Group items tagged

I am a big pop music/culture nut. Always have been...probably always will be. So, when I really started thinking about social media and all its uses, I began to wonder...who out there uses social media to it's fullest potential. The answer was obvious. Lady Gaga! When I did a quick search on Lady Gaga and social media, I got a lot of hits. But I wasn't surprised. She is the master when it comes to sites like Facebook and Twitter. Yes, she is out there wearing meat dresses and making fun songs, but it's her presence on social networking sites that I feel has really catapulted her to super stardom. What do you all think?

hmm. is it gaga or her p/r team creating the image? Is her voice really hers? How do we know?

I am sure it is more her "team" then her herself. But, still...it's rather impressive.

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.

Lessig starts with a story about a documentarian and the specter of litigation in that community of practice when it comes to fair use and clearing images, sounds, etc. in documentary filmmaking. He goes on to consider how to reframe copyright: "[W]e need an approach that recognizes the errors in both extremes, and that crafts the balance that any culture needs: incentives to support a diverse range of creativity, with an assurance that the creativity inspired remains for generations to access and understand."

What the influential, hilarious, revolting message board teaches us about Internet culture.

This summarizes a recent academic study published by AAAI (the article contains a link to the full paper) in which the authors analyzed 6 million posts to the 4chan /b/ message board (6 million posts....the mind boggles) to see how anonymity and memes can create "internet culture." If there is such a thing. I'm not sure....

After some deliberation, I think I actually prefer 4chan to Facebook. Anonymity breeds freedom in a sense.

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?

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.

made me think of our discussion of self-ID online. Douthat writes about self-involvement and absorption..and how social media and Internet culture encourage a sense of self-performance and "look at me!" attitude

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.

for anyone who doesn't know, Bitcoins are an online, completely anonymous currency that's been raising some hype lately after being 'discovered' by more mainstream users.

holy stolen Bitcoins batman! Not sure if anyone has been following this but, the attack and the subsequent crash jeopardizes the Bitcoin as virtual currency http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13857192

I've been trying to get some bitcoins for months. No dice yet.

I always liked this article when I was linked to it some time ago. The author succinctly describes why so many people get very excited about social media but end up doing some very not smart things with that technology. This particular author is a little snarky but I think he gets to the point about how we need to present ourselves on the Internet, rather than just putting ourselves out there "as is."

I make it my personal obsession to erase as much of my online presence as possible.

@Daniel, for any reason in particular?

I swear I just posted this to the group but it didn't show up, so apologies for a potential duplicate. This blogger observes the fact that a traditional mass media (think Nightly News with Walter Cronkite) doesn't really exist anymore, thanks to social news sites, YouTube, and the explosion of TV channels.

i always wonder about this...if the nightly news will ever "die out." i think about how older people (like my parents and grandparents) still turn the tv on to watch the news every single night, no matter what. personally i hope the nightly news sticks around. i find myself overwhelmed by online content. the news program gives me a summary of some issues...and if i want to do addition research on my own online, i can (don't have to trust them as the only 'authority'). maybe it's lazy that i want them to choose for me. but i like watching regular news programs...especially because i know those stories will come up on the daily show/colbert report :)

I took a class called "Internet and Democracy" at the UT school of journalism last year. It was fascinating to see how the journalism folks are getting used to social media. A lot of the same questions as LIS, but really working from a different model.

This site is just a little blurb itself, but it links to a number of other resources for presentations that I think may be of interest to the class, let me know what you think!

The Berkman Center often conducts great, free webcasts on its many different research focuses and produces an incredible number of research reports. Lots to digest on the site, but I wanted to share for everyone's perusal. I'd really recommend subscribing to its blog as well.

This site is chock-full a great information!

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.

This book review seems a good companion to Justin's post below on artificial intelligence/human-computer interaction. The reviewer ties three different books together under the theme of how humanity seems to be integrating itself with its digital machines - including discussion of brain-computer interaction (whoa.) and Google's search algorithms or "contouring."

The section on the ideological dissemination of information as it relates to Google is eye-opening (and really worrisome). I think when we talk about Singularity, "fear" will continue to be at the center of our discussions. For some, the biological integration with machines is just too radical to fathom, though the daily use of the Internet is now commonplace. I think we can rightly call certain technologies "external minds" (@ Mary, above) - so it's really not so much the shifting sense of what are bodies are as it is the effect - or danger - of increasingly personalized information certain technologies host that should be cause for concern.

Later in the article she talks about the same concepts as Jesse Schell, in terms of racking up points for online activity, though she draws the conclusion that your information will be sold to advertisers. Really a fascinating article!

Very recent Q&A with Sherry Turkle on "Alone Together" about our plugged in lives making people more lonely and distant. Interesting passage about teenage culture midway through

This really highlights one of the bad ways that technology impacts us; texting and checking Facebook are gaining precedence over socializing with people in the same room. It's depressing to think of how widespread it is.

I loved this article! I see customers at my work (a restaurant in a hotel) checking their phones all the time. One of my coworkers told me a few weeks ago that he was working when a big game was on tv. He was bartending and his bar was packed. Instead of having their eyes on the screen during the crucial moments of the game, many of his customers were sitting right in front of those tvs and ignoring them while their eyes and fingers stayed glued to their tiny phone screens, playing Angry Birds for all he knew. It was just odd, but sadly this way of life has been becoming more of the rule.

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.

Continuing the "We are all cyborgs" discussion from Amber Case this past unit, I'd like to share a blog that focuses on our relationship to the Internet and technology. Browsing the page I found that the Twitter hash tag #cyberology lends to some really great resources too: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23cyborgology.

Just came across these fairly recent article on Danna boyd. (yes, that's lower case 'b.') She's been involved with some pretty interesting online studies that focus on teen and young adults. Some of her research has included topics such as, "Online White Flight," "Digital Self-Harm," and Privacy Techniques." I found it particularly interesting that on the topic of Digital Self-Harm, she discovered that vicious anonymous questions on a teen's profile weren't examples of cyberbullying but were posted by the teen herself!

Thanks for bringing her into the conversation, Mary Beth! danah boyd is definitely one of my favorite researchers. I read large portions of her dissertation as part of HIB my first semester in the program here at Rutgers, and a lot of what she's said has stuck with me since. You can read it here: http://www.danah.org/papers/TakenOutOfContext.pdf. I also recently attended a webinar from the Berkman Center, where she's a fellow, in which she summarizes nicely a lot of her work under the broader theme of "Embracing the Culture of Connectivity." You can watch it here: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2011/05/academicSM.