Group items tagged

Hmmm...Interesting thought. With the popularity of twitter and facebook, perhaps this is a reality.

I studied mass communication in college and several of my classmates are now "Community Managers" at nonprofits, consulting firms and corporations alike. Essentially they are the social media marketers, but have roles that also include public relations and community building. I think considering our own MLIS program's recent (last year?) addition of a social media concentration, KeithK's comment on the blog entry comes to life: "There are several important concepts to consider in the participatory culture of social media that extend far beyond marketing. The potential for community engagement, for developing an active learning community through the use of social media is one good reason. Understanding the dynamics of social capital with respect to creating community is another. These are things that need to be analyzed through research and reflection, not just use." Social media as a source to recontextualize our information resources through collaboration, folksonomies and other community-building and -based activities is pretty exciting. I don't know that a social media librarian is specifically needed, but it is something that could be incorporated into an instructional or educational technology librarian's role in academia.

You know, our library has a Facebook account, but I don't think we ever really do anything with it. There's a lot of potential there, as this article points out.

Really great working paper on trolling in a feminist forum -- what do communities do when outsiders attempt to derail conversation by intentionally trying to start arguements and cause rifts in the community.  A case study of two incidents within the same message board.

Oh rad! I was thinking about focusing on trolling specifically for my project. I've actually done a little research on Anonymous/4chan too if you ever want to share sources!

Started laughing when I saw that they did a study on trolling, so I had to read the article. Really interesting piece on technology and gender.

Brian D Loader and Leigh Keeble A review of evidence on the effectiveness of initiatives providing better access to information and communication technology for people experiencing social exclusion. This literature review examines current evidence on the effectiveness of public access centres and related community informatics (CI) initiatives in providing better access to information and communication technology for people who experience social exclusion.

Building an online community and culture around words, phrases, and tropes -> looks at twitter hashtags, 

Hey, sorry I didn't see this comment sooner! I'm on a few google groups about memes so I get a lot of articles through them, as well as following twitter accounts of academics studying the lulz. This one, I think I just found it on google scholar while looking for sources for my final project.

Jay Smooth nails the "no homo" meme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nCB8aiXD4)....and explains that as fun as it is to "play the game," just don't do it.

Privacy issues in the communications sector are increasingly prevalent as new technology and new applications enter the market, such as social networking and the use of location based information. These new technology privacy issues add to the existing privacy issues in the sector, such as spam, telemarketing and the misuse of silent telephone numbers. Complaints are a vital element in privacy protection - indeed, the entire system of privacy protection in the communications sector is built on the receipt and management of complaints. There are few proactive requirements to protect privacy in the sector, and the volume and scale of business in the sector is so large that no regulator could hope to monitor compliance without relying heavily on complaints. Proactive steps are necessary and crucial, but this report focuses on complaint paths. The aim of this study is to analyse and compare common communications privacy complaint paths in order to obtain optimum outcomes for consumers through the development.

In one of the videos we watched last week, Wesch mentioned how students can look at the discussion page for any article on Wikipedia to get a sense of how information is being interactively constructed and contested. This article discusses the issue of self-governance in online communities with a focus on how Wikipedia is edited and the community politics behind it. I think this article makes a really useful contribution to a discussion about authority and knowledge production on the Internet. There is also a related article about the relationship between Wikipedia contributions and identity construction here.

I read (part of) an ethnography of Wikipedia last semester that was really interesting. http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/ Good Faith Collaboration by Joseph Reagle "Wikipedia's style of collaborative production has been lauded, lambasted, and satirized. Despite unease over its implications for the character (and quality) of knowledge, Wikipedia has brought us closer than ever to a realization of the century-old pursuit of a universal encyclopedia. Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia is a rich ethnographic portrayal of Wikipedia's historical roots, collaborative culture, and much debated legacy. "

Without accusing certain authors in the field of elitism, I think that Wikipedia works as it should, by serving the needs of people in the way they want it. If someone needs to look up the habits of Pokemon or William Shatner's favorite food, who are we to question their information needs?

Social informatics is not explicitly mentioned in this article. However, I think it gives us direct insight into crafting our own definition of the term and its application. Bates looks at the overall domain of information science, and how we, as members of that discipline, can break free of the idea (which may have changed a bit since its writing in 1999) that there's no content to LIS education and practice, just structure (i.e., the core of our profession is to organize other discipline's information). Most applicable to our discussion, at least in this point of the semester, seems this excerpt: "In comparison to other social and behavioral science fields, we are always looking for the red thread of information in the social texture of people's lives. When we study people we do so with the purpose of understanding information creation, seeking, and use. We do not just study people in general. The rest of the social sciences do various forms of that. Sometimes this can be a very fine distinction; other times it is very easy to see. In communications research, a cousin to our field, the emphasis is on the communication process and its effects on people; in information science we study that process in service of information transfer. For another example, there are social scientists today who are observing people doing collaborative work through new types of networked systems in the field of computer-supported co-operative work (CSCW) . The sociologist or social psychologist identifies and describes the network of relationships and the social hierarchy that develops under these circumstances. They may examine the impact of technology on those social relationships and on the work of the individuals involved. The information scientist, on the other hand, follows the information the way Woodward and Bernstein "followed the money" in their Watergate investigations. That's the red thread in the social tapestry. When we look at that social hierarchy, we ar

There are currently huge riots happening in the virtual world of EVE online, a science fiction massively multiplayer online game, after the publisher changed the in-game currency, making clothes for players' avatars cost 20-25 USD a piece and space monocles cost 68 dollars. Also, the game has a parliament that meets in Iceland. woah!

It sounds like these gamers on on the verge of an epic win...obviously demonstrating their ability to change virtual worlds by way of impending cultural collapse. This makes me rethink Jane McGonical's talk. I was assuming all positive outcomes when applying the collaborative game play concept. Now I wonder what the likelihood is that simulations of real world scenarios (like ending world hunger) will produce not just a failed result but possibly create even bigger problems.

The adoption by community organisations of ICTs has facilitated improved communication and services to their client groups. However, many such groups do not have adequate and easy access to affordable, impartial and non-biased ICT support and advice. The e-Rider project aims to provide mobile, technical computing advice and support to not-for-profit community and voluntary organisations in the Wellington region.

Research on the Information Society, the Digital Divide and Information and Communication Technologies for development

I thought this was an interesting article after all of our discussions this past week. Is there a limit to our growing networks?

I liked this article, too. I think the reason some of my friends on Facebook have an excessively high number of friends is for business. I wonder how many people with a high number of friends actually communicate with their "friends". It makes me think about Qraig's post "It's all about me". People with that many friends can't possibly be connecting with all of those people; rather, I think it is more likely they post updates on themselves.

Yup, after Qraig's post I realized how much of facebook is about "me." I know that this is a good avenue of connection, but really the majority of what I see from my "friends" is all about themselves!

This is an interesting article which highlights how large companies failed in the social media world. Because Web 2.0 is a fairly new concept, there are new "rules" for businesses to follow, or they may face damaging results.

I think part of it is that the mistakes are made more glaring because they spread so quickly. That Motrin campaign might not have caused such as backlash if it appeared in women's magazines - even though it might have angered the moms, the response isn't as instantaneous and it doesn't build momentum in quite the same way. This was an excellent collection of articles, in my opinion, from the Economist last year. Most of the pieces came down on the side of social media as an opportunity, but it did talk a little about the loss of control, and worry about unforseen instances like the Domino employees. http://www.economist.com/node/15351002

I can't believe we're fourth on the list of facebook "hours." I would have definitely thought Americans were first!

Public Policy Institute study shows the gap for broadband access in the home is higher in Latino communities in California; 50 percent do not have access to Internet at home.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND WORKERS' PRIVACY: ENFORCEMENT Hans-Joachim Reinhardt The use of information technology at work has emphasized a tension between two distinct principles that appear at first sight to be opposed to one other: On the one hand, there is the principle of the inviolability of the employees' private lives and private communications and, on the other, the principle of the employers' rights to enjoy their private property and their managerial powers of command.

You should! :) She's a librarian and advocate who's been writing and blogging about the social effects of technology for years. I've been reading her blog librarian.net since 1998. This link is to one her recent talks about the digital divide...its history and what it means now.

And she's got a new book out - http://www.amazon.com/Without-Net-Librarians-Bridging-Digital/dp/1598844539/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1307356401&sr=8-3

Does "social media" need rebranding, and if so, should it be split from "web 2.0" in general?

The term "modern communications infrastructure" is GREAT, especially when thinking about how to get people who are less likely to be using the stuff on their own to adopt new media techniques.

One aspect of the digital divide includes urban-rural connectivity disparity. Jeanine mentions Jessamyn West earlier in diigo, and I thought this woman required at least one more bookmark here (I'm a huge fan of her work, writing, presentations.)! The link is to the audio recording of Jessamyn's facilitation of the "Offline America" session at last year's SXSW (South by Southwest) conference. You can get the lecture notes, slides and more here: http://librarian.net/talks/sxsw2011/.

I'm interested in the idea of digital privacy (or lack thereof). It seems nobody is particularly worried about their privacy online, and I'd like to learn a little more about this

Um, I can't think of a more bone-chilling phrase than "cyberwar."

Steig Larsson made hacking look pretty cool. But it's interesting to think about how much is possible in the hacking world that we tend to forget about since our everyday use of technology has been so woven into our routines. Just saw this article and I found interesting to see the many sides of hacking: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/06/hackers-how-and-why-they-hack I always make fun of my dad for being a computer hypochondriac -- he always thinks that someone is hacking into his computer, so he has a million anti-virus and security programs (a combination which I think is actually destroying his computer). But it is a valid concern, though I think you have to just find a balance for your privacy since in extreme cases, your privacy can be a bit restricting.

Zizi Papacharissi is a professor and head of the communications department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has written a lot of really interesting stuff on social media and internet culture that she links to on the "research" page of her website. I've come across her stuff before and I think she's pretty cool!

It seems to be that Indiana University is a top school for social informatics research. Any others out there that we should be looking at in particular?

I went on Social-informatics.org which gives a list of study programs around the country and world.

The social network lost users in America last month. Should Mark Zuckerberg be worried? = = = = = = = = = = Apropos of what Qraig posted below. I don't think Mark Zuckerberg is worried.

Howard Stern was talking about Facebook, and how they should have sold it when they had the chance, because soon the new new thing will come along. He pointed out that what makes Facebook so successful are all the users - the FB community has power that I never considered in that light.

It will have to end someday...but probably not too soon.