Themes:
How do people build social networks, and why? How much do networks built for different purposes – friendship, politics, career, religion, etc. – overlap, and how much are they separate? How do social networks function to sustain a sense of identity? Do face- to-face social networks differ in any important respects from online social networks? How do social networks rely upon/build social capital? Please think about these questions before class -- both in terms of the readings and in the light of your own experience.
Readings (the reader is available at Copy Central on Bancroft):
Claude Fischer, To Dwell Among Friends [Chicago 1982]
Personal Networks: An Overview, 32-42
Personal Networks as Social Support, 125-138.
Homogeneity in Personal Relations: Stage in the Life Cycle, 179-190
Conclusion, 251-266
Recommended reference site. Institute for Social Network Analysis of the Economy website at http://www.isnae.org/.
Assignment 1. How do your personal social networks work – who belongs to them? what is their function? how much to they overlap? are they face- to-face or online?
Class discussion topic: Using ideas from Fischer’s questionnaire and concepts, analyze your own social network(s).
Blog assignment 1:
Themes:
What does social network theory teach us about how to get a job? What are the implications of Granovetter’s findings for information theory, and for organizational theory?
Readings:
Mark Granovetter, Selections from Getting a Job (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974),
Preface, vii-viii
Introduction 6-22
Job Search and Economic Theory, 25-33
The Dynamics of Information Flow, 51-61
Career Structure, 85-91
Mobility and Organizations, 107-111
Applications, 131-138
Letters and Interview Schedules 159-168
Recommended: Mark Granovetter’s Silicon Valley Network Analysis Project web site at http://www.stanford.edu/group/esrg/siliconvalley/sivnap.html
Themes.
Social networks and information theory: In Six Degrees Duncan Watts says, “searchability is a generic property of social networks,” and, “People intuitively solve the peer to peer search problem but don’t know how they do it.” Why is searchability a generic property of social networks? How do people intuitively solve peer-to-peer search problems?
Social science methodology: It’s also time to ask -- How does social science research trace social networks? We’ll consider the methods of Fischer, Granovetter and these readings from Milgram, Kleinfeld and Watts.
Readings:
Travers, J and Milgram S, An Experimental Study of the small world problem, Sociometry 32(4), 425-443 (1969)
J S Kleinfeld, The small world problem Society 39(2), 61-66 (2002).
Dodds, Muhamad, Watts, An Experimental Study of Search in Global Social Networks Science 301 (August 8, 2003).
Participate in Watt’s website at http://Smallworld.Columbia.edu
For background on this section of the course, look at some of the articles onthe press pages of the various social software sites, such as Tribe
http://www.tribe.net/tribe/servlet/template/pub%2CAbout.vm?section=AboutPress, or Meetup http://press.meetup.com/. Even more valuable are blogs about social software, such as http://www.corante.com/many/ and www.zephoria.org/thoughts.
Themes:
Play and games are a good place to start analyzing social software because there one can see the basic elements of pleasure and spontaneity that are essential to nearly every successful social environment. The readings include three basic models for analyzing play and games as social environments: cultural analysis (Geertz); organizational analysis (Yates & Orlikowski); and information theory (Salen and Zimmerman). Fourthly, we have the first of two dramaturgical models, that of Brenda Laurel (the other is Erving Goffman which we’ll discuss next as the play of identity.). Your task is to analyze some MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) -- such as SIMS, Counterstrike, Evequest, There! – using each of these models. In class I’d like some task forces to present your analyses for discussion (a time to practice your presentation skills),and in your blogs the assignment will be to write up your findings.
Readings:
JoAnne Yates & Wanda J Orlikowski, Genres of organizational communication: a structurational approach to studying communication and media, Academy of Management Review 17:2 (1992) 299-326.
Clifford Geertz, Deep Play: The Balinese Cockfight, The Interpretation of Cultures (Basic Books)
Brenda Laurel, Design Principles for Human Computer Activity, 125-165 from Computers as Theater (Addison Wesley)
Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals.
Games as Information Theory Systems 191-201
Games as Systems of Information 203-211
Games as Cultural Rhetoric 515-533
Blog assignment 2.
Use key concepts from the readings to analyze the information model, cultural dynamics and/or dramaturgy of an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) such as SIMS, Counterstrike, Evequest, There!, etc. If you are not familiar with any MMORPG, please explore one. There! has a free trial from http://www.there.com (requires a Windows box).
6 . Presentation of Self: Online and Offline
Themes:
How is a sense of place created by sites such as orkut and tribe? How does this sense of place enable/shape/limit the presentation of identity? Is deception a fundamental flaw in these social networks, or is it a fundamental part of identity play? What do these environments teach us about identity?
Readings on presentation of self and deception:
Erving Goffman, Introductory Definitions from Behavior in Public Places (to remind you of Presentation of Self in Everyday Life from last Semester).
danah boyd, Friendster and Publicly Articulated Social Networks, from http://www.danah.org/papers/CHI2004Friendster.pdf"
Judith S. Donath, Identity and deception in the virtual community, in Kollock & Smith (eds) Communities in Cyberspace (Routledge 1998).
Sherry Turkle, Tiny Sex and Gender Trouble from Life on the Screen (Simon & Schuster 1995) pp. 210-232.
Lisa Nakamura, Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet, from http://www.iup.edu/en/workdays/Nakamura.html.
Blog assignment 3. Analyze one or more sites such as http://www.orkut.com/ or http://www.tribe.net/. This analysis should focus on how the software shapes/limits your definition of self, but bring in elements from the previous assignment about cultural, dramaturgical, organizational or information theory dimensions as they bear upon how a sense of identity and place is constructed.
Readings on dating:
Andrew T Fiore and Judith S. Donath, “Online Personals: An Overview and Call for Research” [Handout]
Aaron C. Ahuvia & Mara B. Adelman, Formal Intermediaries in the Marriage Market: A Typology and Review Journal of Marriage and the Family 54 (May 1992): 452-463.
Brief assignment 4: Browse Match.com, Gay.com’s personals, Spring Street Network (via Nervc.com or TheOnion.com or http://www.springstreetnetworks.com/ ) or another dating or friendship service and analyze:
How do these services support/fail to support dating and/or friendship?
Analyze the service with particular attention to the analysis of ‘profiles’ using Goffman’s concept of the presentation of self. How well does this analysis derived from face- to-face encounters apply to online encounters? Can it be modified, or are these fundamentally different kinds of encounters?
Analyze the service considering the issue of deception and identity.
Readings:
Nardi, Schiano, Gumbrecht, Swartz “’I’m blogging this: a closer look at why people blog” submitted to Communications of the ACM, from http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jpd/classes/ics234cw04/nardi.pdf.
Herring, Scheidt, Bunus, Wright, “Bridging the gap: A genre analysis of weblogs” from http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jpd/classes/ics234cw04/herring.pdf from Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'04) - Track 4 (January 05 - 08, 2004)
Clay Shirky, “Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality” from http://shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html
Explore http://blogdex.net/ & http://www.technorati.com/
Blog assignment 5: Examine three blogs of your choice. Aim for diverse blogs (group vs individual, personal vs journalistic, different types of people, etc).
Theme.
Social networks are becoming a fundamental tool for building political action, both by the political parties and by social action groups – but also by drug cartels, peoples in diaspora, terrorists, and non-government organizations. This area is little documented, but a rich topic for research and exploration.
Readings:
John Arguilla & David Ronfeldt, “What Next for Networks and Netwars?” from Networks and Networks (RAND: National Defense Research Institute2001), pp 311-361.
Mark Surman & Katherine Reilly, Appropriating the Internet for Social Change Social Science Research Council 2003, from http://www.ssrc.org/programs/itic/.
Examine MeetUp and MoveOn, or other political action sites (or e-government sites using social software).
Blog assignment 6.
How can social software help to build new kinds of public space and discourse? Analyze one of the networked political organizations (such as MeetUp or MoveOn – or others) to understand how new forms of political coordination and power are being created.
Theme.
LinkedIn and other professional social networking software is one side of a fundamental shift in the theory of organizations – the idea of the networked organization. We’ll only consider this briefly, but it links social networks to contemporary business theory (knowledge management, supply chain management), and the idea of the networked organization in Sociology.
Readings:
Blog assignment 7.
1. The brief writing assignments should be posted on your blog, along with any other reflections based on reading the assignments; please also post comments on each other’s blogs. Your papers should be brief, high quality writings rather than summaries of the readings or rambling statements. The take home final exam will be based upon the weekly assignments, so feel free to pose questions in the early versions of your papers, to receive our feedback and that of your classmates, and to revise.
2. The take home final exam will be due in finals week at a mutually convenient time. The questions on the final will be based upon the weekly assignments, and your answers should reflect a more formal statement of the modes of analysis and thinking that you’ve been developing on your blog. More information will be available about this in a few weeks.
3. Grades will be based upon class participation (attendance, participation, the Task Force presentations in class that everyone should do at least once); timely, high quality blog entries and comments in response to the brief assignments (or emailed papers if you want to discuss confidential material); and a final exam, which will go into depth on one or more of the brief assignment topics.
For 208B, you are going to be asked to submit all of your assignments and reflections via a web blog (blog for short). Some of you may be familiar with and/or already have a blog, but for others this will be an opportunity to use new social technologies. Using a blog for assignments is a new experiment for SIMS. Feel free to ask questions and make suggestions. At any point, you can contact danah at dmb@sims.berkeley.edu or zapophenia (AIM).
Throughout this semester, you will be asked to consider various YASNS (Yet Another Social Network Service) sites. To discuss these sites, we ask that you join and familiarize yourself with:
You are by no means required to input accurate or complete information. Do whatever you want on the systems. The goal is to familiarize yourself with the sites, how people use them, how the sites approach to social networking and prepare yourself to critique them. You may sign up as a group if you prefer. Pedagogically, you must have enough access to be able to discuss, critique and analyze the behaviors that are going on in these systems, focusing on the tools and the way in which people are using the tools. Whatever it takes for you to gain that access is acceptable. You are not required to inform danah or Peter of where your account is. The goal is simply to be fluent in these environments.
Because Orkut is an invite-only system, if you are not currently on the system, feel free to ask danah to send you an invite. You may de-friend her immediately thereafter; she will not be offended. Note: there is a SIMS group on Orkut and Tribe.net.
Because it is difficult to see anything of interest on Friendster without connecting to anyone, you may connect to either friendster@danah.org (real danah) or friendster2@danah.org (fake danah) if that helps you see more of the system.
Before the first 208B class on March 10, please create a blog for use in 208B. You may use any blogging software so long as it has the tools necessary for others to comment and can be read by everyone in the class. We would also encourage you to have a tool that supports trackbacks and RSS, but this is not a requirement. Here are a few options:
Movable Type: http://www.movabletype.org/
Typepad: https://www.typepad.com/t/app/home
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/
It is possible to use hand-devised scripts or Blogger, so long as you install a system for commenting. Quick Topic is acceptable.
Although you may choose any system that you desire, the one we recommend for maximum learning opportunities is Movable Type (MT) on the SIMS system. The MT documentation is quite good and you can easily install RSS (preferably full text) and anti-spam services.
If you want to participate in the SIMS MT version, please email danah by March 6; Parker will install the basic version for you and you can configure it any way you would like.
These terms may appear very unfamiliar to you. We will be discussing blogging further into the semester. Everything that you need, including how to install these arbitrary terms can be found in the documentation. Familiarizing yourself with the software is the best thing that you can do.
When you have created a blog, please send danah the URL at dmb@sims.berkeley.edu
RSS is a quick way to keep up on what your classmates are writing about. Assuming that everyone turns on RSS in their blog, you can use an RSS tool to keep up with what others are doing.
Both danah and Peter have set up RSS as a part of their blogs:
Pedagogically, the opportunity to reflect, write, share and get feedback from your peers is one of the best ways to learn. Rather than simply writing formalized papers for the professor, we are going to encourage an environment where everyone comments on each other’s thoughts. We are very interested in thinking of this class as a social network that can make a contribution to the social network community.
Each week, you will be assigned various readings. Before class, please reflect on those readings and produce a blog entry. You are not expected to write long essays, but concise, relevant and clearly reflective entries. Critique what you read. Pose interesting questions. Draw connections between other articles. Draw parallels to other material. Feel free to trackback to one another and expound upon another classmate’s entry. The goal is to encourage you to reflect critically on what you’ve read and to familiarize yourself with blogging.
You are welcome to blog more often than the once per class if you are so motivated.
In addition to blogging these entries, please read some of your classmates’ blogs and comment on what they have written.
The assignments indicated in the syllabus are asking you to focus your analyses. These are in lieu of the brief reading reflections for that week. For each assignment, write a longer grounded blog entry. (You may use the “extended entry” feature.) Although there is no word requirement/limit, you should write enough to address the question well. This probably means at least equivalent to a 1-2 page essay.
You should turn in each blog entry before midnite the night before class so that danah/Peter can read them and integrate them into the discussion.
Please note: you do not have to include anything personal on your blog. You do not even need to include your name. You may password protect your blog so that only the class has access to it (.htaccess is available at SIMS). If you have another blog, you do not have to connect the two. The goal is not to reveal anything personal about you, but to offer you a framework within which you can learn about blogging while reflecting on the class material.
Many of you may be reluctant to participate in blogging/YASNS/online gaming. This is why we are giving you many different options to participate under password, under pseudonyms, via groups, etc. The goal is to learn about these different social tools and to use them to participate in class discussion. We are not asking you to bring your personal life into the classroom.
Finally, if you are feeling reluctant, record the reasons as to why participation on these systems bothers you. This is great material for class discussion and very relevant.