I read the article cited here:
Williams, F., Strover, S. and Grant, A. E. (1994). Social aspects of new media technologies. In J. Bryant J. & D. Zillmann (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 463-482). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
I have substituted their phrase “new media” for “social media”.
Each leap and evolution in technologies and the socialization of them creates expectations of a standard. One example is “land line” telephony. The dial tone is the first noise you hear when you lift the phone from the cradle, if the line is working. If you do not hear the dial tone, you know something is wrong, but you expect to hear a dial tone and generally do not notice it otherwise. Other examples of technologies we expect to just “be there” include television, radio and, more currently, connectivity, both wireless and cell.
Once I get past the first wave of the “theory and academia” tone and presentation in Christensen and the article from Decision Sciences and start pondering how these writings have proven themselves so far, the points being made become more applicable to the problems I encounter at work. The Uses and Gratifications (UG) paradigm I found of particular interest.
My first search using some UW Library tools brought me this article. The citation looks like this:
Schmidt, T., Townsend, A. (2003). Why Wi-Fi wants to be free. Communications of the ACM, Volume 46 (issue 5), pg. 47 – 52
I will be using this article as it discusses a grass-roots movement around building a wireless network that is pervasive and free.
I would like to look at generational “dial tone” communications technologies. By this I refer to the technologies, platforms and “take it for granted” habits and actions each generation has about communications.This project would also entail a forecast as to what the next “dial tone” might be.
This is wonderful. I can’t express how happy I am that Pandora will continue…especially with the track record of IP openness in Washington.
<eWeek> Facebook, Twitter Use in the Enterprise Sparks Hot Debate – In the face of a Gartner report that says that corporations shouldn’t ban Social applications like Twitter, debate rages over their benefits, challenges, and launches a side debate on whether or not people can ACTUALLY multi-task (the answer is no….).
Great review, Pam!
I haven’t read Shirky yet, and your review as well as the discussion and recommendations by numerous others in our class have placed on my Wish List. I your summary, I like that you note Shirky’s inclusion of both successes and failures of the social phenomena. Considering the kinds of organizational strengths that the political parties and political action organizations like MoveOn.org have found and mined to date, it’s interesting to note that it still takes an actual letter, phone call or physical visit for an individual’s voice to be duly noted. I wonder when, if ever, that will change?
This class was a great wrap-up. I liked the discussion led by Paolo and Peter. While their article was dated (which by itself was interesting), it provided a bit of a prelude to the consideration of the next 5,000 days of the Internet.
