causes for Wikipedia's slowing growth and how these elements could possibly lead to the community's eventual failure. It suggests one reason for Wikipedia's decelerating growth rate is simply that "the site has hit the natural limit of knowledge expansion" and the only possible remaining contributions are obscure topics and "janitorial" editing job such as formatting and fixing grammar. The article claims "Wikipedia's natural resource is emotion" and editors are motivated by the "rush of joy" they receive when contributing their unique wisdom to an audience of 300 million people. What this means is that as the need for significant edits diminishes, so too does participation enthusiasm. Additionally, as Wikipedia has grown, so too has the bureaucracy and complex laws of Wikipedia, resulting in a community that has become unwelcoming to novice Wikipedians. The article discusses how Wikipedia editors are made up of a narrow class of participants dominated by young males from wealthy countries and academic backgrounds. The Wikipedia author-base is not as broad and diverse as first thought and it seems "the encyclopedia is missing the voices of people in developing countries, women and experts in various specialties that have traditionally been divorced from tech". This too is given as a reason for Wikipedia's imminent downfall.
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michelangelo magasic on 08 Apr 12This article brings up a very interesting idea: the concept of an endpoint for Web 2.0 communities. As the author relates it, this would occur as a Malthusian collapse. Whilst at first glance this seems unfeasible given the infinite expanse of virtual pastures, the article makes some interesting points for consideration: the number of contributors on Wikipedia is dropping and it seems the we have run out of topics to write. It is interesting to compare the Wikipedia community to that of Bittorrent which has found renewed growth, and purpose, in the context of its struggle against copyright laws. Wikipedia has been hailed as a revolutionary form of knowledge democratisation, it is hard to imagine that wikipedians don't share a sense of purpose in their collaboration, and, perhaps even harder to imagine that we are running out of things to write about. Whilst this article is from a highly reputable source, its bias might be considered in following that of the conservative media toward copyleft, this is highlighted by phrases like 'Wikipedia's joyride' which suggests the growth of the site as frivolous. Considering the data it presents, the article is certainly very relevant to an understanding of online collaboration and thought provoking. I cannot help but think that there are still multitudes of topics to be written about, how many contributors, for example, have penned a page for themselves? Whilst ostensibly trivial, this might be the kind of interaction that sees renewed interest in the site and attracts the minority demographics which Gardner says the site needs to make its community richer (p.2). Perhaps the flagging interest in the site comes from the reason that the site is moving too close to the status quo, that as the BitTorrent community has seen, it needs to reminded of its position in an ideological shift. -
FARNAZ SHAMS on 10 Apr 12This article starts with a brief summary of Wikipedia's start. Wikipedia started its work in 2001 and allowed Wikipedia's to contribute and share their articles with others through it. Wikipedia increased its article slowly, in 2008 there were about 2200 articles being added to the Wikipedia every day and in 2009 Wikipedia had about 3 million articles in English. So, Wikipedia broken the record held by Chinese Yongle encyclopedia, which was the famous encyclopedia (Manjoo, 2009). According to my own studies, Wikipedia has different level of articles; they divided to low-, medium- and high quality and different people must play different roles, such as linking, editing and writing. For example, cleaning up other editor's mistake is a very important part, because some people do not add valuable information and some editors must come to increase articles quality and maybe the article needs another editor to correct the article again and this process may need to continue many times to increase quality of that article. However, that does not mean casual users work is not worthy, because, they can absorb more well-rounded contributors to make more valuable articles. To help contributors, University of Arizona suggested Wiki software, which guides contributors to know what should they do, for example, they will aware the article needs more link, references or it needs more editing and writing (Conger, 2010). Conger, C. (2010). Who writes Wikipedia articles? Retrieved from http://news.discovery.com/human/wikipedia-community-articles.html
STEAL THIS FILM - 2 views
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Steal this Film is a documentary about bittorrent culture centred around the story of the Swedish torrent tracking website The Pirate Bay. In telling their story, the Pirate Bay members relate quite early on that they are not only a filesharing website but also an organisation for free speech. We see bittorrent organisations as situated within the wider context of media piracy and filesharing networks as clandestine organisations that must be diffuse in order to evade detection by anti p2p groups. The Pirate Bay's struggle against media outlets is elevated to a battle against American cultural hegemony. Within this context Kent's (2011) reading of the swarm as a simulacra of group identity can be seen as a defence - a tactic - as deCerteau (1984) puts it for the weak to re-appropriate the power of the strong. Filesharing is a form of protest. By publicising their struggle, The Pirate Bay build a bridge between physical and virtual communities. The film features spontaneous interviews with people on the street."The internet is too big, you can't fight it, (27mins)" says a girl with blue hair. Is she referring to the network of computers which make up the internet, or the strength of communities which practice filesharing, the linkages and solidarity of people across the world? This footage awakens the reader's conceptions of a link between physical and virtual activities, online collaboration breeds a solidarity between users which can echo beyond the activities of the swarm. We see bittorrent used not solely as a method for obtaining entertainment but as a vehicle for ideological struggle. The faces in the movie are conspicuously youthful and one sees that they collaborate not only in terms of files but also in ideas and viewpoints. We see bittorrent as a tool for worldwide collaboration/change. References Certeau, M. (1984), The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press, Berkeley. Kent M (2011), 'Strangers in the Sw
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Steal this Film, is a short 30-minute documentary that looks at the social politics and debate about file sharing and the bit torrent client, focusing on Swedish torrent tracking website The Pirate Bay. The documentary outlines how file sharing and copyright is a touchy subject within American laws, and through the documentary we are able to hear differing opinions on who is right and who wrong. The various people that are interviewed who are involved with the Pirate Bay take a 'us against the world' approach and make it clear that technically they aren't doing anything wrong, and through the power of free speech they are making their voice heard. Numerous youths are also interviewed and each seem to be of the copyleft opinion that what they are doing is almost some sort of activism, and believe that these torrent communities are un-able to be stopped. I would also have to agree with this as a 'Pirate' myself and also through the learning that I have undertaken while at university, that this excuse by the Movie/Music industry that they aren't being hurt through piracy is totally utterly false and I think as one of the speakers in the video says "We aren't going to wake up one day and find that all music artists have died because of Piracy". In fact I would go as far to say that because of this cry-baby outlook by these industries that the bit torrent and file-sharing communities have been strengthened because of it. -
I was taken aback when I went to download 'Steal This Film' and it popped up as a torrent file in BitTorrent. I suppose I wasn't used to, what I perceived as, 'legitimate' content being provided in the form of a torrent. The film stated, "right now ten million people are using BitTorrent" and indeed, at the time of watching, I was also using BitTorrent. One of the things I found admirable, and also a little surprising, was the resilience of the Pirate Bay founders. Even after being raided and shut down by the authorities, their belief in what they were doing, and their advocacy of free speech, was too strong to just let go. I also found the film interesting in its depiction of the various anti piracy campaigns created by Hollywood film studios juxtaposed with the interviews of young people claiming that the amount of money made by Hollywood is "absurd". Even if crew members and writers are suffering at the hands of film piracy, like the people interviewed, I find it difficult to sympathise with Hollywood's view point when you can safely assume that the largest chunk of proceeds made from any film go to the 'talent' and not those people working so hard behind the scenes. Perhaps Hollywood losing money could be considered a positive outcome, as so many subpar films probably should never have been made in the first place. Perhaps having less money to fund any film on a whim will lead film studios to choose their projects more carefully, resulting in the delivery of quality rather than quantity to film consumers.
Resource 4: Collaboration in context: Comparing article evolution among subject discipl... - 4 views
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In the article, Collaboration in context: Comparing article evolution among subject disciplines in Wikipedia, the writers Katherine Ehmann, Andrew Large and Jamshid Beheshti, compare a small selection of articles - some newly created, and some well-established - from three subject disciplines - the hard sciences, soft sciences and humanities - in order to examine the article quality, how it differs from discipline to discipline and if it changes over time (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). One of the most interesting findings that was published in this article was that, contrary to previous research (Brandle, 2005; Dondio, et al., 2006; Lig, 2004; Stvilia, et al., 2005a, 2008; Wilkinson and Huberman, 2007), the articles used that had a greater number of edits than the others, were not the articles of the highest quality (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). Wikipedia articles on average retained 90.3 percent of their original text and in general, only small edits were made over time (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). I believe these new findings still support, 'the wisdom of crowds' theory though (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). Even though a large portion of the text remains from the original contributor, the small edits by other contributors over time, still help to fine-tune the article's meaning and readability. The authors' exploration into Wikipedia Talk pages is also of interest, especially how these places aided the collaboration and coordination process and how this in turn contributed to the quality of articles in Wikipedia (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). While Ehmann, Large and Beheshti only studied a small number of articles, and another study is required which examines a larger number of articles, in order to make more conclusive findings, I think this article is still a useful resource (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). It is constructive to compare this article's findings to the findings in the Rosenzweig article (Rosenzweig, 2006).
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I think this article is interesting and pointed wisdom of crowd cannot bring high quality for Wikipedia's article. Talk pages are playing important role in Wikipedia, editors post their suggestion there and other active editors come and follow them or put other suggestion to make a more credible article (in Talk pages the most request belonged to the suggestion for editing and completeness had the less request followed by accuracy and accessibility) (Beheshti, Ehmann & Large, 2088). According to my own research, one of the important things, which mentions in talk pages is about sources of articles which can take a place as print resources, deep web resources external links and inexact references. Disagreement about content of articles is another important subject in Wikipedia and before an article edited, editors discuss in talk pages about adding controversial material or removing content, and then they get a decision to how edit the article. Talk pages may use to notify other users to know this article had recent edit or editors ask their questions there from other or they request for help. However, the author mentioned participation of contributors on different topics is different. There are many articles which have only one comment on their talk page and there is large number of articles who has various comment and suggestions on their talk page (Breslin, Passant & Schneider, 2010). Breslin, J, G., A, Passant. & Schneider, J. (2010). A content analysis: How Wikipedia talk pages are used. 7. Retrieved from http://journal.webscience.org/373/2/websci10_submission_80.pdf
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Collaboration in Context takes an in-depth view at the collaboration which produces Wikipedia pages. I was attracted to this resource in that I imagined it would assist me in understanding how users interacted in a organised context - ie. the mindsets of users collaborating on a specific, and, in the case of many Wikipedia pages, complex, task. Whilst the paper examines the development of pages from a 'contributor's' point of view, it does this through statistical interpretation of a set of data the authors assembled on page edits. The result is that the paper doesn't so much uncover the nuances of collaboration in an organisational setting, as relate the nuts and bolts of page editing. Perhaps, the mores of collaboration might be inferred from this reading of Wikipedia's collaborative process, though I found it difficult to see this in numbers rather than testimony from wikipedians themselves. What this paper does do is highlight the efficacy of 'talk pages' in the process of building of 'rich' Wikipedia entries. These forums provide the engine of collaboration on Wikipedia - users able to get together as a group to uncover the most efficient ways to combine their work - the paper concluding, "Talk pages - in addition to article edits themselves - provide wikipedians with a powerful means of shaping the presentation of knowledge. (chap.8)" This information is useful to me in the way I will be able to compare it to the, say, simpler, and more spontaneous collaboration of strangers in bittorrent which does not require a 'talk page'. What I would have liked to have known is how the 'talk' on these pages allowed networks of 'equal' users to perfect articles on complex topics, and what the users themselves thought of the arrangement.
What Wikipedia Can Teach Businesses About Collaborative Authoring - 15 views
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This is an extremely interesting article as it focuses on the ways in which wikis have excelled in enticing people into contributing and exciting them about making contributions. Businesses and organizations can learn a lot from this article as it also illustrates ways in which a wiki can be used to increase the rate, amount and quality of contribution. The precise nature of Wikipedia is one of the greatest advantages it has over other information sources. People looking for information find their topic and the information provided is in a formatted style that is maintained throughout the site. The limited security measures on Wikipedia allow people to contribute what they wish with minimal restrictions. The question is however can a wiki such as Wikipedia be used effectively to add value and increase collaboration within a business environment? Wikipedia does allow users to contribute information and remove the barriers and restrictions of both geographic and social status. This can allow bias or ill-informed information to be present in articles. Within a business structure there is little to no chance of purposely misleading information being presented to the articles. This does remove one of the major problems that Wikipedia faces as the integrity of information is assured. So with this in mind does a wiki remain a great resource for collaboration within a business environment?
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Overall, this article provides a nice summary of how businesses and corporations can employ wikis in their knowledge production, highlighting some of the advantages and disadvantages and discussing some troubleshooting problems. Yeo (2010) notes that an added benefit of using wikis in businesses is that multiple people can work on a document at once, allowing multiple editors to work on different sections of the wiki at the same time. However where companies may struggle is with the layout and formatting of the page. Hasan and Pfaff (2006) note that IBM, the Disney Corporation, and British Telecommunications are just some of the major corporations that have successfully implemented the use of wikis into their business structure. The Shell Corporation is yet another business that has successfully employed the use of wikis in their organisation (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008). Similarly, the revision history and ability to track editing changes made to pages is a common advantage running across all of these studies. Although this article offers a nice description of how wikis can be used in businesses, it does not delve into the world of knowledge management and using wikis as a knowledge sharing platform, as discussed by Hasan and Pfatt (2006). They also fail to provide strategies to motivate employees to make use of the wiki and participate in knowledge contribution, as mentioned by Hendrix and Johannsen (2008). Nevertheless, the article makes us aware about wikis and how they can be incorporated in businesses, noting some of the advantages and limitations. Additional References: Hasan, H., & Pfaff, C.C. (2006). The wiki: an environment to revolutionise employees' interaction with corporate knowledge. OZCHI. 11(24-26). Pp377-380. Retrieved 19th March 2012 from http://www.ozchi.org/proceedings/2006/sessions/short-papers/social/hasan-p377.pdf Hendrix, D., & Johannsen, G. (May 16th, 2008). A knowledge sharing and collaboration platform. Inside Knowledg -
This article related to my topic discussed about how Wikipedia as one of the popular online collaborative encyclopedias allows everyone to write and read its article for free and there are large numbers of businesses all around the world who edit and publish its articles (Yeo, 2010). According to my own studies, Wikipedia will be good for small businesses? Wikipedia as a popular online community can help small businesses to have an article there. Of course, everyone can make a page in Wikipedia, but, having a page for businesses can bring more customers for them, for example, Zip's Drive-In has article in Wikipedia which gives information to people about its fast foods. Tekserve, sales Apple products in New York, has a Wikipedia article to gives beneficial information about their new products and absorb them on their own blog. Or even "Hollywood-based Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles" has article in Wikipedia (Mcgee, 2009). But why businesses want to have an article in Wikipedia? They can have great exposure of their new products: when a company has article in Wikipedia that means more people all over the world can read their information that brings them more exposure. They can manage their information and their through Wikipedia and people know Wikipedia as a trustable resource. Moreover, Wikipedia gives permission to businesses to update their articles, and with the help of Talk page they can read customers wishes and suggestion (Mcgee, 2009). However, businesses must aware there in Wikipedia there will be some angry customers and they may edit their articles, so, businesses should aware to correct any untruthful information which added by others and it is a truth that monitoring can be very time-consuming for them (Mcgee, 2009). Mcgee, M. (17 september 2009). Should a small business have a Wikipedia article? Available online at: http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/should-small-business-have-wikipedia-article/2311/
Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers - 2 views
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In this article there are real world examples of how mobile technologies are being used within the four walls of a bricks and mortar retail store. The article interviews two different people and investigates their use of Smartphone technologies while shopping for retail goods. It proves valuable not only because of its direct reference to mobile technologies in the hands of consumers, but for the first time we can begin to see the evolution in mobile device information sourcing. Although both the consumer and producer are slowly realizing these capabilities, it is fair to say that the ongoing process of experimentation reflects mobile device adolescence. There are connections between reoccurring themes such as changing business models, changing consumer behavior and the evolving development of mobile applications that are best understood when put into practice. More specifically just how could information be used and integrated into the everyday conditioning of mobile devices? One example as illustrated in the main focus of this article, are applications that are used in store by Smartphone owners in order to compare prices on stocked items. However depending on Smartphone user location settings retailers can push additional information to shoppers already sourcing product information from competitive brands. This reference to retailers also utilizing mobile technologies and information distribution is equally as valuable and shows a shift in business practice that surpasses traditional discount models. Bustillo, M., Zimmerman, A.(2010, December 15) Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.retailgeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010_1215_Phone-WieldingShoppersStrikeFearIntoRetailers.pdf
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Yeah a good article pointing to a great opportunity for retailers. The big insightful learning from e commerce prior to this trend was that you did not have to be the lowest priced or the best quality. You just had to be most accessible with a good website, good shopping process, and let people pay. The early adopters were willing to sacrifice price and quality to get convenience. With the trend in this paper pointing towards the vast majority joining the automated shopping process now retailers will be able to more easily offload all their dead stock and the need for genuine end of season sales will be reduced. The retailers with good sales skills will make bigger profits. I see a trend here were businesses that do not keep up with online opportunities will go out of business. Is it possible for the immigrant bakery that has a competitive advantaged based on good quality and hard work to survive? With no website and a cultural belief that hard work wins business possibly they can survive when there is a local community that does not consult a phone to make a choice. Right now supermarket price dumping on bread is doing more damage to private bakeries than any social media app. When other varaiables come in that add to a drain on cash flow like increased rent, more mouths to feed, increased competition, etc then I see this brings increasing reasons to force people to start using social media to seek more business. Just like domain names. You buy one or two you will use for your business and then you buy 5 or 10 for defensive reasons. The last thing you want is to put a great effort in to developing your online position to then have someone buy a similar domain name and pour money at SEO and capture your market. www.carlislebakery.com.au as a prime web address could be undermined by www.carlisebakery.com if you do not buy them both. So the same is with social media. You might not be motivated to get more business but you are forced to the table to protect y
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This article isn't about the common definition of mobile crowd-sourcing where data from crowds is aggregated. Instead, Bustillo and Zimmerman describe how mobile technology has brought about a shift in the consumer-retailer relationship which is "threatening to upend the business models of the biggest store chains in America." The article describes how in the past, American retailers (and I'll be bold enough to say retailers in other developed nations as well) could get away with selling items at inflated prices because consumers had no easy way to determine whether those prices were reasonable. Now, the article explains, the ability to compare prices with a smartphone has ushered in a "new era of price transparency". The article paints a bleak picture for the future of retailers who can't or won't make their prices more competitive. Articles like this highlight the fact that our increasing use of smartphones is heralding some fundamental changes in the way we live. And despite not fitting the normal discussion on mobile crowd-sourcing, changes in market dynamics like those described in this article are entirely due to the behaviour of crowds. After all, retailers depend on a crowd of consumers to buy their products, so when technology enables that crowd to shop smarter, it's no surprise the retailers feel a little anxious. The article doesn't mention any effort on the part of the retailers to aggregate data from online consumers in order to better market their products, however with web analysis software this is easy enough to do, and I suspect it's happening. So the transparency works both ways: the consumer has newfound clarity on prices, whilst the retailer gains clarity on consumer behaviour. This article, along with the Wisdom of Crowds Wikipedia article, has me considering mobile crowd-sourcing as a powerful means of market regulation. This could be a theme of my essay for module two.
Review of Lazy Virtues: teaching writing in the edge of Wikipedia. - 22 views
I think it is very astute of Potts to refer to the different generations as 'digital natives' and 'digital immigrants'. We (I include myself in the younger generation) have grown up in a world of c...
Expecting the Unexpected: The Need for a Networked Terrorism and Disaster Response Stra... - 14 views
Stephenson and Bonabeau's article (2007) proposes an alternative strategic approach for emergencies that utilises the concepts of 'swarm intelligence' and 'netwar' (2007, p. 2), a combination of co...
Conflict and Disaster Management in a Hyper-connected World - 18 views
Collins article is a useful resource as it discusses the need to increase hyper-connectivity in civil-military responses, with government and non-government organisations engaging with the wider ne...
The Wisdom of Crowds - 26 views
This Wikipedia article presents a summary of the 2004 book of the same name by New York Journalist James Surowiecki. Initially it explains Surowiecki's ideas about how crowd intelligence works and ...
A Decade Of Wikipedia, The Poster Child For Collaboration - 4 views
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The poster child of collaboration? A bold statement but is it that far off the truth? Every day Wikipedia helps people around the world find information that is both detailed and related to the topic they have searched. The modern internet is filled with incorrect and purposely misleading information that users can freely access. The user has no idea that the information they are receiving is incorrect so it is quite often trusted. Wikipedia's system of article moderators allows the information to be supplied by anyone but filtered by people considered to be well educated in that chosen field. This means that the information is not as random as other information available throughout World Wide Web. The progression in the Web 2.0 era has been at an exponential rate and Wikipedia has been at the fore front of the revolution as it allows users of the World Wide Web to contribute which is what separates Web 1.0 and web 2.0. So I don't completely agree with the idea that Wikipedia is the poster child of collaboration, however I would suggest that it is the poster child of the Web 2.0 era as it encompasses all that makes the new era so exciting.
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I found this article was an interesting read as it discusses Wikipedia's journey in becoming a successful and reliable encyclopedia. While I do consider myself a Wikipedia supporter I did find the article to be incredibly bias in favour of Wikipedia as it speaks extensively with Sue Gardner the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. The article does briefly touch on some negative points about Wikipedia in hearing from Robert McHenry, author and former Editor-in-Chief of Encyclopedia Britannica (Wikipedia's largest competitor) but soon turns back in favour of Wikipedia explaining that its scientific articles are of similar accuracy to that of Encyclopedia Britannica (Solon, 2011). As this article suggests, Wikipedia is evermore becoming a reliable source of information however people still seem to question Wikipedia's reliability. Here are somethings that I found in my own research that can suggest people's lack of confidence in Wikipedia's reliability: * Wikipedia articles that cover obscure and unusual topics tend to present more inaccuracies and errors than those covering mainstream topics - this is because obscure topics receive less traffic and therefore there is less likelihood of errors being corrected (Ball, 2007). * Wikipedia is not an accurate representation of a vast and diverse crowd, in fact "the encyclopedia is missing the voices of people in developing countries, women and experts in various specialties that have traditionally been divorced from tech" (Manjoo, 2009). * Wikipedia has in the past been subject to vandalism with hoax and defamatory article updates (Ball, 2007). Reference: Ball, P. (2007, February 27). The more, the wikier. Nature: International weekly journal of Science. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com Manjoo, F. (2009, September 28). Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine Solon, O. (2011, January 11). A Decade of Wikipedia, Th
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This article provides quite an interesting overview of Wikipedia and how it started off as a "dirty little secret" for some in the earlier years, with its use progressing to be an "accepted part of daily life in the developed world" ten years after its launch. In addition, higher education facilities (Grossek, 2009; CCNMTL, 2008) and companies (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006) are beginning to discover the advantages of employing wikis in their respective institutions. We are beginning to see that the 'wisdom of the crowds' and 'knowledge management' are important factors in larger organisations. Thus what once started out as an online encyclopaedia and a "dirty little secret" is now branching out and weaving its way into larger businesses, organisations, and educational institutions. Although Wikipedia has suffered its fair share of editing glitches and is not completely error free, as mentioned in this article, Wikipedia has come a long way since its introduction into the Web 2.0 world and is becoming a more commonly used tool. In addition, it has shown us the effects of the 'wisdom of the crowds' and how collaboration can be so important. Speakers at the New Media in Education Conference (CCNMTL, 2008) note that wikis provide such a valuable communication and collaboration platform that they essentially create a virtual classroom- an interactive platform where students can share ideas, edit documents, and collaborate on group projects. Inevitably I do agree with the title of this paper and think that Wikipedia is "The Poster Child for Collaboration", with Wikipedia and wikis weaving their way into educational institutions (Grossek, 2009; CCNMTL, 2008) and companies (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006) who use them as a collaborative tool. Additional References: CCNMTL (Nov 3rd, 2008). Promoting Collaborative Learning using Wikis. [YouTube Video]. Retrieved 22nd March 2012 from http://www.yout
Online Activism - 14 views
My topic of choice is the Anonymous activist group who's activities are often, but not exclusively, enacted online. The online activism by Anonymous is similar to the online activism described in Y...
Reips, U-D & Garaizar, P. (2011) Mining Twitter: A source for psychological wisdom of t... - 10 views
This article discusses the usefulness of Twitter as a tool for research. Researcher Pablo Garaizar suggests that monitoring large volumes of tweets and identifying trends in what users are saying -...
Crisis in a Networked World: Features of Computer-Mediated Communication in the April 1... - 9 views
This article relates to "Connected Giving" by Torrey et al. (2007) because they both talk about the two different kinds of communication. In this article, the authors discuss how an "unofficial bac...
Influences on Cooperation in BitTorrent Communities. - 10 views
Influence on Cooperation in BitTorrent Communities is a useful resource, not just for looking at file sharing communities, but also to compare to other collaborative communities. For example, I bel...
Digital Prefigurative Participation: The Entwinement of Online Communication and Offlin... - 0 views
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Mercea, D. (2012). Digital Prefigurative Participation: The Entwinement of Online Communication and Offline Participation in Protest Events. New Media and Society, 14(1), 153-169. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from Sage Journals Database. http://nms.sagepub.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/content/14/1/153.full.pdf+html In this article, the authors aim to identify the use of computer-mediated communication prior to two offline protests, to determine the role and impact it plays on participants. Social media evidently played a strong role in the recent Arab uprising, but unlike the environmental protests studied in this article, there was a widespread urgency for change influencing the use of online resources. The study included FanFest, an environmental festival supporting change in Romania, and Camp for Climate Change, a traditional and direct style protest involving damage to property and blockades, in the UK (p.158-159). FanFest was considered a low-risk event, and Climate Camp was deemed a high-risk event (p.158), due to the level of activism involved. This article is valuable as it determines a correlation between individuals not associated with any activist organizations and their involvement preceding offline events. The idea that potential activists are more likely to attend low-risk events was reinforced, as a large percentage of people who attended FanFest fit this category (p.159-160). The online organization of the festival attracted new participants, as people were able to discuss the event online and collaborate, by offering suggestions to improve future festivals (p.163). The event aimed to engage the public in environmentalism, rather than demand change, like Climate Camp. This enabled people to freely discuss ideas online, without needing to meet in person. This contrasts with Climate Camp, as many participants d
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In this article Mercea (2011, p. 155) observes how computer-mediated-communications are contributing to "participation in protest events run by social movement organisations". He aims to study specifically what role online communication plays in the relationship between online and offline environments in relation to activism. This article ties in well with the Kony 2012 campaign I am currently observing and has strong links to an article I read called 'Online Activism' by Guobin Yang. In the two cases Mercea presents, the power of the crowds mediated through computer-communication allows online activism to occur (Yang, 2009, pp. 33). Through interactions on Web 2.0 outlets, Social Movement Organisations have become a force for social change (Mercea, 2012, p.156). Mercea and Yang both agree on the idea that organisations that utilise Web 2.0 platforms are more successful at harnessing crowds, and in doing so promote discussions, real life meeting points, and ultimately plan towards a groups next step in action. The Invisible Children organisation is classified as a 'Social Organisation Movement' and is a prime example of how computer-mediated-communication combined with Web 2.0 platforms facilitates participation. Interactions on Web 2.0 outlets have allowed the Invisible Children's Kony 2012 campaign to become a force for social change. The Kony 2012 campaign reinforces Mercea's observation that interactions online can encourage activism to cross over into the offline environment. The Invisible Children's action plan, focused for April 20th 2012 dubbed 'Cover the Night', enables audiences to actively become involved with the campaign offline while engaging with it online. The success of the Invisible Children's campaign can be pin-pointed to how it was aimed at a particular audience, reinforced by social media platforms, and most importantly how it has harnessed Web 2.0 tools to deliver the mission of the Kony 2012 campaign, to make J
Moldova's internet revolution: Analyzing the role of technologies in various phases of ... - 0 views
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Lysenko, V., Desouza, K. (2011). Moldova's internet revolution: Analyzing the role of technologies in various phases of the confrontation. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 79 (2012) 341-361. Retrieved March 23, 2012 from http://www.sciencedirect.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/science/article/pii/S0040162511001223 This research article published in the journal 'Technological Forecasting & Social Change' analyses the role played by online collaboration and organisation tools in Moldova's revolution of April 2009. It specifically details the different technologies used during various phases of the revolution. The research is quite detailed in identifying the different groups involved - dissenters and authorities - with statistics and case studies breaking down the timeline and dynamics of the revolution. Overall the researchers found that: "1) the protesters organized their initial mobilization through social network services (SNS) and short message service (SMS); 2) Twitter was mostly used during later phases of the revolution - the active street protests and the subsequent information war - for communication about the conflict both locally and globally; and 3) through skillful use of new Internet-based ICTs, it is possible to conduct a successful revolution without noticeable prior offline organization". I chose this article as it highlights the power of Twitter as an organization tool through its involvement in providing a communication platform for the dissenters to organize street protests and then update from the ground what was happening. It also shows Twitters strength as a collaborative tool for movements with the involvement of supporters outside of Moldova tweeting about the revolution.
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I love this article as it relates to the Orange Revolution. I am also a proud protester of a post Orange Revolution protest in New Europe (Latvia) where I had personal exchanges with MP's in a New European country - read here http://balticguide.ee.klient.veebimajutus.ee/index.php?s=1&n=110&a=4161 In Latvia there have been many protests and I sought to increase international pressure on the Latvian government through my founding the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Latvia and in many other ways. I even managed to gain the participation of Curtin University honours Business Students that stayed in a remote city of Latvia to assist the council with its plans. The use of mobile SNS was not part of the protests I was aware of and participated in. Friends informed me what was being posted on websites about the time and place of the next protest. This enabled the inclusion of older proud Latvians and this caused the dynamic situation where younger people restrained their physical action in respect of the older participants so they would not get caught up in altercations. Later protests were much more violent. I as a primary source of information about student protests in New European countries can attest to the fact that the use of mobile SNS would have been very helpful and would have increased the momentum of protests. Because of the many protests in Latvia, many of the citizens that would like to see change, are suffering from protest fatigue. Possibly the earlier more effective use of mobile SNS could have made a difference. I blogged http://austchamriga.blogspot.com.au/ and wrote threatening letters to the IMF as well as led by example through organising courses for the youth of Latvia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uBThbeXy9Q I will be back to Latvia to push more for the direction and changes the people want. I am arming myself with information like in this paper and what I learn in the Masters of Internet Communication. What is clear to me is that without a
Encouraging Political Participation in Africa: The Potential of Social Media Platforms - 0 views
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Chatora, A. (2012). Encouraging Political Participation in Africa: The Potential of Social Media Platforms. Institute for Security Studies. Retrieved March 22, 2012 from http://www.iss.co.za/uploads/15Mar2012SocialMedia.pdf This situation report is from the Institute for Security Studies (a pan-African applied policy research institute based in South Africa), and examines the role of social media in facilitating political participation. It uses as its catalyst the recent popular protests dubbed the 'Arab Spring' to explore the possibility of an 'African Spring' protest movement. The report includes case studies on several African countries highlighting difficulties faced by different countries utilising social media, which includes historical experiences, institutional arrangements and socioeconomic and political conditions. Of note are the actions taken in Cameroon where the government blocked the Twitter service for ten days during the Arab Spring protests for reasons of 'national security', and in Uganda when the 'walk-to-work' protests were successfully initiated by protest groups making use of social media such as Twitter, the government suspended the use of social networks causing 'walk-to-work' protests to lose their momentum. The report concludes that despite the severe challenges facing Africans in taking up social media, that ultimately "engaging with these platforms will allow citizens to circumvent the wide range of tactics used to stifle public opinion". I find this report to be a valuable resource as it explores the current environment, requirements, and limitations within Africa for movements to successfully incorporate social media such as Twitter into their political protests.
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This article discusses the potential for political protests in African nations, in light of the recent activism in Arab countries. I found this article beneficial, as it clearly highlights the profound difficulties that are faced in some African nations, and discusses elements that are not covered in other articles related to the topic. An element of particular importance was the consideration of historical context when investigating the potential for political activism, both online and offline. The widespread poverty and clear digital divide between some people in Africa, is of significance as many choose to engage in activities of survival, rather than that of political action (Chatora, 2012, p.4). Computer literacy skills and the willingness of people to disobey controlling governments must also be considered, as people in Angola have shown no signs of retreating from political discussion and the organization of protests online, compared to people in Cameroon and Zimbabwe who are facing various difficulties against repressive regimes (Chatora, 2012, p.9-10). The importance of historical context clearly resonates with the article I discussed - "Protest 2.0: Online Interactions and Aboriginal Activists." The Aboriginal activists were uncomfortable with using new technology, due to a lack of computer literacy, as well as, the evident interference it made with the historical context of communication in their culture, as visual storytelling is favoured over the written word used online (Petray, 2011, p.927). This article adds value to the discussion of political activism as it is of great relevance to the topic and appears to be a reliable source of information. Whilst it does comment on various elements not covered in other articles, it also highlights an area of significance regarding the uptake of social media in African nations - clearly implying that there will be future developments in this area of research. Reference: Petray, T.L. (20
Protest 2.0: Online Interactions and Aboriginal Activists - 1 views
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Petray, T.L. (2011). Protest 2.0: Online Interactions and Aboriginal Activists. Media, Culture and Society, 33(6), 923-940. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from Sage Journals Database. http://mcs.sagepub.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/content/33/6/923.full.pdf+html This article conveys, that while it is necessary to utilize the tools made available by the digital age, they "should be used to enhance offline activism, rather than to replace it" (p.936). The author has studied an Aboriginal community in Townsville, and the difficulties that activists have faced in gaining momentum in a digital space. Unlike the young tech-savvy protestors in the Arab uprising, or the destructive youths in the London riots, the participants in this community are older and not comfortable with new technology. In this remote community, emails have been favoured when conveying information and organizing meetings online (p.927). However, this has caused difficulties in the disjointed fragmentation of messages, as well as, interfering with a culture that values visual storytelling over the written word (p.930; 927). Similar to, Climate Camp in the UK, the community may have benefited from using some Internet tools, however, face-to-face meetings were found to be more effective when collaborating and organising events. To further their presence online, the group created a Facebook page, allowing people to donate money and support them. However, the lack of success in gaining political momentum is linked to the participants and the current nature of online activism. Whilst the page can facilitate collaboration and organisation, it lost its momentum in the lack of group activity and recent updates (p.933). Due to the current nature of online activism, people can simply 'like' a page or sign a petition to show their support towards a cause, with little to no effort (p
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Whilst I totally agreed with the concluding points of this article I found it very hard to identify just which topic this article had the greatest relevance to. It is a reliable source as it is associated with the James Cook University and the author has positioned themselves within the community they are researching. I could draw similarities with one of my articles, Public Radio's Social Media Experiments: Risk, Opportunity, Challenge, (Levenshus, 2007) in that they both reference a resistance to social media opportunities. The reasons for this 'resistance' in both articles could be put down to a lack of knowledge, resource allocation and institutional culture or 'cultural explainations' (Petray, 2011, p. 927). The understanding that 'push-button activism' was more of a feeling of evolvement rather than the translation of any 'real participation', supports the articles offer of a resolution. Any negative ideals about cyber-activism are squashed by the simple resolution of combining offline infrastructures with the online and not just relying on either one. Overall I thought this article was a breath of fresh air. Whilst I realise that 'cyber-activism' has been in the spotlight a lot lately due to the Kony 2012 campaign, I was delighted to read an article that turns its attention to local activism. Aboriginal cultures have always maintained my interest and just recently I viewed the 'Tall Man' exhibition that dealt with the Palm Island death in custody referred to in the article. It had a profound affect on me. I also appreciate that preserving oral histories and the rite to communicate in ones own language has deeply embedded social issues within Australia. This is another reason why this articles direct referencing of Aboriginal activism is refreshing and of great value. Equal access to social technologies is so very important in closing the digital divide both globally and locally. As the article points out only '25%' of the globe have such access (P
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Reference: Levenshus, A. 2007. Public Radios Social Media Experiments: Risk, Opportunity, Challenge. Retrieved from http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/sites/default/files/public_radio_report3.pdf
Making the News: Movement Organisations, Media attention and the public agenda - 18 views
This article very loosely relates to my focus on Anonymous. Although not particularly relevant to my focus, it does provide a decent contextual setting for explaining why Anonymous receives so much...