Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, March 31, 2003 at 4:57:55 PM CEST

Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture

Don't be too delighted after reading the headline: The Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture is another scientific magazine with an interesting title, which was published only for a short period. From 1993 to 1996. But this is really early for this topic, so it could be quite interesting to browse the old issues.

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, March 20, 2003 at 9:03:24 PM CET

Culture and Rules in International Voice Communication in Online Games

The BBC have an interesting article on XBox Live, regarding the voice communication used in the online games. Some interesting insight into the culture, and politics establishing between the international players. Via Slashdot

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, March 19, 2003 at 11:19:15 AM CET

Internet in the Eye of the Ethnographer

A paper in german, from the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fuer Sozialforschung: Internet im Auge der Ethnographin: "This paper presents a general survey of the different cultures of hackers, cyberpunks, unix freaks, real programmers and other proud, knowledgeable and daring users who inhabit this artificial landscape made up of cables, satellite connections, net adaptors, modems and programmes." Via Uni Trier

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, March 19, 2003 at 10:38:05 AM CET

Interview about Virtuality and Reality

Die Bonner Zeitschrift für Erwachsenenbildung has a Interview (in german) with Mike Sandbothe, a philosopher at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. They are talking about the apparent difference between "virtual" and "real. Very interesting. He says, that in our reality has always been the "virtual", it's nothing new, and connects this assertion to traditional aristotelic ideas. Via plastic thinking

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, March 10, 2003 at 2:37:11 PM CET

Afghans Plant Flag in Cyberspace

Afghanistan has launched its own national internet domain, .af, for websites and e-mail addresses, reports BBC.

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, March 10, 2003 at 1:08:06 PM CET

Study about the Use of the Internet among Anthropologists

I just discovered a recent study from the swiss anthropologist Sonja Bischoff. She researched with polls the use of the Internet in german speaking Institutes of Anthropology. She pointed to two interesting projects:

Stephen M. Lyon made a experiment in "Open Ethnography". He put his fieldnotes and some other stuff from his research in Northern Pakistan online.

Paul Stirling did ethnographic research in two Turkish villages between 1949 and 1994. He collected formal household data in 1950, 1971 and 1985. Since 1990 he have been preparing an archive of this data for eventual public access for teaching and research, as well as the passerby who has a more than casual interest in Turkey and its past half-century of change.

Both projects sound interesting. The use for most of us would be very limited, but this is not what counts. For example, as stated by Stephen Lyon, there have been discussions via Internet about his fieldwork, and this is already a positive effect.

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, March 4, 2003 at 12:19:43 PM CET

Iranians Arrested for Net Dating

Dozens of young Iranians have been detained for "unlawful actions" after using a website to arrange dates, reports BBC. And in the article is another interesting detail: "There are more than 1,200 Persian blogs, which focus largely on social rather than political issues, such as the opposite sex, music and films." Via Wired

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 27, 2003 at 7:17:39 PM CET

Ethics in Open Source Programming

There's currently a debate in the Open Source Community, how software, that has been released as free, can be prevented to be used for something the programmer didn't wan't. At the moment, the question is: Should Open Source developers help the U.S. prepare for war with Iraq?

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 26, 2003 at 4:54:43 PM CET

Anthropology of Online Communities

In the actual Annual Review of Anthropology is a quite good overview over research done in this field. You may read the abstract online. Students of our institute will find the book in the shelf of the magazines.

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 21, 2003 at 3:48:42 PM CET

Elitism in Online Communities

"A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list, a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world. This complaint follows a common pattern we've seen with MUDs, BBSes, and online communities like Echo and the WELL. A new social system starts, and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems. Then, as the new system grows, problems of scale set in. Not everyone can participate in every conversation. Not everyone gets to be heard. Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us, and so on", writes IT-Journalist Clay Shirky.

That's an interesting thought. Maybe this is indeed a typical pattern in growing online communities. Via Mindjack

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 21, 2003 at 3:37:43 PM CET

Tunisia Arrests 20 for Browsing Islamist Web Sites

"The 20 men, aged 18-22 and most of them high-school students, were arrested on February 5-9 in Zarzis for entering banned Internet Web Sites," said the Tunisian Human Rights League, the country's only legal independent rights group.

Read more at Reuters.

"Tunisia has been increasingly policing its citizens' internet usage, setting up a cyberpoliceforce, and competing with China for world leadership in net crackdowns. In 2002, the government arrested a journalist for Webbing false information", writes Mindjack.

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 20, 2003 at 2:56:13 PM CET

New First Monday

Take a look at the actual First Monday Issue. For example, they have two interesting articles about Internet in Africa and one about cybermethods. If someone reads an article it would be more than welcome to write a short comment about it.

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