[Air-L] LiveJournal, online communities, and rebellions

[Semenov Alexander]

Hello, Christine.
Let me clarify my arguement. The point is that both scandals (I prefer to
call it "issues") emerged and developed MOSTLY THROUGH LiveJournal. But the
strange thing is that most popular sociological community - "sociolog" took
almost no part in it. That's why I'm trying to test my hypothesis.
If you have any other questions about russian LiveJournal - you are free to
ask them offist.
Best regards.
Alexander.

2010/10/8 Christine Moellenberndt <chris at inreach.com>

> Howdy list folks,
>
> Lurking MA student here, but a few things have crossed my radar that i feel
> the need to poke at a bit:
>
> 1) re: Alexander and the search for articles: This research piqued my
> interest, since LJ is my fieldsite for my MA thesis.  Alexander, i'm not
> sure you're on the right track here, but granted i'm not fully following
> your hypothesis, and i don't read Russian :) But you're basing off two "huge
> scandals" in Russian sociology weren't discussed in the sociolog community.
>  i'm not sure that's enough to base on.  Communities wax and wane in
> popularity and use, (i see that this community is about seven years old) and
> it could be that as these scandals happen, people don't immediately think to
> turn to LJ for discussion anymore.  i think people join the communities in
> the hopes of having discussions or at least learning something new, but so
> many communities start to lose popularity and traffic that nothing happens
> and we just never un-join them.  i have several communities i'm a member of
> and never post to, mainly because there's just no traffic so i doubt i'd get
> any responses, and have been too lazy to unjoin.  There's also the "lurk
> factor" in these communities which is similar to us lurkers on mailing
> lists.
>
> Now Facebook groups OTOH... THOSE i totally agree with where you're going
> :)
>
> Just my 2cents as a longtime LJ user and shorttime LJ budding-scholar :)
> i'd be interested in your research however as the Russian side of LJ is
> becoming very fascinating for me (especially in wake of the FaceBook/Twitter
> integration scandal/rebellion/unpleasantness of just a few weeks ago)
>
> 2) re: Grassroots online rebellions. Oh my.  There have been so MANY,
> though i'm not sure they've all be documented :) They aren't just happening
> in "virtual worlds" though; in my archival LJ research i'm deep in the thick
> of currently, i have been documenting several rebellions of users on LJ when
> LJ's parent company made changes the users weren't too satisfied with.  i'd
> be happy to go into detail with the OP offlist if warranted, though as i
> said none of this is published but observed.
>
> Anyways, just my 2 cents in whatever currency you choose... now i go back
> under my lurkrock :)
>
> -Christine
> MA student (soon-to-be candidate as soon as the paperwork clears)
> San Jose State University
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-- 
Alexander Semenov.
MA student
Faculty of Sociology
Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES)
http://www.msses.ru/English/index.html

Graduate Student in Sociology at
State University - Higher School of Economics
http://www.hse.ru/eng