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The Question Concerning (Internet) Time

Leong, S., Mitew, T., Celletti, M., Pearson, E. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:33 PST

Spatial representations, metaphors and imaginaries (cyberspace, web pages) have been the mainstay of internet research for a long time. Instead of repeating these themes, this article seeks to answer the question of how we might understand the concept of time in relation to internet research. After a brief excursus on the general history of the concept, this article proposes three different approaches to the conceptualization of internet time. The common thread underlying all the approaches is the notion of time as an assemblage of elements such as technical artefacts, social relations and metaphors. By drawing out time in this way, the article addresses the challenge of thinking of internet time as coexistence, a clash of fluxes, metaphors, lived experiences and assemblages. In other words, this article proposes a way to articulate internet time as a multiplicity.

Review Essay: Approaching Digital Democracy, by Vincent Mosco

Mosco, V. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:32 PST

An Information Commons? Creative Commons and Public Access to Cultural Creations

Garcelon, M. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:31 PST

The website Creative Commons went online in December 2002 to counter shifts towards an ‘intellectual property’ conception of copyright in American law dominant since the 1970s. This conception equates creative work with property per se, eclipsing the previously dominant American framework of copyright as a monopoly limited in duration. This legal shift in turn ties in with a concentration in the American media and fear among media corporations that the internet will undermine their dominant market position. Yet this very media concentration removes such issues from broadcast debates, a fact that combines with the complex technical nature of Creative Commons’ arguments to undermine public understanding of their position. By presenting a social history of the site and an overview of how it operates, the relation of the site’s work to media concentration and the future of representative democracy is clarified.

The paradoxical consequences of the White House faith-based and community initiative for black churches

Kvasny, L., Lee, R. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:33 PST

This article examines black churches located in economically challenged neighborhoods in a northeastern US city. Employing the concepts of the organizational divide and Heek’s design–actuality model, we conducted interviews with clergy at seven black churches to understand their level of information and communication technology (ICT) use and capacity to secure funding from the White House Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives (FBCI). Through the use of e-government services, the FBCI is expanding public–private partnerships with faith-based organizations to implement social programs that address community challenges. Our findings suggest that black churches are rich storehouses of local information and have a long history of providing social support and spiritual strength. This may make them logical beneficiaries of the FBCI. Paradoxically, the black churches that provide social programs to economically challenged citizens are often underresourced and lack the organizational capacity to secure FBCI resources.

The ties that bind: the networked performance of gender, sexuality and friendship on MySpace

Van Doorn, N. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:33 PST

Although the body of research on social network sites (SNSs) continues to increase, scholarship in this relatively new field has largely neglected the gendered dimensions of networked interaction on SNSs. Through an empirical analysis of users’ comment exchanges, this study demonstrates how a group of interconnected ‘friends’ on MySpace engage in gendered and sexualized interactions through the use of various semiotic resources (i.e. text, images, video). In this particular network, articulations of affection are indiscriminatingly distributed among the friends, creating a flow of polymorphous desire in which the heteronormative gender binary is repeatedly transgressed. From a theoretical perspective, it is argued that Judith Butler’s notion of performativity is useful as an analytical lens when investigating these networked interactions. The examples illustrate how the friends make use of ironic and/or parodic citations in order to be recognized as a member of the group, performatively delineating and shaping their friends network.

Rethinking media events: large screens, public space broadcasting and beyond

McQuire, S. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:32 PST

The current deployment of large screens in city centre public spaces requires a substantial rethinking of our understanding of the relationship of media to urban space. Drawing on a case study of the Public Space Broadcasting project launched in the UK in 2003, this article argues that large screens have the potential to play a significant role in promoting public interaction. However, the realization of this potential requires a far-reaching investigation of the role of media in the construction of complex public spaces and diverse public cultures.

Enacting a Virtual 'Ekklesia': Online Christian Fundamentalism as Vernacular Religion

Howard, R. G. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:30 PST

Based on the interactive features of websites, researchers have distinguished between ‘religion online’ and ‘online religion’. Approaching online religious expression as ‘vernacular religion’ can transcend the distinction by focussing on the lived experience of believers. In this study, qualitative interviews and close textual analysis are deployed to locate four traits that define the ‘vernacular ideology of Christian fundamentalism’. Tracing these traits in public discourse, they are seen to emerge as a set in the early 20th century. Collecting a sample of 40 sites, the traits are located in association with biblical prophecy. Based on qualitative interviews conducted with four individuals in the sample, linked websites connect individuals in a virtual ‘ekklesia’ based on their shared interest. Locating religion in lived experience instead of media artifacts, this research suggests that a limiting tendency found in this form of fundamentalism is the result of individual choices facilitated by network media.

'NEW MEDIA' RESEARCH PUBLICATION TRENDS AND OUTLETS IN COMMUNICATION, 1990-2006

Tomasello, T. K., Lee, Y., Baer, A. P. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:29 PST

Applying Fidler’s (1997) principles of mediamorphosis and Rogers’s (2003) diffusion of innovations, this study examines a 17-year timeframe to assess publication patterns in and outlets for new media research that examines the internet and related digital technologies within the communication discipline. The five primary findings reveal that: 1) publication of new media research continues to diffuse, with the subfield likely to have reached a critical mass and passed through an adoption ‘take off’ phase; 2) authors favor a concentrated set of title keyword terms to describe their research; 3) media-oriented journals publish approximately half of all new media articles; 4) a core set of 14 communication-related journals currently publishes new media research; and 5) the principles of mediamorphosis and diffusion of innovations help to explain the emergence of the new media concentration within the communication discipline. We conclude that new media research focusing on the internet and related digital technologies is currently a formalized and self-sustaining area of study within the discipline.

Balancing opportunities and risks in teenagers' use of the internet: The role of online skills and internet self-efficacy

Livingstone, S., Helsper, E. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:29 PST

Many hopes exist regarding the opportunities that the internet can offer to young people as well as fears about the risks it may bring. Informed by research on media literacy, this article examines the role of selected measures of internet literacy in relation to teenagers’ online experiences. Data from a national survey of teenagers in the UK (N = 789) are analyzed to examine: first, the demographic factors that influence skills in using the internet; and, second (the main focus of the study), to ask whether these skills make a difference to online opportunities and online risks. Consistent with research on the digital divide, path analysis showed the direct influence of age and socioeconomic status on young people’s access, the direct influence of age and access on their use of online opportunities, and the direct influence of gender on online risks. The importance of online skills was evident insofar as online access, use and skills were found to mediate relations between demographic variables and young people’s experience of online opportunities and risks. Further, an unexpected positive relationship between online opportunities and risks was found, with implications for policy interventions aimed at reducing therisks of internet use.

There's No 'I' in Information: Some Naysayings for New Media Studies

Conatser, T. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:29 PST

The proliferation of empirical inquiries into concepts such as ‘interactivity’ and ‘virtual reality’ has been at the expense of the theoretical (or metadiscursive) in new media studies. The greatest consequence of empiricism’s inductive hierarchies is an ontological negation of the body, the subject in corporeal space. Far from producing a ‘new’ subjectivity, such a negation only reifies a subject’s disembodiment and wholly abstracts the space around them. Examining the writings of many critics and theorists, most significantly Mark Hansen and the spatial theory of Henri Lefebvre, this argument shows that the theoretical must first and foremost be held accountable to itself if the ‘new’ is to be realized. The stakes in this piece are the subject’s embodiment and very ability to articulate itself as ‘I’ in an information-saturated age that challenges the distinction between virtuality and corporeality, a challenge that conceptually bankrupts acts of distinction and differentiation.

New Media and Fat Democracy: The Paradox of Online Participation

Davis, A. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:31 PST

This piece speculates on the internet’s wider influences on the shape of institutional politics in representative ‘actually existing democracies’. Findings, based on 100 semi-structured interviews with political actors (politicians, journalists and officials) operating around the UK Parliament, suggest two contrasting trends. On the one hand, more political actors at the immediate edges of the UK institutional political process are being further engaged in a sort of centrifugal movement going outwards from the centre. At the same time, the space between this extended political centre and its public periphery is increasing. This fatter, democratic elitist shift in UK politics may be interpreted as ‘new’ and ICT-driven. It might equally be argued that new media is exacerbating pre-existing political party and media trends in mature democracies which fail to engage ordinary citizens.

The limits of networks as models for organizing the social

Mejias, U. A. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:32 PST

Social network services exhibit dual processes that enable both the creation of new public spaces and the controlling and monitoring of these spaces through mechanisms facilitated by the architecture of the network itself. This article explores how network science informs the design of for-profit networking services by providing templates for organizing the social. As the case of social networking websites illustrates, networks have gone from scientific frameworks or even mere descriptive metaphors to actualized models that normalize a particular kind of privatized sociality. In an attempt to theorize forms of resistance to these templates of social organization, I suggest two concepts crucial to the articulation of a critical theory of networks: nodocentrism and paranodality. The goal of such a critique is not a complete rejection of networks as models for organizing sociality but rather a shift in our ways of knowing the world through the epistemological exclusivity of the node.

Technical Code and the Social Construction of the Internet

Flanagin, A. J., Flanagin, C., Flanagin, J. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:31 PST

This article employs and extends the concept of technical code (Feenberg, 1992, 1995a, 1995b) to examine the current state of the internet. The notion of technical code – the cultural and social assumptions and values that become manifest in a technology’s physical and structural forms – is invoked to examine design characteristics of the internet that, in turn, reflect and provide opportunities for important social outcomes. Overall, the internet’s technical design supports interoperability and open access, while suggesting an enormous capacity for personalization and innovation. In turn, these technical features support the emergence of myriad collective social activities, resulting in a sense of individual empowerment achieved through enhanced agency. Significant countervailing forces, however, inhibit this potential. By examining the values, priorities, and assumptions that have become built into the internet, both technically and socially, the present analysis clarifies this tension and serves to frame the internet’s potential at this critical time in its evolution.

Social news, citizen journalism and democracy

Goode, L. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:28 PST

This article aims to contribute to a critical research agenda for investigating the democratic implications of citizen journalism and social news. The article calls for a broad conception of ‘citizen journalism’ which is (1) not an exclusively online phenomenon, (2) not confined to explicitly ‘alternative’ news sources, and (3) includes ‘metajournalism’ as well as the practices of journalism itself. A case is made for seeing democratic implications not simply in the horizontal or ‘peer-to-peer’ public sphere of citizen journalism networks, but also in the possibility of a more ‘reflexive’ culture of news consumption through citizen participation. The article calls for a research agenda that investigates new forms of gatekeeping and agenda-setting power within social news and citizen journalism networks and, drawing on the example of three sites, highlights the importance of both formal and informal status differentials and of the software ‘code’ structuring these new modes of news production.

User-generated content on the internet: an examination of gratifications, civic engagement and psychological empowerment

Leung, L. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:32 PST

As they relate to user-generated content on the internet, civic engagement and psychological empowerment have received significant interest in recent years. While past studies have examined online civic participation and political empowerment, the way in which civic engagement offline and content generation online are related to psychological empowerment has not been thoroughly explored. The purpose of this study is to address the roles that gratifications of content generation online (e.g. satisfying recognition needs, cognitive needs, social needs and entertainment needs) and civic engagement offline play in predicting levels of user-generated content on the internet; and how the gratifications of content generation online, civic engagement offline and user-generated content influence the three components of psychological empowerment (i.e. self-efficacy, perceived competence and desire for control). This study reasserts that psychological empowerment can be enhanced by one’s degree of content generation online and by both one’s attitude and behavior in civic engagement offline.

Chinese culture and software copyright

Lu, J. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:31 PST

This article explores the impacts of Chinese culture on users’ attitudes and intentions about software copyright and piracy. The findings reject the pervasive position that Chinese culture resists software copyright and encourages piracy behaviors. Instead, the study reports that Chinese culture has no significant impact on users’ intentions to use pirated software programs. Meanwhile, collectivistic and individualistic cultural components are found to coexist in the Chinese value system. The users with higher scores in the collectivistic component have more negative attitudes towards software companies, while the users with higher scores in the individualistic component have less negative attitudes towards software products. The coexistence of individualistic and collectivistic components prevents software users from falling into either direction of supporting or opposing software copyright and calls for a balanced account between software owners and users.

Cyberbullying among youngsters: profiles of bullies and victims

Vandebosch, H., Van Cleemput, K. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:30 PST

A survey among 2052 primary and secondary school children reveals that cyberbullying among youngsters is not a marginal problem. However, there are discrepancies between the prevalence figures based on direct measurement versus indirect measurement of cyberbullying. Youngsters who have bullied someone via the internet or mobile phone during the last three months are younger, and are more often victims and bystanders of bullying via the internet or mobile phone, and are more often the perpetrators of traditional bullying. Youngsters who have been bullied via the internet or mobile phone during the last three months are more dependent upon the internet, feel less popular, take more internet-related risks, are more often a bystander and perpetrator of internet and mobile phone bullying, and are less often a perpetrator and more often a victim of traditional bullying. The implications for future research into cyberbullying and for cyberbullying prevention strategies are discussed.

Cyberbullying and its correlation to traditional bullying, gender and frequent and risky usage of internet mediated communication tools

Erdur-Baker, O. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:33:30 PST

This study examined the relationships between cyber and traditional bullying experiences regarding gender differences. Also, the contributions of frequent and risky usage of internet to cyberbullying experiences were examined. The participants were 276 adolescents (123 females, 151 males and 2 unknown) ranging in age from 14 to 18 years. The results revealed that 32 percent of the students were victims of both cyber and traditional bullying, while 26 percent of the students bullied others in both cyber and physical environments. Compared to female students, male students were more likely to be bullies and victims in both physical and cyber-environments. The multivariate statistical analysis indicated that cyber and traditional bullying were related for male students but not for female students. Moreover, the multiple regression analysis revealed that both frequent and risky usage of internet account for a significant variance of cyberbullying but their contributions differ based on genders.