[Air-L] in dis-praise of the Chronicle

[Barry Wellman]

Altho I wonder if IM has mostly given way to texting. Haven't checked the
data, though.

 Barry Wellman
 _______________________________________________________________________

  S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC               NetLab Director
  Department of Sociology                  725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
  University of Toronto   Toronto Canada M5S 2J4   twitter:barrywellman
  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman             fax:+1-416-978-3963
  Updating history:      http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
 _______________________________________________________________________


On Tue, 30 Jun 2009, Robert Mason wrote:

> Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:08:36 -0700
> From: Robert Mason <rmmason at u.washington.edu>
> To: Barry Wellman <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca>, aoir list <air-l at aoir.org>
> Subject: RE: [Air-L] in dis-praise of the Chronicle
>
> Barry, your next-to-last paragraph is on target, IMO:  think of all the predictions of "death of...because of the introduction of..." [AM radio...FM radio; radio...TV; movies...TV;...the list goes on]
>
> It's not true of all technologies, of course, but it's true for communications technologies/media.
>
> Bob
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Barry Wellman
> Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 4:08 PM
> To: aoir list; Denise N. Rall; Catherine Middleton; Peter Timusk
> Subject: [Air-L] in dis-praise of the Chronicle
>
> I was appalled by the Chronicle's article -- especially the headline -- on
> the putative death of e-lists such as this one.
>
> First, they gave no systematic evidence, just some anecdotes. Although the
> article was more nuanced than the headline: "on the one hand, on the other
> hand." Yet, still anecdotes.
>
> Second, they ignored the organizational ecology research that has shown
> that some organizations die and some get born all the time.
>
> Third, the posts by my fellow Canucks Catherine Middleton and Peter Timusk
> clearly showed the difference between 140 character Tweets (which I do a
> fair amount) and posts to this list (ibid). Both of their posts were too
> nuanced to be short tweets.
>
> Fourth, as Marc Smith can show you, even the older Bulletin Boards are
> still thriving.
>
> Indeed, my hunch is that each communication form adds on to the other,
> rather than displacing it, which is why I never get much writing done
> (today's excusive, anyway).
>
> Happy Canada Day to All (except Janet Napolitano),
>
>  Barry Wellman
>  _______________________________________________________________________
>
>   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC               NetLab Director
>   Department of Sociology                  725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
>   University of Toronto   Toronto Canada M5S 2J4   twitter:barrywellman
>   http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman             fax:+1-416-978-3963
>   Updating history:      http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
>  _______________________________________________________________________
>
>
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