Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

From the Publisher: 
A Question of Identity 
Life on the Screen is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, "bots," virtual reality, and "the on-line way of life." 
Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's "Society of Mind") and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. 
This is a psychoanalytical book, not a technical one. However, software developers and engineers will find it highly accessible because of the depth of the author's technical understanding and credibility. Unlike most other authors in this genre, Turkle does not constantly jar the technically-literate reader with blatant errors or bogus assertions about how things work. Although I personally don't have time or patience for MUDs,view most of AI as snake-oil, and abhor postmodern architecture, I thought the time spent reading this book was an extremely good investment.

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

A fruitful direction for future data mining research will be the development of techniques that incorporate privacy concerns. Specifically, we address the following question. Since the primary task in data mining is the development of models about aggregated data, can we develop accurate models without access to precise information in individual data records? We consider the concrete case of building a decision-tree classifier from training data in which the values of individual records have been perturbed. The resulting data records look very different from the original records and the distribution of data values is also very different from the original distribution. While it is not possible to accurately estimate original values in individual data records, we propose a novel reconstruction procedure to accurately estimate the distribution of original data values. By using these reconstructed distributions, we are able to build classifiers whose accuracy is comparable to the accuracy of classifiers built with the original data.

Privacy-preserving data mining

Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Pp. viii, 282. £3·50, paperback £1. 1970. (Cambridge University Press.)

To date, many important threads of information privacy research have developed, but these threads have not been woven together into a cohesive fabric. This paper provides an interdisciplinary review of privacy-related research in order to enable a more cohesive treatment. With a sample of 320 privacy articles and 128 books and book sections, we classify previous literature in two ways: (1) using an ethics-based nomenclature of normative, purely descriptive, and empirically descriptive, and (2) based on their level of analysis: individual, group, organizational, and societal.

Based upon our analyses via these two classification approaches, we identify three major areas in which previous research contributions reside: the conceptualization of information privacy, the relationship between information privacy and other constructs, and the contextual nature of these relationships.

As we consider these major areas, we draw three overarching conclusions. First, there are many theoretical developments in the body of normative and purely descriptive studies that have not been addressed in empirical research on privacy. Rigorous studies that either trace processes associated with, or test implied assertions from, these value-laden arguments could add great value. Second, some of the levels of analysis have received less attention in certain contexts than have others in the research to date. Future empirical studies-both positivist and interpretive--could profitably be targeted to these under-researched levels of analysis. Third, positivist empirical studies will add the greatest value if they focus on antecedents to privacy concerns and on actual outcomes. In that light, we recommend that researchers be alert to an overarching macro model that we term APCO (Antecedents → Privacy Concerns → Outcomes).

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Information privacy research: an interdisciplinary review

The internet has become embedded into our daily lives, no longer an esoteric phenomenon, but instead an unremarkable way of carrying out our interactions with one another. Online and offline are interwoven in everyday experience. Using the internet has become accepted as a way of being present in the world, rather than a means of accessing some discrete virtual domain. Ethnographers of these contemporary Internet-infused societies consequently find themselves facing serious methodological dilemmas: where should they go, what should they do there and how can they acquire robust knowledge about what people do in, through and with the internet?This book presents an overview of the challenges faced by ethnographers who wish to understand activities that involve the internet. Suitable for both new and experienced ethnographers, it explores both methodological principles and practical strategies for coming to terms with the definition of field sites, the connections between online and offline and the changing nature of embodied experience. Examples are drawn from a wide range of settings, including ethnographies of scientific institutions, television, social media and locally based gift-giving networks. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/ethnography-for-the-internet-9780857855701/#sthash.6wmdZKzF.dpuf

Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday

1. Virtual methods and the sociology of cyber-social-scientific knowledge Christine Hine, University of Surrey Part 1 Research Relationships and Online Relationships Introduction Christine Hine, University of Surrey 2. Internet behaviour and the design of virtual methods Adam Joinson, The Open University, UK 3. Online interviewing and the research relationship Jolle Kivits, London School of Economics and Political Science 4. From online to offline and back: moving from online to offline relationships with research informants Shani Orgad, London School of Economics and Political Svience 5. Researching the online sex work community Teela Sanders, University of Leeds 6. Ethnographic presence in a nebulous setting Jason Rutter, University of Manchester Gregory W. H. Smith, University of Salford 7. Centring the links: understanding cybernetic patterns of co-production, circulation and consumption Maximilian C. Forte, University College of Cape Breton Part II Research Sites and Strategies Introduction Christine Hine, University of Surrey 8. The role of maps in virtual research methods Martin Dodge, University College London 9. New connections, familiar settings: issues in the ethnographic study of new media use at home Hugh Mackay, The Open University, UK 10. Doing anthropology in cyberspace: fieldwork boundaries and social environments Mario J.L. Guimares Jr., Brunel University 11. Web sphere analysis: an approach to studying online action Steven M. Schneider, SUNY Institute of Technology Kirsten A. Foot, University of Washington, USA 12. The network approach to Web hyperlink research and its utility for science communication Han Woo Park, YeungNam University, S. Korea Mike Thelwall, University of Wolverhampton 13. Sociable hyperlinks: an ethnographic approach to connectivity Anne Beaulieu, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, Amsterdam 14. Epilogue: methodological concerns and innovations in Internet research Nicholas Jankowski, University of Nijmegen Martine van Selm, University of Nijmegen

Virtual methods : issues in social research on the Internet

Virtual Ethnography: Modes, Varieties, Affordances

The paper draws its inspiration from the provocation which Merton offered sociology both to engage with empirical data and to perform analyses adequate to guide intervention beyond the particular case. Whilst contemporary STS is very different both in its models of theory and its forms of methodology, this paper suggests Merton's concerns with engagement and adequacy provide a useful way to interrogate current approaches. Specifically, the paper explores some recent anthropological conceptions of ethnographic fieldwork that have provided potent models for the study of scientific and technological cultures. These multi-sited approaches have also provided the opportunity to develop new notions of intervention and explore alternative ways of making contributions to development of theory and practice. In the process of pursuing the goals of engagement and adequacy notions of ethnography have however become stretched. This sense of detachment from methodological canons accentuates the need for methodological d...

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Christine Hine

Papers

Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday

Virtual methods : issues in social research on the Internet

Virtual Ethnography: Modes, Varieties, Affordances

Multi-sited Ethnography as a Middle Range Methodology for Contemporary STS:

The Virtual Objects of Ethnography