November Advisory Committee Report

Hard to believe that the eleventh month of the year is almost over. 2004 has flown, or more likely, I have flown through 2004 on many many planes. Here is the link to this month's Advisory Committee Report, thankfully November has been a bit slower then the preceding months.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:47 PM | TrackBack

Planning travel for HICCS 2005 - Mauna Kea and the Observatories

I've decided that the primary "recreational" activity I want to undertake while we are on the Big Island, is to tour Mauna Kea and get as close to the observatories as I can. Plus I want to say I actually saw snow in Hawaii.

Mauna Kea made an indelible mark in my mind upon my first trip to the Big Island. It was the last hop of my "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium" tour of the islands. I flew from Honolulu to Hilo and spent most of the inflight time watching the changing patterns of the waves below us. As we neared the Big Island something bright kept winking at me through the clouds ahead. It was bright and constant, even through the thick cloud cover on the mountain you could see the reflection. It took me a minute to remember that some of the biggest and best telescopes in the world are hidden up there on the volcano. Up above the snorkelers, and surfers, and sun worshipers. Up above it all, it is clear and cold and open to the night sky.

I had no idea that there were so many webcams atop Mauna Kea until I started searching for links for this post. Apparently it is all part of their work predicting weather.

Following is a list of the sites I could find online. Let me know if you find more.

Joint Astronomy Centre webcam
Mauna Loa Observatory webcam faces Mauna Kea
Mauna Loa Observatory webcam faces east from 11,000 feet
Mauna Loa Observatory webcam faces southwest view
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corporation webcam looks north toward Gemini dome
Gemini Dome webcam looks north-northeast toward Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corporation
All Sky Camera webcam looks 360 degrees at the sky. This cam is offline until after local sunset. The page gives you a countdown timer so you can calibrate your viewing.
The Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) webcam looks south from 12,000 ft.
Mauna Kea Weather Center webcam page. Includes some of the other cams listed here and includes many more not listed separately.

The photo is of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and is drawn from the Joint Astronomy Centre site.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:24 PM | TrackBack

Sleepy day

Today is a chilly grey November day in Southern Indiana. The kind of day that seems to sap all of your energy away making you to tired and unfocused to get much work done but not tired enough to sleep.

So I'm sitting in my study with piles of paper that need to be sorted and acted upon, mounds of books that need to be shelved, and untold hours of pre-holiday cleaning on tap...and I can't make myself do much of anything. I am looking for condo's for BROG to rent as homebase for our upcoming presentation in Hawaii...I know Hawaii in January who do I think I am to moan in any shape or form. LOL Believe me I'm not really moaning about the trip just how I wish I had won the lottery, $200 mil or so would be nice, so among other things I could hire an assistant to do this kind of stuff for me. *S* I like looking at all the pictures though...wish I trusted that all of them were really taken from the lanai's of the structures. Oh well.

What I really want to do is take a nap but no luck on that goal so far this afternoon.

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Madison Indiana - Night Before Christmas Candlelight Tour of Homes

Last evening we met friends in Madison Indiana for a grand evening attending the Night Before Christmas Candlelight Tour of Homes 2004. This annual event is in it's 23rd year of featuring restored 19th century buildings dressed in their Christmas finest.

We started out the evening with dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Broadway Tavern & Restaurant. This historic tavern was built in 1834 and has been in operation ever since. Last night the food was excellent as usual. The Broadway is perpetually under some remodeling and since we were there last they have modernized the tables and chairs. Somehow the look doesn't do it for me but this changes doesn't kill the ambiance of dining in a 170 year old tavern...which is pretty old by American building standards.

Then we headed out to join the tour. It was raining last evening a slow steady cold November kinda rain. Which of course meant that the luminaries, which give the "candlelight tour" it's name, were totally washed out at most locations. So it made finding the houses on the tour a case of looking for a house with a line of umbrellas out front. Because of the rain we decided to drive between locations. Of course as we left the tavern and headed from the car I misjudged the width of the water flowing at the edge of the street and jumped into it rather then over it. *sigh* Not a good thing to do when you are wearing clogs. So a cold night became somewhat colder after I gained one wet foot.

We had hoped to begin the tour at the Lanier Mansion but the state of Indiana, in it's august wisdom, had decided that the historic landmark would not be open THIS weekend of the tour. *sigh* I was looking forward to seeing the home since the restoration of the ceilings has been completed. The frescos were lovely before and I can only imagine what they look like now. Guess we'll have to plan a trip to Madison during the day when we know the home is open.

As usual the homes were sprinkled around the historic district. We toured five of the nine or so buildings that were opened to the public last evening. Of course some caught our interest more then others. One of the homes had the owners/restorers as docents. They gave a detailed talk on the work they had done to restore the house including pictures of the restoration in progress. Every room we were shown included some type of faux painting from marbling to woodgraining to faux book bindings. It was lovely work.

Christ Episcopal Church was open to entertain those touring the buildings with Christmas Caroles. Hubby and I took special interest in their stained glass restoration project. Apparently they have some of the oldest examples of American Stained Glass still found in their original setting. We will have to go back during daylight to see how lovely these old beauties can be.

After the tour we stopped by the Ovo Café for coffee. That was the plan...just coffee. Of course the best laid plans of mice and people who have been out in a cold rain...so it became coffee, desert, and wine - they serve Cockburns Tawny Port. Lovely way to end an evening.

Posted by prolurkr at 12:45 PM | TrackBack

The Incredibles

See the animated film The Incredibles. It really is that good.

You know it's really annoying that the movie production folks make it so hard to find links to movie posters that will not break when you copy them. You would think they would want free advertising. *sigh*

Posted by prolurkr at 10:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

CFP - 'Young People and New Technologies'

University College Northampton, U.K. September 7th-9th 2005 Organised by the British Sociological Association Youth Study Group.

Abstracts are invited for an interdisciplinary conference focused upon the relationships between young people and new technologies.

As the use of new media technologies has become increasingly widespread in Western societies, the significance of such new technologies for adolescents has become a crucial area of research. Whether in respect of their patterns of leisure and identity, their modes of learning and transition, or their everyday domestic lives, youth are among the heaviest and most dynamic users of a variety of new technologies, most notably perhaps, the various facets of the internet, together with mobile phones, digital television, games consoles and digital music players. At the same time however, it is clear that levels of access and use are subject to considerable variations in quantity and quality.

The conference organisers invite proposals from academics and other researchers, as well as those working with young people in a professional capacity, whether in the voluntary or state sector.

Papers should fall within the area of 'young people and new technologies' and we would particularly encourage contributions which address the topic from the point of view of one or more of the following categories:

* Questions of access/exclusion/inclusion
* New media, leisure and lifestyle
* Community learning/participation and ICTs
* Place, space and globalisation
* Surveillance and risk
* Use of mobile communications technologies
* Individual and/or collective use of the internet
* Youth subcultures/scenes/tribes
* Gender/sexuality
* Education/training/transitions
* Work and employment
* Gaming Cultures
* Production and marketing of 'youth' technologies
* Questions of policy and/or regulation
* Ethnicity and/or nation
* Methodological questions

At this stage these areas of interest are merely intended to illustrate the range of topics which may be included within the conference. Conference streams will be decided upon subsequent to the receipt and review of abstracts.

*The deadline for abstracts is March 31st 2005*
Please send all abstracts by email to Paul Hodkinson: p.hodkinson@surrey.ac.uk

(queries about the event can be addressed to Sian Lincoln at sian.lincoln@northampton.ac.uk or Paul Hodkinson at p.hodkinson@surrey.ac.uk)

Posted by prolurkr at 10:21 PM | TrackBack

New Blogosphere Stats

New stats can be found at: McGann, Rob (Nov. 22, 2004). The Blogosphere By the Numbers. ClickZ Network. Retrieved Nov. 23, 2004 from http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/traffic_patterns/article.php/3438891.

Looks good for my research demographic: 13-19 year olds have created an estimate 2,120,000 blogs or 51.5% of the total available.

Source: Perseus Development Corp. via ClickZ

Posted by prolurkr at 09:20 AM | TrackBack

Competitive Christmas Decorating

The competitive Christmas decorators have begun spreading their form of "cheer." I've seen more then one case of a poor misused partner (usually male) hanging off the house's guttering with one foot on the ladder, while the other partner (usually female) gives instructions on the precise placement of a light clip as viewed from their vantage point on the ground. They are out there decorating as though their lives depend upon it.

Soon the electronic crèches with the motorized baby Jesus, who nods at his plastic parents and those wise looking men with the light bulbs up their backsides, will be dotting the front yards of homes throughout the area. My favorite has the aforementioned electric crèche, with a lighted air filled Santa and Frosty standing guard on each side. Call me Scrooge if you will, though I'm actually more of a Grinch if the truth be told. I do not see the joy in spending hours stringing lights around everything that doesn't move to fast, or in those December electric bills that will undoubtedly be enough to chock the proverbial cat, or in the sheer wastefulness of the entire operation. So de-Grinch me and prove that the holidays can be celebrated without all the electric trappings...PROVE IT. LOL

Several years ago I worked in an office with a lot of women. A LOT OF WOMEN. I also drove 2 hours to work there so I spent a significant part of each day, 4 hours total, in the car seeing what people did to their homes. That year I tried to elaborate on the whole "competitive Christmas decorating" concept, only to be told - in chorus - that the folks were just sharing their "Christmas spirit" with others. *rolling my eyes in their sockets*

You see, everyday on my drive I watched new lights being added to home displays. There were these two double-wides across the highway from each other. I don't know if they were just rivals or if they were family, though knowing the finer points of house placement in southern Indiana I bet on the family thing. They started out with the average display…electrification of the bushes along side the front door, a single 3D figure in the yard (one had a Santa the other a Snowman), and a wreath on the front door itself. As the weeks leading up to Christmas passed, first one would add something to the display then the other would add the same thing and trump them with a larger version or more elaborate one or just more than one. It finally ended up that each had rope lights lining the driveway, multiple electrified 3D objects, and lights on everything you can think of plant-wise plus one of them - the winner I assume - had lights strung all over their old junker car that always sat in the driveway. Christmas spirit my ***, I know pure competition when I see it. LOL

That was also the year that in Brownstown Indiana the Jackson Country Courthouse display included putting chaser lights on the treads of the county tank. When you stopped at the cities only stoplight, it sincerely looked like the dang thing was coming at you. The lights only stayed on the tank for about three days…I'm sure some flustered person called and complained. Good for them because it was a traffic hazard. This link takes you to a picture of the Courthouse, the tank is visible through the trees in the right of the picture. Sorry it's not a holiday picture.

There is Christmas spirit for you..chaser lights on a tank and miniature airports, complete with lighted runways.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:08 PM | TrackBack

Cooking Whole Carnberry Sauce

When I was a kid, whole cranberry sauce cooking was a sure sign that fall was here. The sound of those hard berries popping in the hot sugar syrup was as tempting to young ears as the sugary smell of the concoction was to the nose. A real sensory fest...and we always knew that the taste buds would get the last comment.

So today, when I was in the grocery, I had to pickup a couple of bags of cranberries to make whole berry sauce. As I write this the popping is just finishing up and I will shortly be turning down the heat so they can cool. The recipe follows, so run out and make some for yourself. Not for the holiday, just for you. *S* Oh the recipe says that serving size is two tablespoons...not sure who they are kidding...in my experience a cup or so per person is perfect. *S*

Homemade Whole Cranberry Sauce

1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
1 (12-ounce) package Ocean Spray® Fresh or Frozen Cranberries, rinsed and drained

1. Combine water and sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil; add cranberries, return to boil. Reduce heat and boil gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cover and cool completely at room temperature. Refrigerate until serving time.

Makes 2 1/4 cups.

Nutritional Facts Per Serving (2 tablespoons): Calories 51(3%DV), Fat 0grams, Pot. 14mg(<1%DV), Total Carb. 13grams(4%DV), Dietary Fiber <1gram(3%DV), Sugars 11grams, Vitamin C 2mg(3%DV), Dietary Exchange: Fruit 1

Recipe and photograph courtesy of Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc.

The recipe was taken from Cooks Recipes

Posted by prolurkr at 12:42 PM | TrackBack

Conference CFP - Rethinking Reception

RETHINKING RECEPTION
Duke University, Durham, NC March 24-26, 2005

This conference both proposes, and interrogates the utility of the concept of reception for understanding audience interaction with texts in all their various forms—be it readers and novels, readers and critical theory, viewers and films, viewers and television, web-users and the internet, listeners and radio, consumers and products, and nations and the trans-national flow of cultural objects. Thus the conference proposes to bring together work on readership, spectatorship, and consumption under the broader analytic of reception, and to initiate a dialogue between work in film studies, literary studies, cultural studies, critical theory, philosophy, and cognitive psychology. The conference aspires to shed light on different aspects of reception and to develop and to refine trans-disciplinary avenues of approach to questions of audience interaction with texts.

Potential panels or areas of specification within the broader theme of reception could include the following:

ONTOLOGY, AFFECT AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SUBJECT
What is the agency of receivers in relation to objects? To what extent are subjects determined or even constituted in different ways by the objects with which they interact?

PERCEPTION, RECEPTION AND TECHNOLOGIES
How do different technologies—media, transportation, medical, architectural etc.—create different frames for reception, or practices of reception--if these can still be thought of as discrete areas at all?

RECEPTION AND THE POLITICAL
How is the concept of reception useful for theorizing the constitution of political discourses and hierarchies of power in a public sphere dominated by the media--videos and photographs of violence committed in wartime, beheadings broadcast on the internet, endless TV and internet replays of spectacular events?

RECEPTION, THE NATION AND SOVEREIGNTY
What does reception as an analytic reveal about the concepts of the nation, sovereignty, regionalism and trans-nationalism? What do reflections on reception at a trans-national level reveal about the ontogenesis of forms of political sovereignty in the 20th century?

Papers of 20 minutes might address any aspect of reception and proposals for panels not listed above are also welcome. Submissions should ideally address the specificities of the receivers in question, or the specific circumstances or practices of reception, or, alternatively, justify why such attention is not relevant in the case(s) considered. The organizers also hope to initiate a fruitful dialogue among conference participants through workshops for discussion of texts related to reception. Conference participants are encouraged to propose specific articles, books, studies or even works in progress that could be discussed.

The deadline for submission of 250-500 word paper abstracts is January 1, 2005. Please include your name, institutional affiliation, e-mail address, and phone number. Email abstracts to rethinkingreception@yahoo.com. Please see http://www.duke.edu/literature/Reception/conference.html for a more detailed call for papers and additional information. For general questions about the conference, contact rethinkingreception@yahoo.com.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:02 AM | TrackBack

Weblog / Blog Reference List

I've been working on my Reference Manager listings both adding new material and reworking the output style so it conforms to both APA and the type of material I cite. So I decided to do a general blog reference dump and post it here, Weblog & Blog Reference List, as a pdf file. I will try to periodically rework this page by adding new material. Enjoy.

Posted by prolurkr at 06:58 PM | TrackBack

What is a weblog or a blog?

I have been collecting definitions of the terms "weblog" & "blog" for sometime now. I find it interesting how each draws the lines between self and other - what is us and what is not us. I'm sure I will be writing more on this issue in the future, as I'm spending today searching for online definitions before I hit the academic journals I can't access at home. So to start the conversation I decided to post the current definition that I am using in my writing:

A weblog is a frequently modified website that allows updating with items that are grouped primarily by the time and/or date of posting. Entries usually appear in reverse chronological order. Contents of the weblog may be available publicly or through restricted access. Weblogs may also utilize special software designed for this implementation.

This is my personal definition so if you are going to use it please make sure you spell my name correctly in the citation. *w* I'll be watching.

Posted by prolurkr at 02:12 PM | TrackBack

Social Network Analysis on the Semantic Web: Techniques and Challenges for Visualizing FOAF - Preprint

From Geek-Guides

Social Network Analysis on the Semantic Web: Techniques and Challenges for Visualizing FOAF

A preprint of the paper, 'Social Network Analysis on the Semantic Web: Techniques and Challenges for Visualizing FOAF' is now available via the 'papers' box in the sidebar of the BROG site.

This is a draft chapter (Chapter 14) that we've prepared for Vladimir Geroimenko's edited book, Visualizing the Semantic Web.

The chapter focuses largely on FOAF (friend-of-a-friend) data collected from LiveJournal -- to our knowledge, this is one of the few attempts to really work with that data.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:59 PM | TrackBack

The Most Important Conference CFP of them All - AoIR

Call for Papers – Internet Research 6.0: INTERNET GENERATIONS

International and Interdisciplinary Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers
Chicago, Illinois, USA
October 5 – 9, 2005

Workshops: October 5, 2005

AoIR conference: October 6 – 9, 2005

Deadline for submissions: February 1, 2005. Submission instructions will be announced soon.

INTERNET GENERATIONS

The Internet has been a rapidly evolving phenomenon, so much so that we may talk about generations of the Internet. With everything moving faster in ‘Internet time,’ we have arguably spanned many technological Internet generations within a single human generation: from the birth of computing to the first online communications; from the beginnings of email to the enriched worlds of chat, virtual worlds and mobile text messaging; from the workplace to home and school; from optional to all-but-mandatory; and from mainframe to desktop to laptop to mobile devices.

We can also talk about contextual Internet generations, from the early pioneers who count themselves among those communicating online before the 1980s; to the early adopters of the 1980s in university and proprietary systems; to latecomers finding the need to adopt computing and technology use as part of their daily work; to the current and coming generations that will not know a time without a computer in the household, a mobile phone in their hand, and a lap- or palmtop and an MP3 player an essential part of their daily wear.

This massive change in technologies, and in work and social practices suggests many avenues of interest for Internet research.

CALL FOR PAPERS

We call for papers from a wide perspective of disciplines, methodologies, and communities. We invite papers that address the theme of Internet Generations including TOPICS such as:

* Histories of the Internet: human, social, technical, and/or cultural stories and histories
* Internet use by generation, e.g., by era of technology, by children and seniors, or by age of user, etc.
* Individual, group, organizational, or community use, adoption, or diffusion of the Internet and its practices
* Development in use of languages, new vocabularies, social roles, rules, and etiquette
* Societal impacts of and on the Internet and its evolution
* Perspectives on the Internet and social change in a changing world
* Internet expansion across divides, borders, nationalities, etc.
* Mapping the course of Internet connectivity
* Prospects for the future: Next generation Internet

We invite submissions for papers, panels, and demonstrations of work on topics related to the conference theme of Internet Generations. Sessions at the conference will be established that specifically
address the conference theme. We particularly call for innovative, exciting, and unexpected takes on the conference theme. We also welcome submissions on topics that address social, cultural, political,
economic, and/or aesthetic aspects of the Internet beyond the conference theme. In all cases, we welcome disciplinary and interdisciplinary submissions as well as international collaborations from both AoIR and non-AoIR members.

GRADUATE STUDENT PROPOSALS AND PARTICIPATION

We strongly encourage submissions of proposals from graduate students, and papers for consideration for a special Student Award. Students should note their student status with submission. Students wishing to be a candidate for the Student Award must send a full final paper to the conference organizers by June 1, 2005.

PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS

We invite proposals for a limited number of pre-conference workshops which will provide participants with in-depth, hands-on and/or creative opportunities. Proposals should be no more than 1000 words, and should clearly outline the purpose, methodology, structure, participant costs, equipment and minimal attendance required, as well as the relevance of the workshop to the conference as a whole. Proposals will be accepted if they demonstrate that the workshop will add significantly to the overall program in terms of thematic depth, hands-on experience, or local opportunities for scholarly or artistic connections.

CONTACT INFORMATION

If you have questions about the conference, program, or AoIR, please contact the following people. Please use a subject line that clearly distinguishes your message for spam!

Program Chair: Caroline Haythornthwaite haythorn@uiuc.edu – Inquiries on conference content: paper submissions, reviewing, paper organization

Conference Site Coordinator: Steve Jones sjones@uic.edu – Inquiries on meeting rooms, audiovisual equipment, conference site

AoIR President: Nancy Baym, University of Kansas, nbaym@ku.edu – Inquiries regarding the Association of Internet Researchers and sponsorship

Posted by prolurkr at 11:47 PM | TrackBack

"Group, Community, or Social Network: A Discussion"

I have a long standing issue with the term "community" as it is applied to online spaces. It often seems that any gathering of more than two individuals and someone will call them a community. In trying to sort though my own thinking on the term I wrote the following paper for a Sociology class in 2003. Based on some backchannel discussions I've had in the last two weeks, including ones about the "Electronic Tribes" CFP, I decided to link this class paper from Professional-Lurker so that if nothing else someone can use my bibliography for their own work.

Group, Community, or Social Network: A Discussion

This paper explores definitions of group, community, and social network through a review of associated literature. The prevailing definitions are then applied to six different CMC environments: email, email listserv, bulletin boards/message boards/newsgroups, chat, instant messenger, and weblogs. Each environment is described including its mode of communication, requirements for access, and the availability of cross posting within the same environment.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:44 PM | TrackBack

CFP - Book Chapters "Electronic Tribes"

A CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS:

ELECTRONIC TRIBES: INTERPERSONAL, SMALL-GROUP, ORGANIZATIONAL, AND CULTURAL COMMUNICATION ON THE INTERNET

A collection of essays on the human tendency toward online tribalism.

Collected and Edited by:
Tyrone L. Adams
University of Louisiana at Lafayette

&

Stephen A. Smith
University of Arkansas

What does it mean to be in a tribe? How does one create a shared identity with a tribe? What are the aspects of tribalism? Furthermore, does online discourse amplify or alter the realities of tribal instinct? Electronic Tribes: Interpersonal, Small-group, Organizational, and Cultural Communication on the Internet is a foray into the psyche of the human mind and how it functions in several online communication contexts. This collection of essays makes the argument that humanity only has the capacity to think and communicate within the parameters of its biological and nurtured tribal instincts.

The co-editors of Electronic Tribes are now in the solicitation stage of abstracts, outlines, or finished essays which relate to the theme of online tribalism. All work must conform to the American Psychological Association’s style guide (4th Edition), and must be no longer than 25 pages double-spaced, including references. Please place all inquiries and submissions to Tyrone L. Adams (tyadams@louisiana.edu) at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. To date, no agreement has been reached with a publisher. However, a working prospectus document is in production.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:15 PM | TrackBack

Jennifer Stromer-Galley's Musing on Being "On" the Academic Job Market

Jennifer Stromer-Galley has posted an interesting musing on the wages of the academic job hunt. Check it out here, and scroll to Thursday, November 18, 2004.

At NCA last week I was struck by the flock of casually dressed recruiters standing inside the door to the "Job Fair" ballroom. They were waiting there not talking to each other, eyeing everyone who walked by outside, evaluating potential everywhere. I got a cold shiver seeing them there.

They reminded me to clearly of my HR days recruiting undergrads, where you could pretty much tell in 10 seconds if the candidate had potential for your organization. I would love to say it's all in the candidate's background but truthfully "fit" in an organization is the most important component, once you have crossed the threshold by meeting the basic requirements for the job. This is the stuff that is impossible to quantify...it's totally qualitative and pretty metaphysical. And as much as some folks would like to say that academic and business worlds are different...trust me they are not THAT different. Folks who think they are do so because they have little or no experience in both spheres as an adult.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:07 PM | TrackBack

Organization and finding the right tools for the job

As I've begun thinking about the next set of research projects, and in light of attending the NCA Pre-Conference Workshop on Ethnographic Field Notes, I've been thinking about my work practices and the tools I use.

Back when I was a Human Resources Manager I found the perfect notepads for my note taking style. Levenger Notepads work great for me, particularly the yellow ruled version. They are narrowly lined with an open vertical space at the left that allows me to make notes about things to lookup, or to draw mind-maps, or to doodle. I took many a management meeting note on this paper then when I returned to school I kept using my same pads to take class, conference, and colloquia notes. Many, but not all, of which I file for later use.

Last year I started taking reading notes in Clairefontaine Cloth-bound French-ruled Notebooks this unique lining allows me to draw graphs, take detailed notes using the smaller line widths, and to keep my outline format notes neat. The vertical gird pattern repeats to the end of the paper, from the first vertical line that is...the large horizontal lines only section is just on the left margin. With these notebooks I can lay them open, I take reading notes on the right and then annotate thoughts, the occasional insight, etc. on the left. Like the Levenger pads I use the margins to note things I need to lookup, or to draw mind-maps connecting ideas in my reading. The only problem with these notebooks is that they are hard to find. TIS College Bookstore in Bloomington carries them, but I don't know if they do so at their other college locations. Though I should note that they do not list the notebooks, or much of any other expendable, office supply on their website.

At the NCA Pre-Conference Workshop on Ethnographic Field Notes one of the participants took her field notes in a Field Sketchbook. This top wirebound book was roughly 5x7 and looked like it contained drawing paper with a nice tooth. The pages are laid out with a square for the drawing and then maybe 5 or 6 lines below the sketch for notes. I really liked this idea for sketching and taking notes at the same time when doing ethnographic work. I had previously done diagrams and rough layouts but not real sketches.

So yesterday I visited Pygmalion's Art Supplies in Bloomington to find my own copy of this handy little notebook. Unfortunately, well fortunately actually, they were out of this type of field sketchbook and the sales assistant had no idea when they would have them back in stock. Because they were out of what I wanted she asked if maybe another type of sketchbook would work, say a Bienfang NoteSketch? Presto, a much better notebook for my application was found. This 8.5x11 inch notebook has sheets that are roughly divided in half horizontally with a drawing square on the top and lines on the bottom. More space for notes, sketches, and diagrams. In looking up links for this post I now find that the same company makes a version that is divided vertically between drawing and note spaces, I may try that one next to see if it works better.

Finally I have come to realize that I need to take more professional lab notes when I am working on my research. This is really not something I have been trained to do like I understand that laboratory scientists learn to do through their required work. So I am learning. Yesterday at T.I.S. I bought a couple of Avery Lab Books, wide and quad ruled to use for this process. I understand that officially you are to write up notes in ink, lining out as necessary. Likewise all the pages are to remain in the book, mistakes and all. This will be an interesting process for me who likes writing in pencil and hates messy, i.e. lined out, pages in anything I retain. But I'm going to give it a good go in learning to use these techniques to document my research processes.

If I learn to do this well then maybe I will switch to a nicer book, say hardbound lab notebooks in grid and lined styles. And then again maybe I'll just stick with the standard issue you find in any college bookstore.

Posted by prolurkr at 06:20 PM | TrackBack

Call for Papers, Computer Mediated Technologies Special Issue

The Iowa Journal of Communication, an award-winning regional journal in the U.S., issues a Call for Papers for a special issue on Computer Mediated Technologies:

The Iowa Journal of Communication announces a 2005 special issue on internet communication, guest edited by Mark Johns. Manuscripts should be received no later than January 30, 2005.

Computer-mediated technologies (CMTs) are no longer the province of "techies," but have become everyday means of social interaction in our society. This interdisciplinary issue welcomes research on the impact CMTs have had in daily communication among family members and coworkers, colleagues and competitors, friends and strangers. Papers investigating how individuals communicate with one another through email, community mailing lists (listservs or USENET), instant messaging, weblogs, MUDs and MOOs, game environments, and other online venues will be considered. The issue will particularly focus on issues arising for researchers in effectively and ethically studying online communication, therefore papers dealing specifically with these "meta-research" issues, and papers suggesting particularly innovative adaptations of traditional research methods to the CMT settings are especially welcomed.

We welcome submissions from researchers in a variety of areas. Any manuscripts not accepted for the special issue will be considered for the general issue of the journal.

The IJC follows a policy of blind review so no author identification should appear in the body of the manuscript. Manuscripts should not exceed 25 pages and should include a title page that includes author(s) name, academic position, institutional affiliation, full address, telephone number, email address and brief author bio. An abstract of not more than 150 words should accompany the paper. All submissions must conform to the most current edition of the APA. Queries and manuscript submissions should be sent electronically to:

Kimberly A. Powell, Editor
Iowa Journal of Communication
powellki@luther.edu.

Posted by prolurkr at 04:16 PM | TrackBack

Blog Research on Genre (BROG) Project in the news

BROG hit the news at IU for the first time this month, we understand that a second story is coming but more on that when it is available.

Herring and Paolillo Give Invited Talks at Microsoft Research

SLIS Professor Susan Herring and Associate Professor John Paolillo recently gave invited talks at the Microsoft Research main campus in Redmond, Washington. The two-day speaker series, October 14-15, 2004, was attended on-site by Microsoft researchers in Adaptive Systems and Interaction, Community Technologies, Natural Language Processing, and Social Computing, and off-site by other Microsoft employees via simultaneous webcast.

Paolillo delivered a presentation on October 14 entitled "Social Network Analysis meets the Semantic Web: What FOAF Reveals About LiveJournal." The talk was based on recent collaborative research with SLIS doctoral student Elijah Wright on the use of the Semantic Web vocabulary for social networking known as FOAF (Friend-of-a-Friend). Using tools of social network analysis, they analyzed the social relations and interests of 36,000 users of the popular weblog-hosting service LiveJournal, as represented in the users' FOAF metadata files. Counter to expectation, users' interests do not correlate with their social networks, suggesting that other mechanisms underlie the formation of LiveJournal users' social groups.

Herring's presentation on October 15 was entitled "Conversation in the Blogosphere." Evaluating the popular view that weblogs are highly interlinked and mutually interactive ("conversational"), Herring presented evidence from a hand-coded sample of 5,517 public weblogs that blogs form cliques of dense interconnection in some topic domains but are largely non-interacting. The research, which employed social network analysis, information visualization, and discourse analysis techniques, was carried out during the spring and summer of 2004 with Inna Kouper, John Paolillo, Lois Ann Scheidt, Mike Tyworth, Peter Welsch, Elijah Wright, and Ning Yu, all of SLIS.

Both research projects are affiliated with SLIS's Blog Research on Genre (BROG) Project (http://www.blogninja.com), a faculty-student collaboration to investigate the nature, uses and social impacts of weblogs, the newest and most rapidly-growing form of computer-mediated communication on the Internet.

The speaker series was organized by Marc Smith of the Microsoft Community Technologies group. At the end of the visit, MSR employees presented Herring and Paolillo with CDs containing digital video recordings of their talks.

A draft of Paolillo and Wright's study is available at: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/events/foaf-galway/papers/fp/challenges_of_foaf_characterization/

The research presented by Herring will be published in the Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences. A preprint is available at: http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/blogconv.pdf. The paper has been nominated for a HICSS 2005 Best Paper Prize.

I'm not sure that I have mentioned the HICSS 2005 Best Paper Prize nomination. *S* Very cool.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:30 AM | TrackBack

New Research Tool - Google Scholar

From BetaNews.

Google Debuts Scholarly Research By David Worthington, BetaNews November 18, 2004, 10:41 PM

Google has publicly unveiled Scholar, a free beta service for academic research. Scholar pulls up relevant information from a combination of sources such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts, and technical reports. When aggregating results, the Scholar search engine takes into account the full text of articles, author, publication, and frequency of citation in academic research.

The problem with researching online is that a great deal of primary source material is not yet available online. In order to make up for this deficiency, Google searches through citations for offline literature that may be available at local libraries.

Scholar's search indexes are written in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:38 PM | TrackBack

Discontinued Products - It bums me out when they kill products I love

I use several different software products to keep track of academic and personal issues. Three of the ones I love are (or have been) made by Ilium Software. ListPro, which I mentioned in previous blog post Thinking about the next year's submissions and New version of ListPro, is used to maintain my complex todo lists for calendar year submissions, conference arrangements, publications, reviewing, things to find at the library, all the way to lists of courses I have taught and also those that I want to develop. ListPro is a very handy tool that I have run on three separate platforms - Windows, PocketPC, and Palm. I also use eWallet to hold all those password protected numbers that one needs for modern life...like anyone can remember all the pin numbers they are assigned for every technological tool they come in contact with on a daily basis.

In checking out links for the immediately proceeding post Thinking about the next year's submissions, I found that Ilium Software has dropped one of my favorites Recordian from their product list, for a list of dead Ilium Software programs check here. Recordian is an information management tool that lets you track projects with four fields Activity, Date, Cost, and Notes. I use three of them - Activity, Date, and Notes - to track academic related happenings so I have all the information I need at hand to pull together monthly advisory committee reports and annual reports. Unlike ListPro I have only used Recordian across two platforms: Windows and PocketPC. Looks like I will need to find a new information management tool for Windows and Palm. *sigh* I will probably wait until this academic year is over so I won't have to transfer information from one program to another.

Posted by prolurkr at 06:14 PM | TrackBack

Thinking about the next year's submissions

I am an organization freak. Why you ask? Because otherwise I am a totally disorganized putz. Believe me, when I forget things I totally and completely forget them. It gets ugly. So I became an organization freak to try and keep myself in check...me taking my own reins and steering.

Today I am looking at my list, maintained in ListPro, of submissions I would like to make for calendar year 2005. I have three color coded types - must do's are blue (I have five must do's though one of them, a conference, has not be announced yet so it may not happen), if I have time's are yellow (there are three of these), and BROG - for which I am not solely responsible - are green (two conference, though this is far from set in stone since BROG has not agreed on an agenda for next year). I have three projects on my plate a couple of which will be used to met this submission goal, aside from BROG work: 1) QUALS first, foremost, must stay focused upon - want to be a candidate, tired of being just another grad student; 2) I am reworking adolescent chatroom conversation from 9/11 into two ethnographic performances - one short and one longer; and 3) I am thinking through an essay on the various blog definitions found in academic work and on blogs themselves - what do they say, what are their imbedded biases, etc. Obviously I need a few more projects in here, if time allows, or I will need to revise my submission schedule - which is highly likely.

On top of that I have a conference paper out for review that will need some additional work before I can submit it for publication. Though I am very jazzed with the comments I have received so far from those that have read the current text. In particular I am thinking through some comments my husband made about the cutting of films by TV providers in comparison to blog aggregation. It's an interesting observation, I'm lucky cause he is way smarter than I am, that I need to weave into my current paper once I have the levels worked through in my head.

Likewise I received response from Eric E. Peterson, University of Maine, whose work with Kristan Langellier, also of the University of Maine, has provided much fuel for my thinking in the last few months. I found their book Storytelling in Daily Life ¹ while working with one of Kristin's previous essays "Voiceless bodies, bodiless voices: The future of personal narrative performance" ² for its taxonomy of performance types to use for the audiences imbedded in adolescent blog posts. I was privileged to get to meet Kristin at NCA this month, and per her request sent her a couple of my papers which she forwarded on to Eric. Eric has pointed me to some new diary literature that I will be acquiring from the library system shortly...i.e. tomorrow. Also I'm sure my drive time to Bloomington tomorrow will be taking up with thoughts about blogs and intersubjectivity vs. interactivity, or are they layers to a complex cake rather then a binary choice. Gotta love academic thoughts. *S*

¹Langellier, Kristin M. & Peterson, Eric E. (2004). Storytelling in Daily Life: Performing Narrative. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

²Langellier, Kristin M. (1998). Voiceless bodies, bodiless voices: The future of personal narrative performance. In Sheron J. Dailey (Ed.), The Future of Performance Studies: Visions and Revisions (pp. 207-213). Annandale VA: National Communication Association.

Posted by prolurkr at 05:32 PM | TrackBack

Posting of pictures from UK trip September 18-27, 2004

Well it has taken far longer then I had expected but I have finally posted the last of the pictures and posts from my September trip to the U.K. You can view them by hitting either "September 2004" or "Travel...on the road again" on the sidebar or you can click through either of the links in this post. Be forewarned that the Travel...on the road again category pulls up all of my travel posts and most have many pictures, this category has been known to swamp even those viewers with high-speed internet access.

Posted by prolurkr at 12:02 AM | TrackBack

Thoughts after entering NCA sessions

Two major observations hit me as I entered and linked to the people and institutions from the sessions I attended at NCA. First I am completely amazed how many of the professors I saw do not have a personal web presence. Maybe it's just my usual involvement with online researchers or my position at Indiana University, a really wired university, that has given me the feeling that all academics have some level of personal web presence. Clearly that feeling is incorrect.

My second observation is probably an outgrowth of the first. I was also struck by how many of the papers did not include abstracts as part of their submission. Though, again as an internet researcher, I know how easily abstracts are published and republished allowing ones work to be accessed by a larger audience then just those that may have attended a presentation at a conference or read a paper available to only those who attended that conference (and who may or may not have attended the panel). I put a note to myself on my November 11, 2004 post, "Always put an abstract on conference papers so that third-parties can advertise my work should they choose to do so." I hope anyone who reads this makes the same note to themselves as well. Personally I'll take publicity on any of my work, conference papers or publications in any venue you choice to use for dissemination.

Posted by prolurkr at 03:30 PM | TrackBack

NCA Chicago

After almost two weeks of filter posts to this blog, as I worked through my post-election blues, I decided we needed some color. So each of my National Communication Association (NCA) Conference posts will be accompanied by a color picture of the Chicago Skyline found via Google Image search. Enjoy. Check November 10 - 12, 2004 for daily posts covering the conference.

Posted by prolurkr at 09:09 AM | TrackBack

CFP -- Technical Communication & Culture

Call for Papers
Technical Communication & Culture
Submission deadline: December 1, 2005

With the immense use of technology and methods for explaining technical concepts, the election cycle offers fascinating intersections of technical communication and popular culture. Yet, the election cycle is only one of the many areas possible for analyzing these intersections.

Proposals for papers and panels on the intersection of technical communication and popular culture are welcome in areas such as the following:

--Genres: websites, television, flyers, reports
--Ideology, power, and ethics
--Pedagogical implications: how do we “teach” these new methods and genres?
--Collaboration, structure, and culture: how does the workplace affect these?
--Philosophies and research methods
--Visual theory, design, usability, especially of online environments

Share your ideas and join us for the 26th meeting of the Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture Associations Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. February 9-12, 2005 Hyatt Regency, Albuquerque

See http://www.swtexaspca.org for more details.

Please send a 200-word proposal by December 1, 2005 to the following:

Lacy Landrum
Oklahoma State University
Morrill 205
Stillwater, OK 74078
lacylandrum@yahoo.com

Posted by prolurkr at 12:31 PM | TrackBack

NCA Second Day of the Conference (Last Day for Me)

Friday was a mixed potpourri of panels across ethnography, computer & comm, and political comm - though the political comm were all internet related papers. The high point of the day was hanging out with friends for lunch. Conferences always become a time of socializing, as well as learning. And at least for me, the socializing is often as instructive, if not more so, then some of the panels.

I have attached abstracts when available under the first indent. The second indent are my notes on the presentation and possibly the paper itself.

8:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m. Men, Women, and Meaning: Ethnographies of Gendered Communication

Participant(s):

1. Georgine R Hodgkinson - Cosumnes River College, Sandra P. Wheeler - California State University, Sacremento
Title: Patchwork Summer: A Feminist Ethnography of a Sacramento Quilt Shop

2. Thomas A. Vaughn - Arkansas Tech University
Title: An Ethnographer Among Men: A Story of Masculinity Under Siege

3. Matthew L Brooks - University of South Florida
Title: Dialogue and Autoethnography in Friendship as Method

4. Kurt J. Lindemann - Arizona State University
Title: Memory as Performative Subject Position(ing): The Ethnographer as 'Enterprising Subject' in Representations of Masculinity and Disability

5. Patricia J. Sotirin - Michigan Technological Univ (Respondent)

6. Elenie E. Opffer - Regis University (Chair)

9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. Virtual Dialogues: Negotiating Affiliation and Control

Participant(s):

1. Dennis L. Wignall - Saginaw Valley State University (Chair)

2. Peter N. Miraldi - Kent State University
Title: Personality Determinants of Internet Use

Personality traits are relatively consistent. They help to determine how we express ourselves and how we behave. These traits have been used to predict how an individual communicates and uses media such as television. For example, high sensation-seekers tend to watch horror movies, listen to hard rock, and consume pornography more than low sensationseekers. However, personality traits have not been used to predict how people use the Internet. The Internet is quickly becoming a mainstream form of communication, information seeking, entertainment, etc. It is important to understand the different ways different people use the Internet. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to determine if personality traits can predict Internet use. Detailed statistical analyses are employed and discussed. Overall, personality did not seem to be a strong predictor of Internet use. However, correlation analysis and multiple regression revealed some small relationships between personality and Internet variables. A great deal of the variance related to why and how people use the Internet is still left unexplained. These initial findings are discussed as to how they contribute to personality and Internet use research.


This is a subject I am particularly interested in as a CMC researcher. When I began my academic research career looking at teen chatrooms I was struck by the binary response I received from other students and faculty, "I love chatrooms" or "I hate chatrooms." I have long wandered if there were measurable personality factors that can tell us something about those that love/hate forms of CMC.

The presentation spent too much time on two subjects: internet addiction, and variables output by SPSS and not printed in the standard journal article. I found these to be failings that I believe the author/presenter will overcome with time and experience. Personally I am always wary of the "Internet Addiction" argument. I find that too many of the questions that lead one to apply the label are based on binary choices that harbor bias toward f2f interaction as superior to CMC interaction, and that CMC interaction is somehow a deviant activity.

The paper is written in a very formal style and includes a variety of statistics for each variable and many combinations of variable. I must admit I read the early sections and skipped to the discussion. I do find it interesting that personality is not a strong predictor of internet use, though I am still left wondering if there is a correlation between personality factors and types of CMC used. I think a more detailed inventory would be required to tease out those strands. I hope the author continues on this line of research though with an eye to those of us that do not harbor his love for the minute of statistical evaluation.

3. James D Ivory - University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Title: Lead Us Not into Temptation: Predictors of Inappropriate Behavior and Dangerous Situations in Teen Internet Use

As teenagers’ access to the Internet increases, concerns about inappropriate behavior and exposure to dangerous situations grow accordingly. While many strategies are recommended to reduce these risks, it is unclear which are effective. This research uses data from a telephone survey of 754 parents and their adolescent children to explore relationships between parental attitudes toward the Internet, parental protection strategies, and children’s access environment on children’s indulgence in inappropriate behavior and exposure to dangerous situations. Results indicate only two statistically significant relationships: a negative relationship between filtering and inappropriate behavior and a positive relationship between privacy and dangerous situations. These results, however, should be interpreted with caution, and implications for application are difficult to ascertain.


This paper used data from the 2000 PEW Internet Life survey on adolescents internet use¹. As such some survey responses are clustered prior to evaluation and then were further clustered for this study. While the author found a weak correlation between filter use and a reduction in "bad" and "dangerous" teen activity it is my feeling that flaws in the evaluation raise into question usefulness of the study. In specific the activities clustered under the terms "bad" and "dangerous" were a mix that placed the teenage respondent as receiver and as sender. Further issues such as "giving a friend your password" do not require computer usage in the transmission and would therefore not necessarily be affected by filtering activities. It was my perception that the author agreed that there were structural issues with the study and would have conducted it differently were he to do so now. Teen work is not his primary research focus and I look forward to seeing presentations within his primary research interest as future conferences.

¹Lenhart, Amanda, Rainie, Lee, & Lewis, Oliver (June 20, 2001). Teenage Life Online: The rise of the instant-message generation and the Internet's impact on friendship and family relationships. PEW Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved Nov. 27, 2002 from http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/pdfs/PIP_Teens_Report.pdf.

4. Brett D. Maddex - Univ of Colorado, Boulder
Title: Not Just a Game: Society in a Fantasy-based Virtual Setting

This presentation hit on many of the points I have personally found interesting about gaming environments, particularly the social support found through conversation and interaction within the gaming environment. The paper is not available on the NCA CD so I am unable to provide an abstract here. I can only say that I look forward to seeing future presentations from this author and I hope he considers presenting at AoIR next year.

5. Hong Wang - Shippensburg University
Title: Online Dating as a Contesting Site for the Cooperative Principles

11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Lunch with friends at the Thai Spoon Restraunt (Green curry and bubble tea)

2:00 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. Politics and the Internet

Participant(s):

1. Andrew Paul Williams - Virginia Tech University, Monica Postelnicu - University of Florida, Kristen D Landreville - University of Florida
Title: Hyperlinking and Web Campaigning: Examining the Use of Hyperlinks in Candidate Web Sites During the 2004 U.S. Presidential Campaign

Much has been written and commented on in the mainstream press about how important Web campaigning has become for political campaigning. For instance, both John McCain in campaign 2000 and Howard Dean (briefly) in campaign 2004 used the Web to raise funds, encourage volunteers, and heighten awareness of themselves as viable contenders for the presidency. This proposed study will focus on one essential component of candidate (and any) Web sites: hyperlinks. Through the use of a quantitative content analysis, the researchers examine how both Republican incumbent United States President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger used hyperlinks on their Web sites during the 2004 general election cycle. Building on prior research on hyperlinks, this study seeks to determine how these candidates used hyperlinks to guide users within their respective Web sites and the features of these links. Additionally, the study aims to evaluate if, and under what conditions, the candidates used hyperlinks to direct users to external Web sites.

2. Kaye D. Trammell - Louisiana State University
Title: Year of the Blog: Webstyle Analysis of the 2004 Presidential Candidates

In the 2004 election cycle, Americans had 97 days from the announcement of the Democratic presidential candidate on July 29 through Election Day on November 2 to select the nation's next leader. From the beginning, experts asserted, "Americans can shop for their next president online" (Scott, 2004). During the campaign, candidate weblogs, or blogs, rose from obscurity to being a key part of the Internet strategy and overall information and engagement efforts (Trammell, Williams, & Postelnicu, 2004; Rice, 2003, 2004). Indeed, 2004 became the year of the blog. Blogs are interactive Web pages that are frequently updated and the content is arranged in reversed chronological order (Walker, 2005; Blood, 2002). This study employs webstyle (Banwart, 2002: Bystrom, Banwart, Roberton, & Kaid, 2004), a quantitative content analysis adaptation of videostyle (Kaid & Davidson, 1986). The method is a "systematic instrument for analyzing self-presentation style" (Banwart, 2002, p. 10) on the Web, particularly for candidate Web sites. As such, a random, stratified sample of the incumbent Republican candidate and the challenging Democratic candidate blog posts and associated reader comments are analyzed. The analysis reveals the self-presentation, issues discussed and emphasized, and strategies employed on the candidate blogs. Additionally, the study analyzes the reader reactions to such messages, based on the responses posted in interactive "comments" section of each blog.

3. Jennifer L. Stromer-Galley - State University of New York, Albany
Title: Making the Difference: The Internet as Key Variable in Political Campaigns

The pressing question has been and continues to be: Will the Internet "make a difference" in a political campaign? "Making a difference" can be parsed into three degrees of effects: 1) do campaigns believe it essential to have a website and use the Internet in the campaign? 2) are citizens now mobilized to participate in campaigns in ways not possible before HTML? 3) does the use of the Internet serve as the critical element that gets the candidate elected? Using evidence from prior election seasons, as well as the Dean and Kerry campaigns in 2000, it's increasingly clear that campaigns deem it essential to have a website and that citizens are being mobilized to participate. Getting the candidate elected continues to be the open question.

4. Erik P. Bucy - Indiana University
Title: Empirical Support for the Media Participation Hypothesis

This paper considers the individual-level effects of new media use in light of recent discussions about civic involvement and political participation (Bucy, D'Angelo, & Newhagen, 1999; Bucy & Gregson, 2001). In particular, the paper seeks empirical confirmation of the media participation hypothesis (Bucy, in press). The media participation hypothesis holds that, as political involvement becomes increasingly reliant on new communication formats and technologies, intensive use of interactive public affairs media will produce a heightened sense of system satisfaction and political efficacy, a trend that should manifest itself longitudinally as mass media become more interactive in nature. New media formats refer to the hybrid forms of mass communication that incorporate real-time feedback channels, including talk radio, call-in television, and the Internet/World Wide Web. To test this hypothesis, NES data from the 1992, 1996, and 2000 presidential elections will be analyzed. Hierarchical regressions will be run for each year using new media use as the independent variable and political satisfaction, self and system efficacy as the dependent variables. The analysis will control for important sociodemographic influences as well as political orientation. The hypothesis will be supported if a significant association between interactive media use and a positive political outlook is found over time.

5. Rita Kirk Whillock - Southern Methodist University, Gracie L. Lawson-Borders - Kent State University
Title: Internet Blogs in Campaign Communication

Each campaign season introduces a new dimension to the Internet campaign. In election 2004, campaign weblogs -- or blogs -- became a standard feature of campaign websites. This paper investigates the strategic uses of this conversational style. The authors examine campaign blogs at critical junctures, talk to web strategists to describe intent, and assess the strategic value of the tool.

6. Mary C. Banwart - University of Kansas
Title: Webstyles in 2004: Is the Internet Still an Ungendered Campaign Tool?

As more consumers obtain their campaign news through the Internet, political campaigns place more emphasis on establishing a "Web presence" for their candidates. That "Web presence" undoubtedly results in the self-presentation of a candidate in a mass medium, and thus a Webstyle of a candidate is created. The research to be reported in this discussion will build from prior work in analyzing the Webstyles of candidates in mixed-gender gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House races (Banwart, 2002; Bystrom, Banwart, Kaid, & Robertson, in press). Although to date the conclusions from these analyses have found few differences between female and male Webstyles, they have also found an overall lack of personalization, interactivity, and use of production techniques. However, as the Internet becomes more mainstream, it remains to be seen how female and male candidates will present their image and to what extent gender strategies will become the integrated factor that they are in the development of candidate messages for other channels (i.e., television advertising). Thus, the discussion will focus on the Webstyle strategies used by candidates running in mixed-gender races (gubernatorial, House, Senate) in the 2004 general election and offer a comparison to the 2000 and 2002 elections.

7. Barbara K. Kaye - Univ of Tennessee, Thomas J Johnson - Southern Illinois University
Title: Continuing Discussion of Uses and Gratifications for Online Political Information

The uses and gratifications approach is well established for the World Wide Web and political information. This presentation will compare uses and gratifications from previous research on the 1996 and 2000 election cycles. The 4 primary motivations for connecting to online political information: guidance information-seeking/surveillance, entertainment, and social utility will be revisited from 2004 data.

8. John C. Tedesco - Virginia Tech University
Title: Internet and Candidate Public Relations

The controlled aspect of the web enables researchers to examine detailed message appeals to specific target audience groups. The groups for candidates vary as do the message strategies. This paper investigates the choices primary and general election candidates made to reach various constituent publics.

9. Jerry L. Miller - Ohio University (Chair)

Posted by prolurkr at 08:48 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

NCA First Day of the Conference

Thursday was a fairly full day of panels. I started at 8:00am and cut out after the 2:00pm panel ended at 3:15. My focus in selecting panels at this conference was ethnographic and performance related took precedence. Though I did attend a couple of technological panels on Friday.

I've added abstracts where they were available from the NCA Papers CD. Note to self: Always put an abstract on conference papers so that third-parties can advertise my work should they choose to do so.

8:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m. Through the Looking Glass: Charting New Pathways in Ethnography

PANEL DESCRIPTION:

Panelists explore new pathways in postmodern ethnography. They extend the roles of the researcher as participant, character, novelist, and friend. In the process, they explore issues of voice, authenticity, reflexivity, creativity, and power that animate ethnographic relationships.

Participant(s):

1. Christopher N. Poulos - Univ of North Carolina, Greensboro (Chair)

2. Arthur P. Bochner - Univ of South Florida (Respondent)

3. Carolyn S. Ellis - Univ of South Florida

4. Harold L. Goodall - Arizona State University

5. Linda Vangelis - Univ of South Florida

6. Lisa M. Tillmann-Healy - Rollins College

7. Christine S. Davis - Univ of South Florida

8. Robin Patric Clair - Purdue University

9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.Reflexivity as Ethnographic Epistemology and Methodology

Participant(s):

1. Caroline J.S. Picart - Florida State University
Title: Exploring Insideness and Outsideness Across the Mind-Body Split: An Ethnography of a Professor as Dancer, and Dancer as Professor

2. Keith Berry - University of Wisconsin, Superior
Title: Doing and Becoming Within Ethnography: 'Traditional' Ethnographers as Worthy Subjects of Study

3. Nadia S Kaneva - University of Colorado, Boulder
Title: The Situated Self: Reflections on the Construction of Researcher Identity

This paper explores the complex process of constructing an identity as a researcher, when conducting ethnographic work in cross-cultural settings. A Bulgarian native educated in the US whose research takes her back to her native country, the author pays specific attention to the challenges of constructing a researcher identity when conducting fieldwork “at home” after a long absence and a profound socialization into the values, culture, and academic discourses of another country. The discussion is informed by the author’s personal experiences and her efforts to negotiate a researcher identity. In this sense, this is an autobiographical essay of sorts. At the same time, the author strives to transcend the specificity of her own identity struggles and engage with the larger disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological debates around the notion of selfhood as it pertains to the praxis of ethnographic research. Integrating the perspectives of various scholars, the author argues that researcher identity is constructed through interactions with people and texts; it is publicly performed and socially conferred; and it is continually negotiated in light of responsibilities, expectations, emotions, and experiences in and outside of the field. Thus, the researcher self can only be understood as situated and relational. To illustrate key points in her argument, the author unpacks her own research project along the lines of disciplinary affiliation, theoretical orientation, and methodological approach. The paper concludes by drawing out several recurring themes in the literature and by suggesting directions for continued elaboration on the topic of researcher selfhood.

4. Barbara J Jago - University of New Hampshire, Manchester
Title: Coming Out in the Academy

5. Karl V. Winton - Marshall University (Chair)

6. Susan L. F. Isaacs - Union College (Respondent)

12:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m Visualizing Technospaces: Nostalgic Visions of the Future

Participant(s):

1. Kelly A. Gates - City University of New York, Queens College
Title: Creating the Cyber-Real World: Biometrics and the Construction of Physical Space as Virtual Space

2. Heidi Brush - University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Title: Cybernetics and the Situationist City: Technology, Utopia and Radical Politics

3. James Hay - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Title: The Invention of Air Space, Outer Space, and Cyber-space

4. Steve Jones - University of Illinois, Chicago (Respondent)

5. Marina Levina - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (Chair)
Title: Visualizing Genomic Science: Experiencing the Chicago Museum of Science and Technology’s Genetics Exhibit

2:00 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. Performing and Analyzing Family

PANEL DESCRIPTION:

To further enhance audience discussion, audience members may email srwilson@depauw.edu for specific text details prior to the presentation.

Participant(s):

1. Ronald E. Shields - Bowling Green State Univ (Chair)

2. Joanne R. Gilbert - Alma College
Title: Performance of Poetry

3. John D. Anderson - Emerson College
Title: Performance from Horton Foote's 'The Orphan's Home'

4. Susan R. Wilson - DePauw University
Title: Performance from Ann Patchett's 'Patron Saint of Liars' and Richard Russo's 'Empire Falls'

5. Kathleen M. Galvin - Northwestern University (Respondent)

6. Kristin M. Langellier - Univ of Maine (Respondent)

Posted by prolurkr at 06:56 PM | TrackBack

NCA Pre-Conference Workshop on Ethnographic Field Notes

The Ethnographic Section of the National Communication Association (NCA) presented a full-day pre-conference workshop called "Taking Fieldnotes and Creating Research Texts." The three presenters were:

Robert L. Krizek, Saint Louis University
Sarah Amira De la Garza, Arizona State University
Christopher N. Poulos, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Nick L. Trujillo, California State University Sacramento was also scheduled to present but was unable to join us.

Each presenter gave us some insight into their fieldnote taking process and their preparation to enter the field. Two takeaways for me were the inclusion of self in the actual fieldnotes. All the presenters included self observation in their jottings, and two of them stressed keeping personal field journals that detail what is happening in your life during the fieldwork period.

After the presentations and a Q&A period participants split into three groups to enter the field and practice notetaking. I was in Chris Poulos group and we went to the Chicago Cultural Center (aka Old Chicago Public Library), pictured at right. You can take a virtual tour of the space here.

I choice a spot in what I believe is the Renaissance Court on the first floor. There I watched the physical interactions between a changing group of senior citizens and adults using the space. I choice to focus on physical interactions so that my workshop practice would mimic my real research environments as much as possible. Since online interactions produce transcripts there is no need to carefully note the dialogue I am observing. My work needs to capture environmental space, history between participants, their interactions with the space, and my own point of views on their activities.

I found the workshop to be very helpful in calibrating the work I have been doing in isolation with the work of other field researchers. I defiantly plan to attend these pre-conference workshops in the future.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:05 PM | TrackBack

The audience for blogs - some numbers from BuzzMachine

BuzzMachine has some interesting info on blog audiences in his post Ad:Tech: The blogging panel

Rick Bruner, now of DoubleClick, honchoed a study of blog audience sponsored by Gawker Media and SixApart and done by ComScore. He presented the first preliminary results for the first time today. This really was an outcome of Bloggercon II. Some big news here.

ComScore looked at 15,000 blogs and their audiences.

35 million Americans, more than 20 percent of U.S. Internet users, read from 250 blog domains (that is, some large domains such as blogger.com and large individual sites; that mix does skew things a bit among big and small blogs; the numbers will be massaged, Rick said). That's up 10 percent over the prior quarter.

Blog readers are more likely to be broadband users (index of 113 vs total population), college educated (index 114), higher income (index 116 at 100k household income), Asian (index 136... go figger).

It looks like this info may be more of the media's love affair with filter blogs. Though the demographic info is interesting, could it be the audience mirrors the filter blog creator's demographics? The consolidation of blogger.com blogs as though they were one thing, which of course they are from a purely URL standpoint, is hard to parse. More research is necessary.

Posted by prolurkr at 04:38 PM | TrackBack

The Aurora Borealis...shining in Indiana

I had never seen the aurora borealis until I was well into my twenties. Many folks around here say that the phenomena was previously much rarer than it is now. Not sure if that is true. But tonight as hubby and I drove home from my niece's birthday party we saw a lovely display. I don't have pictures of my own to offer, you really need an SLR rather than the digital camera I carry. But there are lots of great shots on Google Images if you have never seen the show. Click here to look at some beautiful pictures.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:43 PM | TrackBack

The Guardian - "The new minority"

The Guardian has an article that certainly grabs at how I feel this week, as an American and a Midwesterner. A new minority: liberals all at sea in a divided America.

I am particularly taken with the final quote:

For four years of this Republican administration, Jim Goodman, a fourth generation dairy farmer in south-central Wisconsin, had consoled himself with a single fact: that Mr Bush was never really elected by the American people, he was appointed by the supreme court.

Black Wednesday forced Mr Goodman to face up to an unpalatable truth. "It shows, I guess, that people really do believe in what he is doing," he said. "Obviously, the American people really do support the current administration so we have to be responsible for what it is doing. We can't go on saying we didn't elect him, so it's not our fault."

I have seen this election defined as urban (blue states) verses rural (red) states. I think that massively oversimplifies the divisions here and further disenfranchises rural votes who didn't vote for Bush. I don't think this is a simple division urban/rural, educated/uneducated, religious/non-religious. Those dichotomies make for better sound bits but simply don't grab the complexity of the situation at all. I don't have the answer. I think it will take an outsider to really analyze the issues and find out what parts of the multiple regression are significant. I hope someone does that research so that we on the inside can get a better view of ourselves and our fellows.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:23 PM | TrackBack

It's been a very bad week for the Edward's family - link to BBC report on Elizabeth Edward's Breast Cancer

Edwards' wife has breast cancer.

Get it early and fight it hard. My maternal grandmother was a 30+ year surviver until she died peacefully, from old age.

Posted by prolurkr at 05:32 PM | TrackBack

Looking forward from Tuesday's election

Bush has stated that he now has a conservative mandate to make social changes in the US beyond our efforts to "reform" overseas. I hope he studies the map a bit...yes he won the vote (though that is still in play), yes he may have won the electoral college, but the rest of us live here too and we will be heard as well.

Hubby and I have been discussing the potential for moderation during Bush's second term. Hubby, a moderate Republican, believes that moderation will be the watch word of this term. While I respect hubby's point of view, I don't see how moderation will even be a word used anywhere around DC since Bush appears to have actually won this election and lord knows there was no moderation last term when he had not won. Personally I pretty much figure it will be shooting season for personal liberties and civil rights in this country. Do I want to be wrong, god yes...if I am please point it out to me so we can both have a good hearty laugh over it all. I'll buy the first round and we can laugh at my stupidity...one of my favorite topics. Please please please let it be so.

What do I want for campaign 2008...Mr. Gore please come save us from ourselves. We desperately need a thoughtful person of vision who can make the public believe that considering the issues and making a decision based on the unique stituation is the proper course. I'll start stumping for you tomorrow if you want to give it one more run. Gore 2008!

Posted by prolurkr at 05:16 PM | TrackBack

First International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry - CFP Deadline Extended

Due to the growing interest in new conference panels and increasing volume of requests for submission deadline extension, the deadline for submissions of open-panel session proposals and all papers to the First International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry is now extended to January 15, 2005, while the previous deadline of December 1, 2004 still holds effect for closed-panel session proposals. Notification of the acceptance of closed-panel proposals will be given by December 15, 2004. Please continue to visit our conference for more information, and take advantage of this extension to work on your proposal and papers. The First International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry will take place at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, from May 5-7, 2005. The theme of the First International Congress of Qualitative Research focuses on "Qualitative Inquiry in a Time of Global Uncertainty." The mission of the conference is to provide a forum for conversations on the interdisciplinary implications of positivist legislation and academia for critical qualitative scholarship especially in indigenous, border, feminist, race, queer, and ethnic studies, and to build and expand the already robust tradition of Qualitative Inquiry.

Following topics are supposed to be taken up in the conference:
Autoethnography & Performance Studies
Critical Ethnography as Performance
Critical Pedagogy
Cultural Policy
Cultural Studies, Education & Pedagogy
Decolonizing Neo-colonial Methodologies
Developments in Participatory Action Research
Ethics, IRBs & Academic Freedom
Ethnicity & Race
Feminist Qualitative Research in the new Century
Foucault's Methodologies
Global Ethnography
Grounded Theory & Social Justice Research
Human Subject Research
Indigenous Approaches to Creating Knowledge
Indigenous Policy Studies
Mixed-methods designs & inquiry in Global Studies
Nationhood & Nationalism
New Media & Information Technology
Postcolonial Methodologies
The Audit Culture & Neoliberalism
The Global Consumer Culture

The organization committee of the conference is chaired by Professor Norman K.Denzin.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:19 PM | TrackBack

It's all in the name

My husband and I do not use the same last name and for most of my academic readers you are saying "So what?" Which is completely the correct answer, but, sadly, in my little corner of the world it remains a big deal to some people.

When I made the decision, and my then fiance' agreed, that I would keep my birth name after I married I actually figured that what little guff I would get over the issue would be from men. I was so wrong and to the men of the planet I sincerely apologize. The guff I get is from women...only from women, never had a man say a thing to me or to my husband about it beyond a few older folks who like to kid me about what name I use and mean nothing by the jokes - if it weren't this, and it often isn't, it would be something else.

So today as I went into my local polling place and was greeted by people, many of whom I have known my entire life, it was especially an irritant to have to again deal with this discussion. You see every time I vote there is some good natured banter about which name I am listed under, this is a few well known old timers - primarily male - who like to get a rise out of the redhead. But this year the Republican Vice-Chair, a women I have known since high school, was working with a couple of folks that were unknown to me. When the discussion again came up about which name I was listed under I gave my usual response, "Scheidt is my name, he has his own name." Referring to my husband, and I normally leave it at that. The guys chuckle and say how I always have been independent.

But this time as I wandered the length of the election chute I got to overhear a conversation between the Vice-Chair and her assistant related to the idea of why any married women would not use her husbands last name, the inference being that the choice was somehow an outward representation of some interior deviance. My response, from about 30 feet away, was "Some of us kept the names God gave us at birth." *giggles* When I was walking out after I voted they were both glaring at me.

Posted by prolurkr at 06:57 PM | TrackBack

May I introduce Yung-Rang (Yung-Rae) "Laura" Cheng, Ph.D.

Word has come that her committee has accepted her dissertation and defense and now we bow before a newly minted member of the academy, Yung-Rang (Yung-Rae) "Laura" Cheng, Ph.D.

Posted by prolurkr at 05:43 PM | TrackBack

October Monthly Advisory Committee Report

Octobers Monthly Advisory Committee Report is available here.

Posted by prolurkr at 12:01 PM | TrackBack