snowdeal.org - conflux

conflux

First Monday Sleepless in Belgrade: A Virtual Community during War

"In this paper the results of research on the role of a virtual community during wartime are presented. A virtual community within the Belgrade-based online system, SezamPro, was explored in the periods before, during and after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. This research found that the community had gone through significant changes during the War, including a) number of participants increased; b) users spent much more time online; and, c) reason for communicating changed dramatically. During war, online efforts focused on information gathering, social interaction and the expression of political opinions. In a period of crisis strong interpersonal relationships were established within the studied online group. Furthermore, in such state of affairs the Internet became an important source of information."

redux [09.13.01]
The New York Times Web Becomes Global Support Forum
[requires 'free' registration]

"Internet discourse revolved Wednesday around trying to fathom, cope and communicate. Web sites and discussion groups urged blood donation, posted prayers and debated whether civil liberties may be curtailed.

"The Internet has proven to be a remarkably good way to form relationships and communities," said Steve Jones, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois-Chicago. "We go online to try to make sense of what happened, who to blame, who's in charge, et cetera."

redux [12.22.00]
3rd Annual ARCUS Award for Arctic Research Excellence Inuit in Cyberspace: Practising and Constructing Computer-mediated Space
"Research on the use of Internet or Cyberspace in relation to off-line space and sociality is uncommon to address in Arctic anthropology. The general research that does actually deal with Cyberspace, however, focuses more on strict on-line behaviour without much concern for dynamics between on-line and off-line space and sociality. Thus, naturally avoiding the physicality of the Arctic regions, it leaves the research reported in this paper to approach a rather new area. While most of the on-line Cyberstudies undertaken deal with American or European users, they unintendedly create and sustain universal ideas that, however, do not necessarily apply to all Internet-users. Often they focus on Cyber-space as if it was a single social vacuum without any recursive bonds to Lifespace and physical space; operating in a mental paradigm, that assumes people to be without cultural differences in Cyberspace.

However, as this paper will argue, the world, the conceptions of it and use of space within it, be it Cyberspace or physical space, are clearly more than vacuums of mental space."

bookmark: del.icio.us ::digg it ::furl ::reddit ::yahoo ::

10:24 PM

[ rhetoric ]

“"You're not a designer, you're not a writer, and you're not an editor!"

Well, no, blogger, you're not. And therein lies your gift. Because even if it's true the vast majority of blogs would not be missed by more than a handful of people were the earth to open up and swallow them, and even if the best are still no substitute for the sustained attention of literary or journalistic works, it's also true that sustained attention is not what Web logs are about anyway. At their most interesting they embody something that exceeds attention, and transforms it: They are constructed from and pay implicit tribute to a peculiarly contemporary sort of wonder.

...[T]he Web log reflects our own attempts to assimilate the glut of immaterial data loosed upon us by the "discovery" of the networked world. And there are surely lessons for us in the parallel. For just as the cabinet of wonders took centuries to evolve into the more orderly, logically crystalline museum, so it may be a while before the chaos of the Web submits to any very tidy scheme of organization.”

[ outbound ]

conflux

[ rhetoric ]

[ search ]

[ outbound ]

[ schwag ]

[ et cetera ]