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

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

I. the origin of species by means of natural selection

The theory of affordances

“WHAT can men do, what do they do, and what do they want to do ?”—these are the uestions that Prof. Thorndike seeks to answer in a very comprehensive and elaborate treatise. His undertaking is inspired by the belief that man has the possibility of almost complete control of his fate if only he will be guided by science, and that his failures are attributable to ignorance or folly. The main approach is through biological psychology, but all the social sciences are appealed to and utilized in an effort to deal with the human problem as a whole. The relative immaturity of the sciences dealing with man is continually stressed, but it is claimed that they provide a body of facts and principles which are “far above zero knowledge”, and that even now they are capable of affording valuable guidance in the shaping of public policy. Human Nature and the Social Order By E. L. Thorndike. Pp. xx + 1020. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940.) 18s. net.

Human Nature and the Social Order

We present NodeXL, an extendible toolkit for network overview, discovery and exploration implemented as an add-in to the Microsoft Excel 2007 spreadsheet software We demonstrate NodeXL data analysis and visualization features with a social media data sample drawn from an enterprise intranet social network A sequence of NodeXL operations from data import to computation of network statistics and refinement of network visualization through sorting, filtering, and clustering functions is described These operations reveal sociologically relevant differences in the patterns of interconnection among employee participants in the social media space The tool and method can be broadly applied

/pdf/analyzing-social-media-networks-with-nodexl-4549qs5rvk.pdf

Analyzing (social media) networks with NodeXL

Social roles in online discussion forums can be described by patterned characteristics of communication between network members which we conceive of as 'structural signatures.' This paper uses visualization methods to reveal these structural signatures and regression analysis to confirm the relationship between these signatures and their associated roles in Usenet newsgroups. Our analysis focuses on distinguishing the signatures of one role from others, the role of "answer people." Answer people are individuals whose dominant behavior is to respond to questions posed by other users. We found that answer people predominantly contribute one or a few messages to discussions initiated by others, are disproportionately tied to relative isolates, have few intense ties and have few triangles in their local networks. OLS regression shows that these signatures are strongly correlated with role behavior and, in combination, provide a strongly predictive model for identifying role behavior (R =.72). To conclude, we consider strategies for further improving the identification of role behavior in online discussion settings and consider how the development of a taxonomy of author types could be extended to a taxonomy of newsgroups in particular and discussion systems in general. 2

/pdf/visualizing-the-signatures-of-social-roles-in-online-5a71lm3en7.pdf

Visualizing the Signatures of Social Roles in Online Discussion Groups

Ten years ago, Whittaker and Sidner [8] published research on email overload, coining a term that would drive a research area that continues today. We examine a sample of 600 mailboxes collected at a high-tech company to compare how users organize their email now to 1996. While inboxes are roughly the same size as in 1996, our population's email archives have grown tenfold. We see little evidence of distinct strategies for handling email; most of our users fall into a middle ground. There remains a need for future innovations to help people manage growing archives of email and large inboxes.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/p309-fisher.pdf

Revisiting Whittaker & Sidner's "email overload" ten years later

Both online and off, people frequently perform particular social roles. These roles organize behavior and give structure to positions in local networks. As more of social life becomes embedded in online systems, the concept of social role becomes increasingly valuable as a tool for simplifying patterns of action, recognizing distinct user types, and cultivating and managing communities. This paper standardizes the usage of the term social role in online community as a combination of social psychological, social structural, and behavioral attributes. Beyond the conceptual definition, we describe measurement and analysis strategies for identifying social roles in online community. We demonstrate this process in two domains, Usenet and Wikipedia, identifying key social roles in each domain. We conclude with directions for future research, with a particular focus on the analysis of communities as role ecologies.

/pdf/a-conceptual-and-operational-definition-of-social-role-in-55lni9xoty.pdf

A Conceptual and Operational Definition of 'Social Role' in Online Community

This study addresses 3 research questions in the context of online political discussions: What is the distribution of successful topic starting practices, what characterizes the content of large thread-starting messages, and what is the source of that content? A 6-month analysis of almost 40,000 authors in 20 political Usenet newsgroups identified authors who received a disproportionate number of replies We labeled these authors ‘‘discussion catalysts’’ Content analysis revealed that 95 percent of discussion catalysts’ messages contained content imported from elsewhere on the web, about 2/3 from traditional news organizations We conclude that the flow of information from the content creators to the readers and writers continues to be mediated by a few individuals who act as filters and amplifiers

/pdf/discussion-catalysts-in-online-political-discussions-content-3d2hrc6uz6.pdf

Eric Gleave

Papers

Analyzing (social media) networks with NodeXL

Visualizing the Signatures of Social Roles in Online Discussion Groups

Revisiting Whittaker & Sidner's "email overload" ten years later

A Conceptual and Operational Definition of 'Social Role' in Online Community

Discussion catalysts in online political discussions: Content importers and conversation starters