Sunday, April 30, 2006 

One week left. I should be in Arkansas in one week and on a plane heading for Europe in two. Let's hope that all goes as planned. I've got to finish writing a paper over the next few days but once I'm done with that I'll be virtually home free.

Friday, April 28, 2006 

So I ran across this article while checking out some sites for a paper I'm working on. Online social networking has begun to take on elements of the online memorials that allow family and friends to collectively vent their grief. This is nothing new. My college roommate lost his little brother in a tragic accident and subsequently created an online memorial to his brother.

What I find interesting is how adaptable social networking sites are turning out to be. No one really expected them to be used in the ways that they're starting to be used. Overall I think this is great. I can't really think of a healthier and more productive way to use technologies like this than to bring people together in a time of grief and allow them to provide one another with emotional support. One site that I initially thought would turn my stomach (it's all pretty morbid) is Mydeathspace.com which actually tracks individuals profiles on myspace.com that are deceased. The site managers seem to be fairly respectful (despite their poor choice in names). The real problem stems from comments left by users such as:

"I am happy she is dead, you know why? Because she is quite stupid and therefore I am glad she killed herself and no one else, and now has no chance to kill anyone else. If someone I cared about did something so stupid and killed themselves or someone else, I would condemn them for it, just like I would expect someone to condemn me. So all you people bitching and complaining about us being so disturbing, just wait until some idiot kills someone you love, then say how sorry you are that the person who killed them is dead. **** that. If they didn't die, you would want them dead."

Insensitive to say the least. The site managers say they're trying to delete comments such as this but they either need to accelerate their efforts or take the site down all together.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006 

So apparently my blog may not display correctly if you use Internet explorer. I'm up on campus and I tried it and I noticed that it doesn't look quite right. I'll have to try on another computer and confirm. When I look at it on Firefox it looks fine.

I'm just finishing up my final for my interpersonal class ...Whew! Now just have to polish up my prospectus, write a 12 page paper for my communication and technology class, and defend it. Oh, and I have to pack to go home, sign a sublease with my roommate, pay rent, finish grading for my classes, turn in final grades, get my interview protocol translated into Chinese, get my research proposal to the institutional review board .... all in about 10 days. Someone shoot me.

By the way... I mistyped my blog address and this came up.

Kind of weird...the end is near, repent!

 

Fighting burnout...must keep typing...focus.....

Monday, April 24, 2006 

Almost done. 2 more weeks. I'm metaphorically living for the weekend, although in this case the weekend is summer. So much to do. So little time. Frustrated. Today I got stuff together for my Chinese visa. My goal is to get it sent off tomorrow so that my passport gets back to me prior to me heading off to Europe. That would be nice. Otherwise I'll have to cancel the passport, order a new one and then pay for a rush visa when I get back from Europe. All in all it would be very expensive....

My computer keeps overheating and then locking up. Never build your own computer. Ever. Especially if you're only moderately computer literate. I finally got sick of this pile of junk, Frankenstein locking up on me and yanked of the side panel so it wouldn't over heat anymore. Yes, if anyone actually reads this thing I'm aware that Frankenstein was the scientist not the monster...

Now for something completely random.

Saturday, April 22, 2006 

Alright just a warning this is going to be a rant. I don't think that some people get it. When you're online you see a lot of people that are totally disinhibited in what they say. I guess the prevailing attitude is that I'm the only one who knows it's me or that no one really reads this stuff anyway. Unfortunately that's not really how it works. See my earlier post regarding the organizations and universities using social networking sites to identify undesirable individuals here.

The reality of it is that a person's internet persona should not be considered something that is divorced from the real world. What you do and say online can, and does, affect your life in the real world. A more productive way to approaching an online environment is to treat it like you're giving a speech in front of an audience of millions...because essentially that's what your doing. Honestly, I just really dont' want a million people knowing about my private life.

That being said I'm shocked when I see people blog or put personal information online. Sometimes all that information can be a bit endearing, but I still wouldn't recommend it. Another thing that I find disturbing is individuals that put lots of personal contact information online. I think you should assume any comment you make online can be traced back to you but I'm not going to make it easy. That being said, yes, you can probably find me if you wanted to....

Thursday, April 20, 2006 

MUST SELL NOW!!!


MOVING !!!
One used Kidney, Fair Condition.
Coffee Stains, but works fine.
Model Year: 1981
$25,000 OBO

Will trade for boat or liver.
__________________________________


Ok, so normally I'm not much for making political statements here but donate your organs... You're certainly not going to need them should it come down to it.

 

I'm totally guilty of copyright infringement here...

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

-- William Carlos Williams

Monday, April 17, 2006 


Today was a weird day...I was productive all day long but I don't know how much I actually wrote. I'm still working on the qualitative paper. I've banged out 17 odd pages by this point so hopefully I'll have a completed rough draft by Tuesday night. We'll see.

Today it rained. Hard, big heavy drops that when they hit the roof of the cars in the parking lot looked like minature explosions spewing droplets in every direction. Then the sun came out and it continued to rain. I even went outside to check to see if their was a rainbow. Part of me had this crazy idea that I should just go put on a pair of shorts and go lay in the grass and let it wash over me. I didn't...like I said it was crazy but I remember playing in the rain as a kid and I wish I had the time and the lack of inhibition to do it again.

So I acquired a copy of the Lord of War soundtrack. I highly recommend it. I'm kind of a music junkie and I rarely go in for movie scores or soundtracks. Usually they're either filled with a bunch of crappy pop songs or with a heavy overly important score that obviously came from a movie. That's not to say that some of the tracks on the Lord of War soundtrack don't sound like a score...they do. However, a majority of the tracks tend to have some class to them. The theme is relaxing. You can't really describe music I think. You have to hear it.

Friday, April 14, 2006 

I'm hard at work on my final paper for my Qualitative methods course. I'm trying to make sure that I do good job because I'm planning on spinning this off into my thesis. I wonder if maybe I'm a bit too much of stickler when it comes to reading and writing. I write really slow ...At least with my academic papers. I'm a perfectionist and I have to make sure each piece falls into place without having to force it. As such, it turns into a slow agonizing process at times.

Tonight I wrote the first five pages of what will become my literature review. Only another twenty to go. I still have my final for interpersonal as well as a paper for my Communication and Technology class left to go. Oh and I have about 20 days to do it in. Joy.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006 

This is one of my assignments for my qualitative methods class in which I had to learn how to memo. To be quite honest I don't know what I think of memoing. Sometimes it does seem like you're able to dig down beneath the surface of things and pull something out that surprises you...that you hadn't noticed before but seems to be the start of something meaningful. Other times it just seems be a load of drivel spewed out onto a sheet to meet and assignment's requirements. So I guess I find myself a little torn. I don't really understand much about the process...after all this is a learning experience and this is only the first stage of what would eventually end up being extensive coding and recoding. I figure that maybe some of what comes out of this sort of excercise has meaning but you have to dig through the junk to find the diamonds. I guess what I'm saying is that in short not everything that gets memoed is equal; you have to pick and choose the good stuff.


QUOTATION:


R: That’s fine. How has having a cell phone affected your relationships with others?

E: Well I’d say that probably progresses relationships more quickly than if you didn’t have one.

R: How so?

E: Well the more you’re in contact with other people the quicker the relationship goes. For instance, if I had a friend who I’d known for lets say three months or so, I mean that’s a decent amount of time, I mean that’s not forever, if we moved away from each other, and we communicated via mail. Well letters take time to get delivered, people lose interest in that time, you can’t keep up with current events as well. So with a cell phone the relationship progresses a lot faster, I feel like I’ve known the person a lot longer, I can talk to that person everyday if I wanted to. So in essence, it speeds up our social interaction and in some cases I’d say if a relationship with another human being has a beginning and an end it could actually speed up the end if there was an end.

MEMO:

Well I’d say that probably progresses relationships more quickly than if you didn’t have one.

“Probably” indicates a property of ambiguity which can vary from extreme doubt to certainty. His use of the word probably indicates that he believes something is more likely to occur than not although the out come is still in some doubt. Often it is used synonymously with the word likely.

For me the word “progress” has clinical or technical connotations so it seems unusual that to me that the subject has picked this word to describe his personal relationships. Progress often entails development. It is the condition of moving from one state to the next. As such there are often liminal periods where the context of progress is not well defined, usually prior to imminent paradigm shifts. Progress also does not proceed at a steady rate. Long periods of stagnation may be punctuated by quick periods of development or “progress” with only minimal growth during the interim. Additionally, progress is not necessarily permanent. Both the Greeks and the Romans amassed large amounts of knowledge that was lost to Western Europe, where it had previously been disseminated. It was only during the Crusades that some of this lost information was reintroduced to the Christian world. Another interpretation of progress is to move towards a goal. One may say they’ve “made progress” when they feel closer to achieving a goal. However, the phrase “making progress” includes the tacit understanding that the goal is not yet achieved.

The use of the word “quickly” implies a property of speed. Speed can vary from lack of movement to extreme. It is important to distinguish speed from velocity. Speed is merely the rate of movement while velocity indicates the rate of movement as well as the direction.

Well the more you’re in contact with other people the quicker the relationship goes.

The first thing that stands out to me here is the phrase “the quicker the relationship goes”. As discussed earlier “quick” denotes a property of speed that does not entail a specification of direction. This phrase taken as a whole indicates that speed is a property of relationships. Based on my personal experiences I would tend to agree with this assertion. Relationships tend to progress at different rates. Why do some relationships progress faster than others? Is the rate of development more uniform in some types of relationships than others? Is speed a property of all relationships? What effect does the speed of relational development have on the relationship?

The word “contact” implies two things that touch one another. Touch might be considered by many to be our most intimate sense. After all we have limited ability to determine what we see, smell, or hear, but we expect to have some say in what we touch and how we ourselves are touched. Individuals have regions of comfort from which individuals will retreat when invaded by other people. We are selective in who we let into our personal regions. In this sense, contact is indicative of relational development as we only let people we trust in close. In a more figurative sense closer in line with that used here, to “maintain contact” with someone is continue to interact despite the constraints of time and space. Historically, time and space have constrained the potential for interaction but technologies such as writing, the post, and telephony have remedied that.

The word “more” indicates a property of amount which can range from little to much, or less to more. The choice of the word “more” also indicates a comparison. In this case the comparison seems to relate to contact. A property of contact may be frequency of contact.

For instance, if I had a friend who I’d known for lets say three months or so, I mean that’s a decent amount of time, I mean that’s not forever

The first thing that I focus on in this line is the word “friend”. Friendship is one of the few voluntary, social relationships that we as a society engage in and therefore could be said to hold a rather unique position in our social networks. Friendships may exist on many different levels and mean different things to different people. A friend to me is someone with whom you spend time but who also fulfills certain social and functional tasks. For example, a friend may be someone who comforts you or whom you buy beers for in a bar. Additionally, what friendship means may vary by the stage of life you are in. What does the term friendship mean to the subject? The subject is nineteen year old college student. How does the subject’s age effect his understanding of friendship? Furthermore, the subject is a college student. College is often thought of as a period of instability with major life changes occurring in a relatively quick succession. How does the University culture effect his understanding of what qualifies as friendship?

“Time” or duration appears to be an important property of friendship. There are several references made to time in just this one line. These range from the indistinct (ie. A decent amount of time) to the specific (ie. Three monthes, or forever). The duration of a friendship likely plays an important role in the level of development it has achieved.

The word “decent” to me is an interesting lexical choice in that it can reasonably be interpreted in two distinct ways. First, decent can be interpreted as “good”. A more likely interpretation in my opinion is “adequate”. This property of adequacy suggests that in order for something to fulfill a certain function it must be deemed adequate. The logical question that follows is what determines adequacy? Are there numerous criteria or is it merely the a singular phenomenon such as the passage of time?

if we moved away from each other, and we communicated via mail. Well letters take time to get delivered, people lose interest in that time, you can’t keep up with current events as well.

“Moved away” indicates an increase in space. This may be significant in that increases in space may constrain interaction.

“Take time” is an interesting choice of words. When someone “takes” something they possess it. When used in this sense it refers to something that accompanies and individual. If letters “take” time, then time may be an important property of the postal system for the subject. Alternatively, the word “take” can mean to take some thing away or to even steal. In this sense the use of letters and the subsequent time requirements may diminish some aspects of the interaction.

Two word pairs in the remainder of this line seem especially important. First, “lose interest” implies interest wanes with the passage of time. It is something that may be difficult to retain. When something is lost it may never be recovered. Alternatively, it may be rediscovered accidentally at some future point in the future or even sought out. As a result, loss may be either permanent or temporary. Furthermore, implicit in the concept of loss is the concept of value. Things that are not worth anything are rarely lost because no one desires to look for them. For example, one does not lose an empty hamburger wrapper, but one may lose one’s wedding ring.

The second word pair of interest is “can’t keep”. “Keep” implies possession. Something that is kept is retained. An alternative definition also implies physical support or care. A mistress can be kept. Likewise a house or dwelling can be up kept. This connotation of the word implies maintenance.

So with a cell phone the relationship progresses a lot faster, I feel like I’ve known the person a lot longer, I can talk to that person everyday if I wanted to.

The word “feel” can be interpreted as relating to the sense of touch or as relating to emotions. However, in this context it appears to me to represent a level subjectivity intrinsic in lived experience. The use of the personal pronoun “I” immediately prior to the word feel indicates that the subject is taking possession of this experience or emotions. The subjectivity of the word “feel” indicates that others may feel differently than the subject and there is an implicit assumption that others may not agree with the subjects understanding or that objective reality may not match the subject’s perception.

“Progress” is described as moving faster with the possession of the cell phone. This another example of the subject referring to speed of relationship development. Is faster relationship development necessarily superior? Are there benefits to accelerated relationship development? Drawbacks? Under what conditions is it desirable to accelerate relationship development? Is it ever desirable to impede or delay relational development?

The word “can” implies potential or ability to accomplish a task but not necessarily practice. The fact that he describes this as an ability of his own seems significant. Rather than saying “we can talk” he says “I can talk”. This makes me think of how a cell phone can in some ways lend power to it’s possessor. In mythology even many gods were incapable of communicating with one another across great distance and required the services of messenger gods such as Hermes. Modern technology has, in effect, lent us abilities that exceed mythical divine beings. The fact that the subject sees this as a personal ability rather than a feature of the interaction may hold significance.

So in essence, it speeds up our social interaction and in some cases I’d say if a relationship with another human being has a beginning and an end it could actually speed up the end if there was an end.

The phrase “in essence” indicates a defining quality of an object, thought, belief, or action. Without this one thing the very nature of the object, thought, belief etc. would change in a fundamental way. In context, this phrase suggests to me that the subject views speed as the essential property of cellular phones that impacts relationships.

His use of the term “human being” is curious. Again this term seems to have a more clinical or technical connotation to it than a simpler words like “person” or “somebody”. Is there a reason that this particular term was chosen?

The word “if” is used several times and implies that something is conditional. During its first use the subject seems to question whether relationships have neat beginnings and ends. Duration is not be merely a property of friendship but is a property of several or all social relationships. It can be understood conceived of as running along a dimension from the beginning to the end. The subject’s use of “if” seems to indicate some doubt as to whether this is how relationships truly function. “If” is also used in reference to whether relationships actually end. What does this say about the subject? Does he view relational dissolution as avoidable in some relationships? Does he not see beyond the scope of the immediate? Someone wise once told me that all relationships end, if by nothing else than by death. The choice of a conditional phrase here indicates a level of naivety or lack of foresight.

Monday, April 10, 2006 

So I'm teaching class and this is what my class felt like sharing today (Ah the wisdom of youth):

- Pimpin Aint Easy...But Somebody Gotta Do It!!!

- I can tend to be an anal retentive cheavanistic pig... :-) j/k

- An elephant never forgets but man a fish does...

- I'm gonna kill you!! ( but "pacifically" in a good way)

- Can you get an STD from a polar bear?

- Did you try to make a smiley face?

- "This is not a democracy. This is a benevolent dictatorship."

- That sounds like a great idea, im totally gonna bring in gospacho for the class.



And a collaborative posting sounded like such a good idea at first.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006 


So everyone read my posts on networks and understands the concept of small world networks right? Didn't think so. A small world network is a network that that links most frequently to geographically proximal nodes (in non-academese...connects to people who are close) most frequently but also has a few far flung links to distant nodes (ie. far away people...you get the idea now). Anyway lots of networks tend have a small world structure. Our air traffic control system for instance. Most flights go to relatively close locations but maybe just a few might fly to Tokyo or Paris.

So what is the significance of small world networks? Individual nodes in small world networks (be they people or airports) are all connected to one another via very few links. That's why you don't have to change planes a million times when you travel. It's also why epidemiologists fear pandemics.

A more humorous example of small world networks is the six degrees of Kevin Bacon game in which players try to link actors through movies they have acted in with other actors to the actor Kevin Bacon. That being said if there's one website you must visit today it is The Oracle of Kevin Bacon. Enjoy.

 

Not particularly proud of this post but here goes:

It’s Not Just Who You Know, It’s Who You Are: Individual Difference on Network Structuring



Several theories have been proposed to explain the spread of information and behaviors via social networks. Contagion theory seeks to explain the dissemination of information, messages, attitudes and beliefs by applying a biological metaphor to social networks (Contractor and Monge, 2002). Its primary tenant is that mere exposure to different ideas, attitudes and behaviors can bring about a change in the previously existing ideas, attitudes and behaviors (Monge & Contractor, 2003). While this may be a necessary condition to provoke change, it certainly is not a sufficient condition. Rather, the spread of ideas is likely contingent upon attributes of individual network nodes, the structure of the existing network, as well as cognitive evaluations of messages by their recipients.

The theory of homophily holds that individuals tend to develop networks of others like themselves which are based on social categories developed from key social dimensions such as age, gender, race, professional afflictions and other demographic characteristics. In short, “birds of a feather flock together”. Which demographic characteristics are salient for the formation of a social identity is a result current situational demands and the networks structure (Monge and Contractor, 2003). One of the major implications of contagion theory is that people who are in regular contact will have similar attitudes, beliefs, and ideas. This line of reasoning suggests that contagion theory contributes to the creation of a group culture among relatively homogenous individuals who are in frequent contact. However, even among relatively homogenous groups differences between individual nodes may inhibit the transmission of ideas and beliefs.

The principle of homophily suggest that external similarities between network nodes lead to the creation of networks between similar individuals. However, when networks are created online in the absence of individuating information, external traits of nodes may be reduced in their importance (Postmes & Baym, 2005). Rather, individuals who identify with one another online may fall back on social identities created from similar attitudes or interests. As a result, online homophily has the potential to enhance the contagious spread of ideas and beliefs. Social identities have the potential to influence an individual’s thoughts and actions as a result of self-categorization and social identification. These processes may lead to group norms and values being internalized. Therefore, information that is salient to the social identity of an online group may be more likely to be disseminated within the group via a contagion model and subsequently retained and internalized among group members than the same information among individuated offline groups.

Contagion theory suggests a centralized distribution pattern of information around key nodes with the infected nodes radiating outwards. Proximal nodes are more likely to be exposed than nodes that are further away. Proximity increases the potential that individuals have contact and learn from one another (Monge & Contractor, 2003). The potential to develop communicative links among nodes decreases drastically with the increase of distance. Likewise the theory of electronic proximity suggests that far-flung ties resulting from new media would free information from it’s geographically based dispersal pattern. However, research has indicated that some technologies, such AOL instant messenger, are used as often to talk to individuals who are geographically proximal as to individuals geographically distant. Furthermore, the primary use of email has been found to be scheduling face-to-face meetings (Contractor, Lecture). Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that while new media may provide a mechanism for the distribution of ideas and beliefs, information dispersal will still consist of a tight geographically collocated cluster with much looser halo of “infected” nodes as geographical distance increases. This pattern is representative of a small world network and can provide insight into the spread of ideas and attitudes through a network. Small world networks can be defined as those “where nodes have a high degree of local clustering with a small fraction of nodes (that is, these nodes are interconnected to one another), while at the same time being no more than a few degrees of separation from all of the remaining nodes” (Monge & Contractor, 2003). Small world networks have a few connections to other distant nodes which serve as short cuts for information spreading across a network.

The contagion theory assumes that mere exposure is sufficient to spread information and beliefs. However, message reception by human nodes should be considered from the perspective of extant message reception theory such as the elaboration likelihood model or the heuristic-systematic model. For example, several conditions must exist before the contagion model can explain the dissemination of information. Information salient to the individual will be treated differently than information which is not (O’Keefe, 2006). Human’s have limited cognitive resources and continually select which stimuli to attend to and what information to retain in our memory. Information that is not salient to the individual is unlikely to receive the same scrutiny as information which is. Additionally, individuals must be capable of comprehending the messages content. Information that is incomprehensible to the individual is unlikely to be regarded as salient and may be either accepted without question or rejected outright. Information that is considered salient will be evaluated within the framework of an individuals existing knowledge. Underdeveloped messages may be unable to satisfy an individual’s threshold for certainty regarding the veracity of the message and result in it being rejected. This initial rejection may lead to the development of the inoculation effect in individuals. Individuals incapable or unmotivated to engage in cognitive processing may be forced to rely on simple heuristics such as source credibility and message length when evaluating a message’s veracity (O’Keefe, 2002).

The cognitive processing of messages has implications for the structuring of networks. Individuals are likely to have stronger ties with peers and knowledge repositories which they perceive as credible than those they perceive as unreliable. In contrast, rejection of information as irrelevant or unreliable may serve to weaken ties between a network’s nodes. These patterns of behavior operate similarly when dealing with human sources, non-human agents and knowledge repositories. For example, a book with information that has been proven to be out of date is unlikely to be consulted. Likewise, a person who has proven to be ill informed in the past is not likely to be consulted regarding a future decision concerning the same matter. Individuals who maintain contact with these information sources may be hesitant to integrate information originating from them into their body of knowledge and subsequently transmit it to others in the network.

In addition to the simple principle of homophily, individual differences will likely prove to be an important factor in the structuring of networks. Future research ought to focus on how individuals cognitively evaluate the suggestions and contributions of anonymous individuals online and its resulting effect on network structure. Furthermore, research should be conducted which examines how individuals evaluate information from non-human agents as well as knowledge repositories. Individual differences are important to network structure; it’s not just who you know, it’s who you are.

Works Cited

Contractor, N. S., & Monge, P. R. (2002). Managing knowledge networks. Management Communication Quarterly, 16, 249-258.

Contractor, N. S., Lecture

O’Keefe, D. (2002). Persuasion: theory and research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Monge, P. R., & Contractor, N. (2003). Multitheoretical, Multilevel Models of Communication and Other Organizational Networks . In Theories of Communication Networks (pp. 293-327). New York: Oxford University Press.

Postmes, T., & Baym, N. (2005). Intergroup dimensions of the Internet. In J. Harwood & H. Giles (Eds.), Intergroup communication: Multiple perspectives (pp. 213-238). New York: Peter Lang.

About me

  • Who: Scott Sanders
  • When: 8-22-1981
  • Scott Sanders is a PhD student at the University of Southern California in the Annenberg School of Communication. His research interests lie in how people use communication technologies to maintain and support interpersonal relationships.

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Don't step down, Miss Julie. Listen to me--no one would believe that you stepped down of your own accord; people always say that one falls down. -- Jean, Miss Julie.