Review Points

Social Network Foundational Theories
Granovetter
Strong ties
weak ties
Small World Problem
Lois Weisberg
The wisdom of crowds
Wise/Unwise crowds
Dunbar's number
Power Law Theory, 80/20 Rule, Long tail

Anonymity
Trolling
Cyber bullying
Deindividuation
Stanford Prison Experiment
Obediance

Brain Chemistry
oxytocin (love, trust)
dopamine (reward)
reward systems
connections between nodes in-real-life versus online

Asynchronous Communication Criticism
Franzen - too easy, not enough passion, 'to like'
Slacktavism
Keller - Twitter makes you stupid
Turkle - isolation, doesn't build connections; self-editing (aspirational, defensive, malicious)
Gladwell - strong ties are needed for revolutions, SNS protects the status quo

weak ties = info shared
strong ties = action shared

Arab Spring
Tunisia - SNS-heavy
Egypt - SNS crucial at beginning, army needed to succeed
Libya - SNS light
Syria - SNS plays many roles on both sides

Morozov - cyberupotians
York - regimes learn to use SNS

Data

The University of Washington analyzed 3 million treats, gigabytes of YouTube videos, and thousands of blog posts relating to the Arab Spring. Read about it here http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/new-study-quantifies-use-of-social-media-in-arab-spring

Criticism of Gladwell's Position

Here are some editorials attacking Gladwell's critique of social media's role in revolutions.
http://technosociology.org/?p=305
http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2011/02/04/gladwell-proves-too-much/

"The Internet Alone Cannot Save the Middle East"

žWhat is the main point of this article? 

žHow are authoritarian regimes adapting to new communication methods?

 
žWhat mistake does Morozov say some dictators have made? 

žWhy is China a ‘textbook example’?

Videos

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/47592620/#47592620

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/twitter-revolution-tunisia-strongman-ruling-leader-12629386

How Social Media Affects the Brain

Here is the source of the infographics I showed in class the other day.

Social Networking & Popular Culture

Essay Assignment

Due: June 1st

Length: 800-1200 words

Submit by paper (in class) or by email (.doc or .rtf only, by midnight)


Choose one recent social movement, like Occupy Wall Street, Kony2012, Anonymous, anti-SOPA activists, or another one of your choice. Analyze this movement in terms of social network theories and compare/contrast the movement with Malcolm Gladwell’s (and other critics’) criticism of social media. Form a thesis and defend it as you analyze the movement. In other words, this is an essay, not a report. Do not simply explain what the movement is and how it works.

Asynchronous Communication & Its Discontents

Definition:
1. not synchronous
2. of, used in, or being digital communication (as between computers) in which there is no timing requirement for transmission and in which the start of each character is individually signaled by the transmitting device

Quotes

“The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
Western Union internal memo, 1876

“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.”
Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878

"It is my heart-warmed and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage, may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss, except the inventor of the telephone.“
Mark Twain, 1890 Christmas address


"People were (also) suspicious of telephones. (The 1800's were) a time when few people had firsthand experience of electrical machines, even telegraphs. There were fears that other people could also listen in on the telephone conversations, or that the sounds from telephones could make you deaf or crazy. ... Even telegraph companies encouraged false rumors that the telephone had bad effects because they were afraid of the competition."

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.

“We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” — Bill Gates

“There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.” — T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 

“The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage.” -– Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916

“The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.” — The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903

“The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.” — IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.

“The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous.” — Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916.

“Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan.” — Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.

“Home Taping Is Killing Music” — A 1980s campaign by the BPI, claiming that people recording music off the radio onto cassette would destroy the music industry.

“When the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it.” – Oxford professor Erasmus Wilson

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” — Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in 1921.

"just setting up my twttr“

First Twitter message 

March 21, 2006, 9:50PM  PST

The Value of Asynchronous Communication

One of the topics we'll discuss in the second half of the semester is the value of online relationships, via email, SMS, Twitter, Facebook, and the like. There are many opinions about this subject, and you'll find that a lot of researchers and pundits will state "this is so" without cited evidence.
Case in point, this editorial in the New York Times by a psychology professor at MIT. While we can assume that she is well-versed in these subjects, the editorial itself does not offer any evidence, just hypotheses and claims made as though they are acknowledged facts. What she contends may be 100% true, 50% true, or 0% true. But given the lack of support for these opinions, we cannot give them any special value.  Maybe she just wants us to buy her book...

From The Social Network

Fact and fiction in The Social Network: http://www.getthebigpicture.net/blog/2010/10/4/the-truth-about-social-network-fact-vs-fiction.html

A brief interview with Divya Narendra http://www.northbynorthwestern.com/story/divya-narendra-on-being-a-wildcat-the-social-netwo/

Official movie site: http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Network

Milgram Obedience Experiment/Deindividuation

It's a 3-part mini-documentary. Do you think this demonstrates 'deindividuation'? What other processes or phenomenons might be taking place in these experiments?

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Another experiment that demonstrates 'deindividuation' is the Stanford Prison Experiment. If you haven't heard of this before, it's definitely worth learning about.

Social Networking Reprisals

12 Ways to Get Fired for Facebook

The Paramedic/Doctor Video

Dawnmarie Souza's Case

Social Networking Privacy

Pruitt-Igoe

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth on 99% Invisible

Dunbar's Number Redux

Ran across this article today, new research from Robin Dunbar.

Oxford University researchers found maintaining friendships requires more brain power.

Their study concluded that people with real friends have to use more cognitive skills to understand what someone else thought.

This, however, did not occur with "online" friends, such as those made on social networking sites including Facebook or Twitter.

Scientists discovered a link between the number of friends people had and the size of their orbital prefrontal cortex, which is a region of the brain found just above the eyes.

The conclusions, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows for the first time that competency in social skills is determined by the size of peoples' brains.

Cyber-bullying

Cyber-bullying, naturally, is a relatively new phenomenon. While one could find examples of rude, malicious, and harassing behavior going back to the first days of email, AOL, and instant messaging, what is referred to as cyber-bullying today has grown alongside Web 2.0 and social networking.
Cyber-bullying is often used to refer to attacks made against minors, while harassment of adults is generally called cyber-stalking. Both are demonstrably harmful to the victim, and often there is little that victims and law enforcement can do.

Check out the Wikipedia entry for the topic here.

Institutions Versus Collaboration

Dunbar's Number

Check out some articles on this interesting concept.
From National Public Radio.

Dunbar has found 150 to be the sweet spot for hunter-gatherer societies all over the world. From the Bushmen of Southern Africa to Native American tribes, a typical community is about 150 people. Amish and Hutterite communities — even most military companies around the world — seem to follow the same rule.

The reason 150 is the optimal number for a community comes from our primate ancestors, Dunbar says. In smaller groups, primates could work together to solve problems and evade predators. Today, 150 seems to be the number at which our brains just max out on memory.

A guy tries to beat Dunbar's Number

On Wikipedia

Some commentary on the power of weak ties and why Dunbar's Number might be irrelevant.

The Hidden Influence of Social Networks

Video we watched in class on 3/13.

Wise and Unwise Crowds

Wise crowds

• Diversity of opinion
• Independence
• Decentralization
• Aggregation

Unwise Crowds

• Homogeneity
• Centralization
• Division
• Imitation
• Emotionality

Chance Favors the Connected Mind

We often think that brilliant ideas and innovations as 'eureka!' moments. In fact, most of the important ideas that have changed our world came from discussions in coffee shops, labs, or around conference tables.