[Air-L] snide, cute, ignorant, surprising

[Peter Timusk]

I just read the article and note that youth use the internet for  
different things. Sure kids in school can and will gladly play a  
simple game like most friends. A mature student like myself may get  
out R and make some histograms of fiends of friends sizes. How can  
you engage students using facebook? Ok I have my lesson planned for  
the next time I teach statistics and R.

I also note and this is true of a weekend piece ( in the Ottawa  
Citizen) by a journalist writing about her retirement. She of course  
slams Internet writing. She is a professional journalist she reasons  
the Internet is hacks. Now Professor Wellman you focus on social  
networks but I for one would say still focus on computer crime or  
labour issues in computing and the fact that newspapers do not like  
the Internet has to be exposed. While you see what you see in this  
article I see the common Internet is bad message in the newspapers. I  
note newsprint companies are down on the stock market at least one  
big Quebec company is way down for a few years now. Paper is on the  
way out apparently. Unless a newspaper is selling me the latest  
gadget they are negative on the Internet because they feel they  
compete (IMHO). This is also why some newspapers are so off with  
their web sites and have not got it right. I have not seen a lot of  
articles in my daily paper about open source for instance.

just some thoughts sorry for the poor email etiquette but I will now  
read other replies.

Peter Timusk


On 16-Dec-07, at 4:47 PM, Barry Wellman wrote:

> The tone of Monica Hesse's Washington Post story is somewhat snide.
>
> Although I did enjoy some of her word-play: "celebrademic" danah
> "uncapping" herself (altho note that the Post copyeditor re-capped  
> her at
> the start of a para.) Frankly, "danah" uncapped has made proofreading
> PITAs for me for years.
>
> What is ignorant is Ms Hesse being surprised that small circles  
> cite each
> other. This is true in many fields. There is a whole area of  
> bibliometrics
> devoted to this. Check out the work of Howard White or Loet  
> Leyesdorff,
> for example. Or, as usual, I have co-authored a paper on the  
> subject --
> its on my website.
> "Does Citation Reflect Social Structure? Longitudinal Evidence from  
> the
> 'Globenet' Interdisciplinary Reserach Group" JASIST, 1/04.
>
> What is surprising is that I was interviewed and quoted by Ms Hesse  
> and
> it was a much straighter piece of reporting:
>
> "An Unmanageable Circle of Friends: Social-Network Sites Inundate  
> Us with
> Connections, and that can be Alienating." Washington Post, August 26,
> 2007, p. M10.
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/24/ 
> AR2007082400481.html
>
>  Barry Wellman
>   
> ______________________________________________________________________ 
> _
>
>   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC              NetLab Director
>   Centre for Urban & Community Studies           University of Toronto
>   455 Spadina Avenue          Room 418          Toronto Canada M5S 2G8
>   http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman            fax:+1-416-978-7162
>   Updating history:     http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
>          Elvis wouldn't be singing "Return to Sender" these days
>   
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Peter Timusk B.Math(2002) BA (2006)
Tel: 001-613-729-8328
Community Informatics Practitioner
Email: ptimusk at sympatico.ca
Yahoo ID: crystal_computing
Skype ID: peter.timusk

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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our clients. Nor do I alone speak for my unions.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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Computer ethics studies at www.webpagex.org
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