Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 10, 2003 at 5:44:53 PM CET

Ethical Issues of Online Communication Research

Three interesting links to texts about the ethical issues of an internet research.

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 10, 2003 at 4:17:30 PM CET

Role of Weblogs in Online Community Building

I didn't read it, but it sounds interesting for all interested in online community research: Lessons in Community Building: An Inquiry into the role of weblogs in online community building. from Nurul Asyikin, National University of Singapore. Via Seb's Open Research

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 10, 2003 at 12:45:52 PM CET

Personal Knowledge Publishing and its Uses in Research

Sébastien Paquet from the Université de Montréal wrote an excellent paper about the use of weblogs in science and research. You should read it in any case, but especially if you don't understand what the ethno::log is and what it's good for. I totally agree with his most important adavantages for the use of a weblog in science: Selection of material Personal knowledge management Conversation Social networking Information routing Via Schockwellenreiter

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 10, 2003 at 10:02:13 AM CET

Technology and the Developing World

It's a older feature from CNN, but still interesting: Virtual Villages reports about IT development in India, Bangladesh, Dominican Republic and South Africa. Via Fusion Reaction. And thanks for announcing ethno::log!

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 6, 2003 at 1:07:01 PM CET

Software and Soul

Paul Ford, an american software developer and weblog writer and Dru Jay, also a weblog writer, had an interesting conversation about how to think about culture of computing, culture of technology and culture of software. One interesting point is that they say, software has not a origin, there is only something like "progress". Second good point, from Dru Jay, is that it's a question of terms to put software or computing into a social context, tied up to a time before software and computing. For example, instead of talking about software geneaology it could make more sense talking about genealogy of "productivity", "information", or "communication" to include developments of the pre-computer age.

Well, all in all this is not really important. It's just nice to see, that also other people are taking a cultural view on this technology.

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 6, 2003 at 12:19:28 PM CET

How Google Changed the Way Something is "Public"

The Boston Globe has a long article about how Google changes what we can find out about one another. They have a very good point in there, concerning court privacy : "Of course, most court information has long been public. But there is a profound difference between records buried in a county filing cabinet and the one-stop precision shopping you get from Google."

A very good point. This is not only a proof for the significant changes even single web services are doing to our society. It's also a warning to people who think, that you can import and export terms and concepts between online and offline world. That's not that easy! Yes, it's public. But it's differently public!

And an additional thought: Some people here at our institute had problems with the custom of writing in our ethno::log with so called screen names, or pejorative "micky-maus-names". Now you should know why. First of all, internet is different "public", as stated above. And second, the ethno::log is also for experimental thoughts. Even for not-already-scientific ideas and news. As most of us don't wan't the things they say in the institute kitchen printed in Current Anthropology, this screen names give you back the privacy, Google destroyed. Using a different name in the offline world maybe fraud. In the online world it's a widely used tradition which a different goal, as in this world are different circumstances.

You may also read this fanatastic short story concerning this topic.

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, February 6, 2003 at 11:51:21 AM CET

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Just stumbled over this harvard institute, which sounds interesting: The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. "The Berkman Center's mission is to explore and understand cyberspace, its development, dynamics, norms, standards, and need or lack thereof for laws and sanctions. "

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, January 29, 2003 at 2:15:48 PM CET

Internet as Accident

This paper (pdf) discusses the internet as a result of accidents: "Viewed in the light of the theory of accidental excellence, there is much to suggest that the success of the Internet and its various protocols derives from a communications technology accident, or better, a series of accidents." Via Monolog

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerleone, January 29, 2003 at 1:58:06 PM CET

Indian Weblogs

List of indian weblogs. Via Monolog

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerlone, January 23, 2003 at 12:46:16 PM CET

Internet Development in Thailand

A Critical Analysis of Adoption and Utilization of the Internet in Thailand for Educational Purposes by Noppadol Prammanee. From First Monday.

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerlone, January 20, 2003 at 9:12:16 PM CET

Does Avatars Have Civil Rights?

Raph Koster, an sf writer and game developer, wrote some thoughts about the question, if avatars (game characters in computer games played by a human), have civil rights. He raises some theoretical problems with that, for example: Does the right of property, which the owner of the server has, count higher than a supposed right of existance of an avatar? Or freedom of speech: What if a game is designed to not having this right? Weird, but interesting. Via Boingboing

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Dept. of cyberethnologica, kerlone, January 16, 2003 at 1:06:19 PM CET

Google and International Ethics

This article at wired shows, how difficult it is for the search engine Google to fullfill all the different needs for different cultures, governements and companies. Sergey Brin, co-founder of the company, is trying to manoeuvre between the ethical conflicts, his company is exposed by it's importance for the internet.

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