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This paper presents a simple typology of different forms of engagement with the Internet by families with children with various forms of chronic illness. The analysis is informed by ongoing debates about the nature, distribution and efficacy of reflexivity in contemporary social life, especially as it relates to the changing nature of information and knowledge. Drawing upon qualitative interviews with sixty-nine parents and sixteen children, the paper offers a nuanced account of the manner in which laypeople are engaging with e- health. It is an account that argues that any reading of the 'digital divide' that is based upon a simple homology between socio-structural location, reflexivity and differential ability to gain material purchase from information in the 'information age' is misjudged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focal point in this paper is our virtual selves, the avatars with which we interact with others in online virtual environments. The dispute is growing as to whom these digital manifestations belong to. The dispute is in part due to the ability of the technology to transfer the avatars and also in part on the desire of the software manufacturers to enforce the end user licence agreements. These licences do not follow contract theory but have been enforced by the courts. Despite the actions of the court their validity as a whole is still questionable. This paper contains descriptions of the disputed objects and presents the arguments of both sides. There is also a presentation of the law regulating the area and its rationale, strengths and weaknesses. Then there follows a critique of the law as it is and a presentation of what the law could, and indeed in some cases, should be. In the conclusion this work both describes the importance of this issue and what is at stake if an equitable and reasonably balanced solution to the collective rights cannot be found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some of the possible consequences of the introduction of online Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for the social politics of neighbourhoods and the public sphere more generally. Summarizing a number of recent theorizations of neighbourhood informatization, the article provides examples of online GIS in the UK and considers some of the possible implications of the use of such technologies for contemporary debates about citizenship in the context of processes of 'splintering urbanism'. Arguing that social citizenship is best understood in terms of varying forms of 'proactive' or 'defensive' engagement, the paper explores the relationship between virtual decision making about neighbourhood choice and the impact of aggregated virtual decisions 'on the ground', before going on to consider how differentiated forms of engagement are producing new forms of social exclusion in changing urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an exploratory study of the use of new technologies by the rural women's group Australian Women in Agriculture (AWiA). Data from interviews with twenty members of AWiA and an analysis of organizational documents, including a number of messages posted on the group's discussion list, are used to examine the extent to which cyberspace offers a new space for political engagement for women's activism. The experiences of AWiA members offer some cause for optimism. Geographically dispersed and excluded from male-dominated public agricultural arenas, the women of AWiA have constructed a technosocial landscape that facilitates the active dissemination of information, which has been used to advance a political agenda for farming women. However, there is evidence that less powerful actors within the network whose preference was for more social discussion on the list have been marginalized in the process. For these women, space for political engagement online has been limited on the AWiA discussion list. In conclusion, the paper draws attention to the new research questions that have emerged from this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of the Internet on offline social movement mobilization from the perspective of identity building. It is based on a case study of a women's group in Hong Kong, the Queer Sisters, and the bulletin board it created on the World Wide Web. Content analysis, an online survey, interviews and observation conducted between September 1999 and December 2000 found that the bulletin board helped to foster a sense of belonging to the Queer Sisters among participants. Bulletin board participants also shared a culture of opposition to the dominant order. But a collective consciousness was absent, so the bulletin board fell short of building a collective identity among its participants. This paper, however, argues that the absence of a collective identity on the bulletin board is the result of the way the board was administered, constrained by the resources and the aims of the Queer Sisters. It suggests that the potential for the Internet to build collective identities for social movements differs for different types of social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The profile of information policy in academic and policy-making circles has been rising in recent decades, a function, presumably, of the expansion of an ‘information society’. Nevertheless, there is widespread confusion over its meaning and purpose. This paper seeks to produce a clearer picture, building on useful groundwork in information science and other disciplines. The history of information policy is traced, featuring exposition of the pioneering contribution of Marc Porat in the 1970s. The present state of information policy is then described, with particular reference to some salient themes of current literature: issue inventories (i.e. the scope of information policy); academic identity (including a critique of attempts to appropriate information policy for one discipline); and the ideal — or, it is argued, illusion — of a ‘national information policy’. In the final section of the paper, some suggestions are made for the future direction of information policy. First, information policy should engage much more thoroughly with the tradition of political philosophy. Second, information policy may benefit from more forays into the field of futures studies. Finally, it is proposed that information policy could be positioned as a subset of the interdisciplinary specialism of information society studies, in which case its definition might be resolved in terms of the ‘normative theory of the information society’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Console based video games are an increasingly familiar and engaging technology in the living room and as such, warrant critical attention. Considerations of their impact on the home have been widely regarded by new media academics as technological innovation and by social scientists as symptomatic of a decline in social and familial connectedness. In an attempt to move the debate beyond discussions of machine functionality and social crisis, this paper argues for a reframing of some of the ways we think about the impact of entertainment technologies on the home. It presents the notion of the digital hearth as a concept that shows how cultural meanings associated with the home can be transformed through gaming and changing patterns of consumption. The research examines the domestication of the console through cultural histories of the living room, the social context of electronic media, and ethnographic studies. It argues that the concept of the digital hearth represents a re-organization of the spaces in which collective engagement occurs and a shifting of the cultural norms associated with that collective engagement. In these spaces not only does the living room become the site of collective engagement but also the form of that engagement changes with the digital hearth acting as the focal point around social interaction. The paper traces parallels between the appropriation of television and of radio into the home and the domestication of the console while arguing that the console represents a shifting of spatial and social norms of domestication from previous electronic media. In addition it represents gaming in the home as symptomatic of changes from public to private forms of entertainment which constitutes a changing geographic base for social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been suggested that research business strategy is like studying specimens on a wall. By examining successful stories, one can easily identify the strategic factors responsible for such a success, and the greater the success, the more evident those factors are. Timing, strategic positioning, pricing policies, lead-time - everything goes back to the place where it fits best, like a beautiful mosaic. Even competitors' mistakes become more evident, their dull misunderstanding of what the winner was planning as every successful move leads to an even more successful one. The case of Sony PlayStation, the most successful digital games console ever, is no exception and the temptation to explain the rationale behind such an achievement is almost irresistible. As this paper tries to suggest, sometimes ex- post rationalizations hide or avoid part of the truth. Despite PlayStation's success, Sony's strategic choices were, on more than one occasion, driven more by lucky coincidence than by long-range planning. Furthermore, this paper shows how some of the strategic factors behind PlayStation's winning run sprang from decisions taken by lack of alternatives, and that only in the very end was Sony able to understand their full profit potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of their "information age' policy agenda, the UK government sees "universal' access to information and communications technology (ICT) being achieved via new and existing public sites, where shared access to new technologies can be made available at little or no cost. State-sponsored augmentation of public ICT access in the UK has involved a variety of initiatives, most notably the recent establishment of a network of over 7,000 "UK Online Centres' located in a variety of distributed sites such as libraries, museums and colleges. Whilst there have been a number of localized case studies of users of public ICT sites, there has been little large-scale "mapping' of how these facilities are being used (and not used ) by the general public. Based on a randomized household survey with 1,001 individuals in twelve research areas in the West of England and South Wales - augmented with a "booster' sample of 100 interviews with individuals carried out in public ICT sites in these areas - the present paper seeks to explore: (i) who has access to what forms of public ICT sites; and (ii) who is (and who is not) making use of different forms of public ICT sites. The survey data suggest that, in terms of people's effective access to ICT, public access sites have a relatively slight profile when compared with household and wider family access - perceived to offer ready access to ICT by only a minority of respondents. Moreover, when the use of these public ICT sites is examined, there is little evidence of public ICT sites attracting those social groups who may otherwise be excluded or marginalized from the information age. Given these findings, the paper considers the influences underlying the currently modest impact of public ICT sites on the general population and suggests changes to current public ICT provision that may prompt wider usage of these sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is currently a tendency in cultural studies literature to analyse new media technologies in isolation from the underlying dynamics of capitalist culture. In response, this paper draws on the work of Jean-François Lyotard to reassert a series of basic connections between technological development and the further extension of capitalist principles into cultural production and exchange. This analysis will treat Lyotard as a key, but neglected, figure in media theory. The following arguments will be developed from three of his key texts: that the computerization of society is accompanied by a new stage in the commodification of knowledge ( The Postmodern Condition ); that we are witnessing the speed-up and extension of capitalist culture through the reduction of knowledge to information and information to bits ( The Inhuman ); and that new media technologies promote the streaming of culture (even oppositional culture) into homogeneous forms of capital that can be exchanged, received and consumed almost ahead of time ( Postmodern Fables ). Lyotard's strategies of resistance to these three processes, and to the invasion of capitalist logics into culture more generally, are placed into question in the final section of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the world universities are currently in the midst of an online learning revolution. Australia is no exception, with new online learning software packages being used throughout the country at various levels of implementation. This paper reports on research conducted at a regional campus in Australia, which is trialing an online educational software package. Using Foucault's writing on disciplinary techniques and the panopticon as a diagram of power in tandem with the translation approach outlined within Actor-Network Theory (ANT), this paper demonstrates how certain functions within an educational software package act interdependently as an electronic disciplinary technique that renders the student as an object, making them knowable to the lecturer and the university. This technologically-mediated objectification of the student enables lecturers to act upon the actions of the student at-a-distance, and thus carries the effects of disciplinary power to them in new ways. The subsequent analysis shows how the introduction of online technology into university education serves to produce multiple translations of disciplinary and counter-disciplinary practices between lecturers and students. The success or failure of the lecturer's attempts to translate the actions of the students through the educational technology was not necessarily related to any intentional resistance by the students. Instead, the production of multiple learning practices produced in association with the online technology served to exacerbate the ambivalent and ambiguous subject positions inhabited by the students. This affected the students' translation of the lecturer's course instructions, resulting in some students engaging in questionable pedagogical practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Society's increased surveillance needs are accelerating the spread of biometric security solutions (new authentication and identification technologies based on individual physical characteristics). There are two opposing lines of argument regarding the question of whether biometrics are a threat to privacy or not. This paper analyses the two views on their tacit assumptions regarding the nature of biometric technology. It argues that the different assessments of biometric technology involve different conceptualizations and constructions of the technology in terms of its demarcation as a stabilized object. On a second level, the analysis deals with the philosophical issue of technological determinism. The opposition between deterministic and voluntarist views of technology is shaped by an underlying opposition between reification of technology on the one hand, and a conception of technology as a multifactor contingent human practice on the other . In this paper deterministic and voluntarist constructions of technology are considered as rhetorical devices , and as discursive strategies. This allows me to show how distinctions between inherent features and contingent aspects of biometric technologies, as well as demarcations between human and non-human agency are made, that imply particular distributions of responsibility and negotiating space for human choices and values. Examples are presented showing how each construction of biometric technology serves its own purpose in the political process of shaping biometrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the analysis presented by authors such as Manuel Castells and James Slevin, this paper intends to contribute towards the debate on the use of Internet mediated communication (IMC). This paper argues that the relational structure being built through IMC is the network. A network of relations, of weaker or intimate ties occurring in environments more structured virtual communities — or less structured — conversational spaces in a permanent interaction between the online and offline spaces. The paper begins by outlining some contemporary debates about the use of IMC. It then presents data gathered through a national survey conducted in Portugal on Internet users in the ccTLD .pt. Next it argues that IMC seems to implement the creation of meeting places for socialization whose structure is the result of the social life dimensions more cherished by the users in a certain period of their lives — be it professional interests, entertainment or the search for relationships (friendship, conviviality, love) — and of their representations on the use of different kinds of IMC. In that way, forms of human association on the Internet are not jeopardizing those of the spaces not mediated by the Internet, since the communication does not confine itself to the Internet space, but it seems to be rather established beyond it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the place of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the everyday lives of young people with a focus on the emergence of new and transitory cultures of sociality associated with the use of the mobile phone. It explores how differences of class and culture shape the meaning and use of mobile telephones, distinguishing between the phone as a commodity within material culture and as a medium of social capital, most apparent at the moment of leaving school. The potential of the telephone for reworking the boundaries between public and private spheres is considered, including its role as a technology of romance and of parenting. The paper suggests that mobile telephones can be understood as an individualizing technology, placing young people in the centre of social networks, yet also making them available to reciprocal obligations. There are gendered dimensions to this process with young women appearing to make the most of freedoms offered by this technology and young men emphasizing constraints. The paper cautions against investing this technology with particular characteristics suggesting that distinct potentials are realized in relation to particularities of class, age, culture and circumstance. The paper is based on a qualitative longitudinal study of young people's transitions to adulthood conducted in contrasting locations in the UK between 1999 and 2001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new media industries are popularly regarded as cool, creative and egalitarian. This view is held by academics, policy-makers and also by new media workers themselves, who cite the youth, dynamism and informality of new media as some of its main attractions. This paper is concerned with what this mythologized version of new media work leaves out, glosses over and, indeed, makes difficult to articulate at all. Themes include pervasive insecurity, low pay, and long hours but the particular focus of the paper is on gender inequalities in new media work. Despite its image as 'cool', non-hierarchical and egalitarian, the new media sector, this paper will argue, is characterized by a number of entrenched and all too old-fashioned patterns of gender inequality relating to education, access to work and pay. Moreover, a number of new forms of gender inequality are emerging, connected – paradoxically – to many of the features of the work that are valued – informality,autonomy,flexibility and so on. Drawing on a study of 125 freelance new media workers in six European countries, this paper explores these issues and argues that the new forms of sexism in new media represent a serious challenge to its image of itself as cool, diverse and egalitarian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can community informatics initiatives be sustained? This paper argues that, in the fast moving area of ICT and on the constantly shifting ground of community-sector practice, sustainability depends upon adaptability. We develop the concept of 'learning communities' – as developed by a women's ICT project – to meet the need for democratic, inclusive and on-going innovation in women's organizations and the wider community/voluntary sector. Reflecting on the Women Connect project, we conceptualize 'learning communities' as dialogic and 'playful' spaces within which members can draw creatively on their differences while constructing shared knowledge. This approach, it is argued, can lead towards a new way of conceptualizing knowledge, new approaches to learning, and new practice for community-based and women's organizations in relation to the use of ICT. The paper starts by describing the Women Connect project, and then introduces the idea of learning 'in community'. We analyse issues relating to the use of the term 'community' in relevant discourses, arguing for an approach which emphasizes agency in our use of this term – the 'doing' of community within a context of shared projects, obligations and goals. Weaddress some difficulties involved in working across social differences, while arguing that these differences – which may make the practice of community uncomfortable – can also facilitate their emergence in the new form of 'learning communities'. Drawing on Gloria Anzaldúa's concept of 'the Borderlands', Nira Yuval-Davis's concept of 'transversal politics' and Maria Lugone'sconcept of 'world-travelling', we analyse community-sector processes of innovation and change agency, as they have found expression within Women Connect. We conclude by arguing that the current, outcome-driven, model for funding voluntary sector organizations acts to actively inhibit the development of learning communities – and the sustainable innovatory practice they can produce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses three issues: the potential trade-offs of democracy and liberty that the Internet may produce, the connection between real life and cyberspace, and the consequences for the conceptual apparatus of political science. It is argued that the Internet and real worlds are entwined, and thus classic political trade-offs remain pertinent. Important normative issues are addressed. It is established that the Internet is a nearly-neutral medium, so it is important how its development and effects are controlled. It is argued that a privately-controlled Internet would have negative implications for citizenship, political democracy and liberty.However, it is shown that existing Internet politics is significantly democratic, and if the 'net was used within a system similar to existing arrangements, i.e. with checks and balances, then one could optimistically foresee enhanced democracy. In this relatively unexplored but rapidly changing area of political life, this paper serves as a simple warning - public good, private bad - and justifies this in terms of the potential trade-offs of political citizenship versus market consumerism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the work of Raymond Williams, this paper examines avatar culture through the interplay of emergent and residual forces. A dual process is at work in the formation of cultural identities in which the enabling conditions of virtual worlds are understood alongside and in relation to pre-existing off-line phenomenon. Avatar culture confirms structure for participants, especially in relation to gender and sexuality, whilst at the same time providing a reflexive space to break with pre-existing features of social identity. Virtual environments are thus microcosms of a grounded cultural materiality that is simultaneously improvised on and transformed. With regard to the distinctive aspects of avatar culture the paper focuses on issues of narrative, representation, censorship and power relations and their formation within virtual worlds. It discusses how virtual worlds incrementally acquire a peculiar power and meaning in the lives of participants. The paper discusses the flows of social interaction in virtual environments and how intermittence best describes how users participate and withdraw from different encounters. Avatar culture binds people together temporarily and loosely and then frees them up to relocate themselves elsewhere. In this context, virtual environments might be regarded as putting structure and power into movement. The ethnographic approach adopted helps peel back the residue of social structure to reveal a virtual agency with its emerging shells of avatar-derived affiliations, tensions and conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three prominent 'camps' have emerged within Internet democracy rhetoric and practice, each drawing upon different models of democracy: communitarian, liberal individualist and deliberative. Much interest has been shown in the former two camps by researchers and policy makers. This paper turns to an examination of the possible realization of the third camp's vision - that the public sphere of rational-critical discourse will be extended through cyberspace. This paper's method is to compare existing online discourse with a set of requirements of the public sphere developed from the work of Jürgen Habermas. Previous research of cyber-interactions reveals a number of factors limiting the expansion of the public sphere online. Toexplore how these limitations may be overcome, the paper examines an online democracy project that explicitly attempts to foster deliberation. It is shown how this initiative has been able to successfully surmount many of the impediments identified in less structured online deliberations, but that it has, along with similar projects, failed to gain a representative sample of the population and is increasingly marginalized by commercial sites, virtual communities of common interest, and liberal individualist political practices. The paper concludes that the expansion of the public sphere through the Internet requires not only developing deliberative spaces but also attracting participation from citizens who have been socialized within a commercialized and individualized culture hostile towards public deliberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines and critiques some of the libertarian rhetoric surrounding the 'virtual community'. In so doing, it argues that cyberlibertarians have misunderstood what community is by placing too much emphasis on a disembodied individual. Although it remains influential, cyberlibertarian rhetoric is a far cry from the everyday practices that are being constructed and reproduced via the Internet. By drawing attention to such practices, the paper attempts to bring to the fore the sociality of cyberspace interactions and redefine the virtual community in line with Maffesoli's concept of 'neo-tribe'. The Internet is thus thought to open up a new space where human 'will to live' is expressed in a social and embodied fashion (Maffesoli 1996). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the basic features of the life-space created by contemporary information industry,and with the dominant attitudes towards the opportunities and limitations information technology offers and imposes. We consider the problem of information glut, the quality of public discourse, the question of privacy and technological alienation. Concerning the basic attitudes, we discuss the aesthetic, the moral and the religious views, considered in the context of the present life-space pervaded and shaped by information technology. The paper concludes with a discussion of the possible consequences of global homogenization and of the cultural ahistoricity that are being created by the massive use of information technology. Among the positive aspects of this new 'global culture of the present' we point out the possible increase of global human solidarity; among the negative ones, we point out the flattening and shrinking of the space of human experience, which this uniform culture of the present imposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective or social memories are not just a way for accumulating and preserving but also for sharing and developing knowledge. Indeed, as knowledge is made explicit and elaborated by a community, it enriches the local culture and the current practices, becoming a basis for communication and learning. This paper addresses the concept of 'social memory' in a specific 'community of practice': teachers and students of primary schools. The work is developed within HIPS1 (Hyper Interaction within Physical Space), a three-year (1997-2000) research project funded by the European Commission within the I[sup 3] (I-Cube) Programme. HIPS is a hand-held location-aware tourist guide that delivers information related to the surrounding space mainly reacting to the physical movements of visitors (Benelli et al. 1999). The guide is designed to minimize the boundary between the physical space and the related information through a number of situated and contextual-aware interaction mechanisms. In the paper we present a specific application of HIPS as tool to support the creation of a social memory. First, we illustrate the theoretical framework, the cultural psychology (Vygotsky 1978), which we adopted to design the tool as an external aid for social memory. Afterwards we describe the user study and the design process that resulted in the development of an early prototype. The conclusions are a reflection about the use of new technology to open new learning opportunities for students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyberpunk's influence upon our understanding of the information revolution is indicated by the fact that its seminal novel, Neuromancer (Gibson 1984), is accredited with the coining of the now widespread non-fictional concept of cyberspace. Beyond providing this resonant concept, however,some of the genre's more recent work known as biopunk is shown to provide fresh insights into the cultural experience of a society increasingly transformed, not only by the extent of technological change in a new informational age, but also its unprecedented pace. This paper reviews cyberpunk to demonstrate the vivid ways in which it uses its fictional licence to catalogue and articulate imaginatively a profoundly ambivalent aspect of contemporary culture in the age of information. We find ourselves interacting more and more closely and rapidly with information, yet at the same time, we feel increasingly run down by the effort demanded of such close and rapid interaction: hence the title-phrases, informational intimacy and futuristic flu. Numerous examples are provided of cyberpunk'szeitgeist-capturing qualities in the face of a profound and rapid information-induced paradigm shift. A mismatch is shown to exist between the conceptual categories we have at our disposal and the qualitatively new scenarios created by the latest information technologies. This paper argues, however, that assuming one maintains a healthy sense of its various deliberate ironies, cyberpunk's fictional exaggerations are seen as potentially instructive elements for a society striving to avoid a bout of techno-influenza. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many people believe that information technology will bring massive structural changes to the university. This paper draws on concepts from both computer science and social theory to explore what these structural changes might be like. The point of departure is the observation that the interaction between information technology and market economics creates incentives to standardize the world. Standardization can be a force for good or evil, depending on how it is done, and this paper develops normative ideas about the relation between the forces of standardization and the places in which university teaching is done. Information technology allows these places to be more diverse than in the past, and a good rule of thumb is that the places in which learning occurs should be analogous in their structure and workings to the places in which the learned knowledge will be used. Universities can support this increased diversity of learning places with appropriate structural reforms, including decentralized governance and explicit attention to certain aspects of the university organization, such as media services and the career centre, that, historically, have been marginalized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the work experiences and career opportunities of women employed in technology-intensive offices known as telephone 'call centres'. Call centres have grown rapidly across Europe in recent years, creating a significant number of new jobs and receiving considerable attention within the media, business and academic communities. However, despite the fact that the majority of call centre jobs have been taken by women, researchers have so far paid little attention to their position in this new 'industry'. The article addresses this research gap. In particular, it is concerned with the question of whether call centre work is offering women new opportunities for skill development and career progression, or whether a more familiar trend is taking place in which women are being drawn into a highly routinized, 'de-skilled' and de-valued area of work. The paper also uses the specific example of call centre work in order to reflect on broader issues about the changing nature of women's work and employment in the so-called 'information economy'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the concept of Information Society fails as theory because it is internally incoherent and unsupported by evidence. Its current popularity within policy discourse can only be understood ideologically. In particular it is argued that one of the drivers of current policy towards higher education is based upon the supposed growth of knowledge work linked to a theory of human capital formation as crucial to international competitiveness and to an explanation of unemployment in terms of a skills gap. The paper goes on to argue that current labour market indicators and research into the skills gap do not support this policy thrust and that a better explanation of the current push towards the creation of virtual universities is the desire to cut educational labour costs rather than to upgrade the economic status of so-called knowledge workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of the internet has tremendous impacts on homosexual communities in Taiwan. The internet has created a medium where homosexual people can form virtual communities to seek for emotional support without fearing the disclosure of their sexual preferences and causing unwanted negative consequences. The internet has become a medium where homosexual communities can share information with each other and voice their concerns to the public. Thus, the internet may become what Ithiel de Sola Pool (1984) called 'the technology of freedom' for homosexual communities. The purposes of this paper are set to discuss whether academic homosexual individuals perceive the internet to be more fair and impartial in terms of news reporting than traditional mass media and to investigate why they use the internet. This paper employs a questionnaire survey method to collect data for the questions. The quantitative analysis of survey data (N=701), from a self-completed questionnaire using modified snowball sampling of gays and lesbians from Taiwan. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation led to seven factors that account for 66.31% of the variance. These factors are social interaction and information, entertainment and relaxation, personal revelation, preference, privacy and escapism, pass time and, novelty-seeking. Correlation analyses also suggested that respondents' demographics, internet usage frequency and, time are associated with their use motivation. As an exploratory study of an academic homosexual population and their internet use behaviour in Taiwan, this study raised more questions than it intended to answer. The use of individual media by this group needs further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hackers and rapid technological change produce similar responses: they simultaneously produce feelings of fear and fascination. This paper explores how ambivalence to technology in general is mirrored in both fictional and nonfictional accounts of hacking and how such representations reflect our concerns about the best way to control technological ingenuity in a hi‐tech age. William Gibson's Neuromancer and Douglas Coupland's Microserfs are used as the main examples of fictional portrayals of hacking and it is argued that the imaginative licence exhibited by their authors ultimately draws upon contemporary concerns over the role technology plays in modern life. The key underlying theme behind both fictional and nonfictional accounts of hacking is shown to be the issue of technological control. Hackers exhibit technological virtuosity in an age when rapid change and its accompanying confusion place such mastery at a premium. They are portrayed as controllers of technology and yet on other occasions (and sometimes simultaneously) they are depicted as being controlled by the technology they use. Examples are provided of how such virtuosity is often closely associated with an unhealthy level of technological intimacy. This leads to the charge that hackers have become somewhat dehumanised by their expertise. The previous paper by Douglas Thomas illustrates the extent to which the various immaterial concepts associated with hacking are often socially contested and subsequently grounded with reference to physical terms. This paper continues this theme by showing how the allegedly dehumanising aspects of hacking are frequently described with recourse to body‐based images of dependency and physical invasion. The paper concludes that for the most beneficial future technological progress, society will need to steer hackers through a middle‐path between the anarchic and drone‐like extremes described by Gibson's and Coupland's disturbing visions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study, drawing on alternative media and networked social movements, explores the counter-surveillance practices and oppositional imaginaries of activist citizen journalists (ACJs) in Turkey to combat the surveillance strategies of the authoritarian Turkish government. After the failed coup attempt in July 2016, the ruling party has become more suspicious of dissent of any kind. However, the ACJs who use mobile communication and social media as channels for journalism and counter-surveillance continue their critical journalistic work in this context. Using ethnographic data collected from interviews with these media activists, this study focuses on oppositional imaginaries regarding the surveillance culture as well as counter-surveillance tactics, both offensive and defensive. To do so, we conducted 22 in-depth interviews with the representatives of alternative new media (ANM) initiatives and ACJs who were gathering, producing and disseminating news at the time of the study (between January and July 2017). Backed by the available literature on interdisciplinary approaches, data were gathered from the interviews, thematically coded and critically analysed. The whole process of news-making that criticises the authoritarian surveillance state stands out as an offensive tactic. On the other hand, defensive tactics are very closely related to the safety of journalists, their sources and data. The paper argues that the variety of offensive and defensive tactics should be increased and they should be substantially improved. The study also sheds light on the need for more detailed and extensive interdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a proof of concept study is performed to validate the use of social media signal to model the ideological coordinates underpinning the Brexit debate. We rely on geographically enriched Twitter data and a purpose-built, deep learning algorithm to map the political value space of users tweeting the referendum onto Parliamentary Constituencies. We find a significant incidence of nationalist sentiments and economic views expressed on Twitter, which persist throughout the campaign and are only offset in the last days when a globalist upsurge brings the British Twittersphere closer to a divide between nationalist and globalist standpoints. Upon combining demographic variables with the classifier scores, we find that the model explains 41% of the variance in the referendum vote, an indication that not only material inequality, but also ideological readjustments have contributed to the outcome of the referendum. We conclude with a discussion of conceptual and methodological challenges in signal-processing social media data as a source for the measurement of public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the debate about filter bubbles caused by algorithmic news recommendation, the conceptualization of the two core concepts in this debate, diversity and algorithms, has received little attention in social scientific research. This paper examines the effect of multiple recommender systems on different diversity dimensions. To this end, it maps different values that diversity can serve, and a respective set of criteria that characterizes a diverse information offer in this particular conception of diversity. We make use of a data set of simulated article recommendations based on actual content of one of the major Dutch broadsheet newspapers and its users (N=21,973 articles, N=500 users). We find that all of the recommendation logics under study proved to lead to a rather diverse set of recommendations that are on par with human editors and that basing recommendations on user histories can substantially increase topic diversity within a recommendation set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Networked technologies are a key tool for today’s refugees; not only on the move but also upon arrival in their new surroundings. Where mobile Internet access is affordable and infrastructures are stable, as in Europe’s metropoles, refugees can use smartphones to cope with everyday challenges. The paper presents findings from a qualitative interview study with Syrian refugees who recently settled in Vienna, Austria. The study implemented a three-fold methodology, combining face-to-face interviews, WhatsApp chats, and participant research. Results are presented from a localized appropriation notion (the act of making use of local specific media environment when drawing a media technology into one’s life) identifying practices in the contexts of: place-making and geographical orientation; information access and self-help; language learning and translation; and ‘doing family’. Hence, refugees are both emotionally attached to and technically dependent on their devices. The article concludes that smartphones hold an untapped potential for integration processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 2016, racist, misogynistic harassers attacked comedienne Leslie Jones on Twitter and on her personal website, which they hacked and flooded with sexist and racist imagery stolen largely from her personal accounts. Through a multiplatform discourse analysis of the Leslie Jones attack, this paper examines the connections between platform vulnerabilities and the vulnerabilities of women of color, as well as the links between the rise of the alt-right and an increase in explicitly racist, misogynistic behaviors. Three key themes emerged from the analysis: messages of support and affirmation; the need for intervention; and the connection between this incident, systemic racism and sexism, and the rise of the alt-right. These themes serve as a bridge between the vulnerabilities of platforms and of women of color in those digital spaces and beyond. The supportive awareness campaigns and calls to action that issue publics launched online attempted to discursively ‘patch’ two perceived vulnerabilities - of Twitter as a platform and of Jones herself. However, in response to these ‘patches,’ members of the alt-right condemned Twitter and mainstream media for marginalizing their conservative voices, using this discourse to bolster their performance of victimization and oppression. Overall, this case study provides insight into the dynamics at work in the rise of the alt-right and online harassment, with particular attention to the significance of digital media, celebrity, and popular feminism in the ongoing political shifts in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship on mobile internet use in the Global South highlights access disparities, along with shifting social practices that accompany greater web connectivity. Cuba is part of the Global South, and ranks among the least internet connected countries in the world. Venegas’[2010. Digital dilemmas: The state, the individual, and digital media in Cuba. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press] thorough account of technology use in Cuba positions Cuban digital media as an assemblage of political, economic, historical, and global factors. Recently, however, mobile digital technologies in Cuba have undergone rapid transformation. Continuing tensions between the US and Cuba remain part of how the country's infrastructure and internet practices develop in location-specific ways. In this paper, we utilize ethnographically-informed data to provide a case study of the mobile internet adaptations in Havana, Cuba. Specifically, we draw upon Sutko and de Souza e Silva [2010. Location-aware mobile media and urban sociability. New Media & Society, 13(5), 807-823] framework for location-aware mobile media and urban sociability to examine the unique communication and coordination practices of Havana internet culture. Additionally, Massey [2005. For space. London: Sage] and Wiley and Packer [2010. Rethinking communication after the mobilities turn. The Communication Review, 13(4), 263-268] notions of space allow investigation of Cuban cultural technologies within a larger social field. These theoretical lenses enable interrogation of mobile device adaptations on mobility, sociability, and space to position Cuban media use as an assemblage of local and global forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on gay men's digital cultures has focused predominantly on Western, English-language-based sites and populations. In the case of Australia, a country with an official multiculturalism framework in place and against a backdrop of significant levels of Asian immigration over the past several decades, a more pluralistic approach is needed to critically interrogate the dialectic between platforms, users and wider sociocultural complexities. To this end, the current paper presents research in progress on the social chat application LINE and its use amongst the Chinese diaspora of gay men in Australia. Drawing on data from participant observation carried out over several months during late 2015 and early 2016 in an Australian-based LINE group for local Chinese gay men, we highlight here how LINE functions as an important intermediary for many Chinese men engaging with gay men's digital cultures in this context. In particular, we show how LINE plays a crucial role in Chinese gay men's engagements with gay men's digital culture in Australia by (1) mediating this group's navigations of new social and cultural environments and (2) remediating their experiences within other platforms central to the broader GLBT community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite both scholarly and popular claims that citizen journalism (CJ) represents a growing democratizing force in the journalistic field, recent scholarship in the area has noted the decline of the organizational population of CJ. In this paper, we investigate how individual characteristics of sites and the dynamics of larger organizational population affect a CJ site’s risk of experiencing a mortality. Drawing on the largest sample to date of US-based English-language CJ sites, this study examines the risk of site mortality through an event history framework. Findings indicate that the strongest predictor of a site’s mortality is the age of the site, consistent with organizational population theory’s ‘liability of newness.’ We also find that for-profit and community-based sites have lower rates of site mortality, indicating that adopting legitimate conventions of journalism may serve as a protective buffer to site death. The results offer mixed evidence on whether CJ has become more professionalized via attrition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The affordances of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) have altered the ways that communities emerge, interact, and organize, creating possibilities for new forms of interaction. Using a case study of the mountain biking community, this paper examines the impact of ICTs on community bonds and boundaries. Based on 60 intensive interviews in North America, survey results from 2363 mountain bikers around the world, and email exchanges with an addition 98 of the survey respondents, the findings suggest several ways that online and in-person communication intersect to blur the distinction between strong and weak ties, make the boundaries of the community more porous, and accelerate the development of trust between members. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores human rights storytelling within two of the dominant internet companies, Google and Facebook. Based on interview with company staff as well as analysis of publicly available statements, the article examines how human rights are framed, made sense of and translated into company norms, products, and governance structures. The paper argues that the companies’ framing in many respects resembles that of the United States’ online freedom agenda, celebrating the liberating power of the internet and perceiving human rights as primarily safeguards against repressive governments. The companies see freedom of expression as part of their DNA and do not perceive any contradiction between this standard and business practices that may impact negatively on users’ freedom of expression, such as terms of service enforcement. Likewise, there is no sense of conflict between the online business model and their users’ right to privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactive media and virtual environments give rise to transmedia and multiscreen viewing in a new popular and participatory culture. This in turn requires a new type of critical, reflective media education. This article reviews expert opinions on the educational potential ofThe Hunger Games(THG) and the use of Twitter during the viewing of films by young audiences. The study has the twofold goal of analysing whether the tweets include the topics of ideology and values mentioned in the selected articles and whether the conversations help build knowledge of the subjects that, according to the experts, are discussed in the literary trilogy. The method, based on discourse analysis, is twofold as well, comprising, on one hand, the discussion of 61 selected academic papers onTHGand, on the other, 6000 tweets posted by youngsters while watching the films in the trilogy shown on TV. The tweets were analysed using the ‘coding and counting’ technique in computer-mediated discourse analysis. The results show a great chasm between academic or educational perspectives and what youngsters see in the films. Twitter interactions show that the virtual environments where these interactions take place are mere virtual concourses rather than affinity or learning spaces. This draws attention to the need for a new type of media education which not only includes the popular culture in formal education environments, but also uses the virtual concourses where youngsters gather around media products to transform mere coexistence into convergence of interests based on the meaning of these products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new and increasingly popular tool of crowd-funding is widely used by non-profit organizations in China to raise money online for their charitable projects. In order to use this tool effectively, it is essential to understand donors’ motivations for supporting charitable projects. This study investigates the impact of performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions (FC), sense of trust, and experience expectation on donors’ intention to donate to charitable crowd-funding projects, using a research model based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model. Empirical data were collected through a survey, and structural equation modeling was used to analyze 316 responses from users of the Tencent charitable crowd-funding platform in China. The results indicate that SI, sense of trust, EE, and PE significantly affect donors’ intention to donate to charitable crowd-funding projects. The impact of FC and experience expectation on donors’ intention is also positive; however, it is not very strong. Finally, this paper presents suggestions for how to increase users’ intention to donate money on charitable crowd-funding platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on empirical research with NEET populations (16–24-year-olds not in education, employment or training) in the U.K. in order to engage with issues around identification, data and metrics produced through datalogical systems. Our aim is to bridge contemporary discourses around data, digital bureaucracy and datalogical systems with empirical material drawn from a long-term ethnographic project with NEET groups in Leeds, U.K. in order to highlight the way datalogical systems ideologically and politically shape people’s lives. We argue that NEET is a long-standing data category that does work and has resonance within wider datalogical systems. Secondly, that these systems are decision-making and far from benign. They have real impact on people’s lives – not just in a straightforwardly, but in obscure, complex and uneven ways which makes the potential for disruption or intervention increasingly problematic. Finally, these datalogical systems also implicate and are generated by us, even as we seek to critique them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To this date, research on crisis informatics has focused on the detection of trust in Twitter data through the use of message structure, sentiment, propagation and author. Little research has examined the usefulness of these messages in the crisis response domain. In this paper, we characterize tweets, which are perceived useful or trustworthy, and determine their main features as one possible dimension to identify useful messages in case of crisis. In addition, we examine perceived emotions of these messages and how the different emotions affect the perceived usefulness and trustworthiness. Our analysis is carried out on two datasets gathered from Twitter concerning Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the Boston Bombings in 2013. The results indicate that there is a high correlation between trustworthiness and usefulness, and, interestingly, that there is a significant difference in the perceived emotions that contribute to each of these. Our findings are poised to impact how messages from social media data are analyzed for use in crisis response. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines two ‘ends’ of identity online – birth and death – through the analytical lens of specific hashtags on the Instagram platform. These ends are examined in tandem in an attempt to surface commonalities in the way that individuals use visual social media when sharing information about other people. A range of emerging norms in digital discourses about birth and death are uncovered, and it is significant that in both cases the individuals being talked about cannot reply for themselves. Issues of agency in representation therefore frame the analysis. After sorting through a number of entry points, images and videos with the #ultrasound and #funeral hashtags were tracked for three months in 2014. Ultrasound images and videos on Instagram revealed a range of communication and representation strategies, most highlighting social experiences and emotional peaks. There are, however, also significant privacy issues as a significant proportion of public accounts share personally identifiable metadata about the mother and unborn child, although these issue are not apparent in relation to funeral images. Unlike other social media platforms, grief on Instagram is found to be more about personal expressions of loss rather than affording spaces of collective commemoration. A range of related practices and themes, such as commerce and humour, were also documented as a part of the spectrum of activity on the Instagram platform. Norms specific to each collection emerged from this analysis, which are then compared to document research about other social media platforms, especially Facebook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores key Internet search trends for electoral information vis-à-vis the broader media ecology in the UK and the US. An innovative methodology is introduced that maps the informational trajectories of key election events by combining Google Trends data linked to significant news events during the campaigns. While the research found spikes of search that suggested a seemingly trivial event in the US could drive voters to search out deeper information on related policy issues, the study did not find the same phenomenon in the UK. This invites a reflection on the opportunities available to Internet users/voters in the changing informational landscape and how scholars can leverage Google Trends records to better understand how voters seek information in new and evolving media ecologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a way to provide services or data to third-party developers, Open Application Programming Interfaces (Open APIs) have gained popularity among the programming community in recent years. Many corporations such as Google, Facebook and Twitter are developing Open APIs for their existing services, and most of them are free of charge. As these free APIs facilitate collaboration between different software platforms, many programmers treat them as alternatives to open source. Yet, some programmers have found this collaboration risky to their independence, and they have started to think about the true meaning of the openness of API. More importantly, the definition of Open APIs is rendered ambiguous through the discursive practices that define ‘openness’ in contemporary digital culture. Drawing on the political economy of programming and software, this study begins with the historical discussion of openness and its relationship with the power of code in programming. It points out the openness in programming is not only about the accessibility of the source code, but also the liberty to use source code without restriction. This paper then identifies the technical features of Open APIs and examines the subtle power that restricts their openness. It concludes by suggesting ways to critically understand the openness of software and their politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public protest events are now both social media and news media events. They are deeply entangled, with news media actors – such as journalists or news organisations – directly participating in the protest by tweeting about the event using the protest hashtag; and social media actors sharing news items published online by professional news agencies. Protesters have always deployed tactics to engage the media and use news media agencies’ resources to amplify their reach, with the dual aim of mobilising new supporters and adding their voice to public, mediatised debate. When protest moves between a physical space and a virtual space, the interactions between protesters and media stop being asynchronous orpost hocand turn instantaneous. In this new media-protest ecosystem, traditional media are still relevant sources of information and legitimacy, yet this dynamic is increasingly underpinned by a hybrid interdependency between traditional news and social media sources. In this paper we focus on an anti-austerity government movement that arose in Australia in early 2014 and was mobilised as a series of social media driven, connective action protest events. We show that there is a complex symbiotic interdependency between the movement and the traditional media for recognition and amplification of initial protest events, but that over time as media interest wanes, the movements’ network becomes disconnected and momentum is lost. This suggests that the active role traditional media play in protest events is being underestimated in the current research agenda on connective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile dating applications such as Tinder have exploded in popularity in recent years. On Tinder, impression management begins with a motivation to download the app, the choice of one’s profile photos and an assessment of the expectations of potential Tinder matches. These processes occur in a technologically mediated environment of reduced cues and increased control, local proximity and a reduced filtering process. My focus in this paper is this first stage of impression management, which consists of both impression motivation and impression construction. Specifically, what are the pre-match impression management practices of Tinder users? I present the results of interviews with Tinder users in the Netherlands. Participants were recruited via a Tinder profile that advertised the study using the University emblem and a brief description. Interview questions focused on user understandings of self-presentation practices and profile construction. The interviews also examined how users evaluated their potential matches. Results show users’ motivations for using Tinder range from entertainment to ego-boost to relationship seeking, and these motivations sometimes change over time. Profile photos are selected in an attempt to present an ideal yet authentic self, and chosen as an illustration of not only one’s desirability but also of other indicators such as education level. Tinder users ‘swipe’ not only in search of people they like, but also for clues as to how to present themselves in order to attract others like them. This research offers insight into user experiences and perceptions within the still under-researched area of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the potential affordances of applying a feminist ethics of care approach to community informatics practices in public internet access facilities. As feminist technology scholars have long observed, technology and technoculture are strongly encoded as masculine, privileging traits such as scientific knowledge, rationality, objectivity, and distance. These characteristics are expressed in traditional infomediary practices in a variety of ways, including notions of expertise, ways of conceptualizing technology, emphasis on skills attainment, and deficit-based models of user behavior. In contrast, ethics of care emphasizes the importance of relational and situated knowledge, pluralistic voices and experiences, and relationships bound by mutual interdependence. Traditionally, caring has been feminized and thus necessarily excluded from technoculture and relegated to invisible and unpaid labor. Caring and associated affective labor practices remain an under-examined subject in infomediary practices. Public libraries and community technology centers are logical places to explore for care work, given that they share many characteristics of the spaces where care work has historically been performed. We argue that an ethics of care framework has several possible affordances for infomediary practices in these institutions, including highlighting the gendered power dynamics that define and shape existing practices; distributing care work and making existing care work visible; and envisioning a more holistic and ethical approach to engaging diverse publics. We translate Tronto’s seven warning signs for ‘bad care’ in institutions into seven positive guidelines for providing ‘good care’ in public internet access facilities, then contextualize these for community informatics institutions and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It has long been recognised that deaf people experience barriers to political participation and that notions of citizenship do not take into account the needs of deaf sign language users. In light of an effort at the European level to increase the potential for deaf sign language users to participate in political processes through technology, this paper provides results from a survey study of deaf sign language users across Europe as to their preferences in using Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS), whether they would like to see the establishment of a pan-European multilingual TRS and if they would make use of such a service for the purposes of political participation. Responses from 74 deaf people across 14 European member states confirm that deaf people want to see such a service, and would be willing to use it in order to make contact with European institutions. Therefore, the establishment of such a service has the potential to contribute to improved access to, and increased willingness to engage in, democracy through telecommunications and thus enhance the citizenship status of deaf Europeans, and therefore enhance their political participation and access to information and communication in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ICT adoption is predominantly considered as a process conditioned by social structures, social situations of adopters, and attributes and features of technologies. What is often overlooked are the cultural forces that shape adoption experiences and processes. This paper focuses on events and event narratives as vehicles through which the efficacy of culture unfolds in technological change processes. Cultural sociology has shown how influential events can be for forming public opinions and facilitating collective action. This article considers the power of one event on a much smaller scale: the passage of same-sex marriage (SSM) law in New York in June 2011 was not only significant for marriage equality in the US but also for the operating logic of the news ecosystem in which the political decision was made ‒ the state house in Albany. For the journalists who covered this event on the ground, the SSM decision was the catalyst to fully embrace Twitter. Years later, the event still served as an exemplar for the potentials of Twitter and as a basis of legitimacy of associated tweeting practices reporters incorporated. This contribution is based on ethnographic research at the state house in Albany, analysis of tweets and legacy news coverage published during that period, and in-depth interviews with reporters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]