This link has been bookmarked by 67 people . It was first bookmarked on 30 Oct 2007, by Fernando S.
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30 Aug 15
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flickering friendships
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cultural mainstream
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18 Jan 15
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three possible agendas for the development of a viable sociology of Web 2.0: the changing relations between the production and consumption of internet content; the mainstreaming of private information posted to the public domain; and, the emergence of a new rhetoric of 'democratisation'.
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embrace a renewed interest in sociological description (Savage and Burrows, 2007) as applied to new cultural digitizations
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This means that it is necessary for us to 'technologize' ourselves rather more than has hitherto been the case. At a time of rapid socio-cultural change a renewed emphasis on good – critical, distinctive and thick – sociological descriptions of emergent digital phenomena, ahead of any headlong rush into analytics, seems to us to be a sensible idea. We need to understand some of the basic parameters of our new digital objects of sociological study before we can satisfactorily locate them within any broader frames of theoretical reference.
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Web 2.0 – a supposedly second upgraded version of the web that is more open, collaborative, and participatory
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an online 'participatory culture' (Jenkins et al., 2006) where users are increasingly involved in creating web content as well as consuming it.
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as users participate in generating or producing content they build up an archive of their 'everyday life' that is openly accessible
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Understanding these connectivities, their motivations, how they come about, the hierarchies and divisions, and even who it is that populate and contribute to these applications is a problem with which we are now faced if we wish to form sociological understandings of Web 2.0
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Therefore, in order to get some idea of users and their practices it is necessary to become a 'wikizen'. The social researcher will need to be immersed, they will need to be participatory, and they will need to 'get inside' and make some 'friends'. We will have to become part of the collaborative cultures of Web 2.0, we will need to build our own profiles, make some flickering friendships, expose our own choices, preferences and views, and make ethical decisions about what we reveal and the information we filter out of these communities and into our findings. Our ability to carry out virtual ethnographies will – by necessity – involve moving from the role of observer to that of participant observer
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what we have, particularly with SNS, are vast archives on the everyday lives of individuals - a sort of ongoing codification of habitus - their preferences, choices, views, gender, physical attributes, geographical location, background, employment and educational history, photographs of them in different places, with different people and different things. These are open and accessible archives of (what was once thought of as sensitive) information that may be used to develop understandings of these people and to track out communities or networks of friends. These archives could be used to track preferences, connections, personal histories, views, friendships that may be data-mined, mapped, network analysed, discourse analysed and so on. There are possibilities then for tailoring innovative research strategies that take advantage of the interactive potentials of these new media and of the data that they hold. But can we, should we, use it to study itself?
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'Wikizens' are already engaged in sociological research of sorts (Hardey and Burrows, 2008). SNS in particular reveal a sociological tendency in web users as they search and browse through profiles of their fellow 'wikizens', reading about them, looking at photographs and so on.
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unlike the flâneur wandering around the Paris arcades as described in Benjamin's 1930s Arcades Project (1999), or even the more recent reworkings of the flâneur wandering around virtual space, the wikizen is instead involved in generating and shaping the environments that they wander through and observe
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25 May 14
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25 Nov 13
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eb 2.0 – a supposedly second upgraded version of the web that is more open, collaborative, and participatory (O'Reilly, 2005)
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networks are taking shared responsibility for the construction of vast accumulations of knowledge about themselves, each other, and the world.
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nline 'participatory culture'
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creating web content as well as consuming it
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Web 2.0 applications then have become an embedded and routine part of contemporary everyday life, particularly for young people (Lenhardt and Madden, 2005)
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rocesses of cultural speed-up (Gane, 2006)
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ikipedia is perhaps the leading example of how this type of open and collaborative practice operates to create an online repository of ideas and knowledge formed into a dynamic document that changes from day-to-day.
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above the level of a single device' (O'Reilly, 2005).
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information accessible through any web enabled interface
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'technology itself – in terms of both applications and operating software – moves from the desktop to the webtop' (Lash, 2006: 580). For Lash this has created an 'age of the portal' where 'the data find you' (Lash, 2006: 580).
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Wikis
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user-generated resources constructed and edited by anyone who wishes to contribute
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edit facility, open to anyone, that is the key feature of wikis. The second key feature is the 'sophisticated version control which enables users to see recent changes and the history of the changes of a Web page' (Korica et al., 2006: 2).
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reliability and authority of information
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tagging, this involves locating and marking or classifying a webpage with a metadata label.
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most well known and highly used folksonomy is the online video repository http://www.youtube.com.
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Mashups are 'hybrid applications, where two or more technologies or services are conflated into a completely new, novel, service' (Maness, 2006: 9).
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SNS users build profiles about themselves, posting photos, information about their backgrounds, views, work, and so on, and make 'friends' with other users. These networks often enmesh virtual and physical friendship groups as they 'support both distant and geographically proximate relationships' (Golder, et al., n.d.)
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convergence of virtual and physical worlds.
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democratisation' of the musical landscape
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hanging relations between the production and consumption of content; the mainstreaming of private information posted to the public domain;
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the emergence of a new rhetoric of 'democratisation'.
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Perhaps the key-defining feature of Web 2.0 is that users are involved in processes of production and consumption as they generate and browse online content, as they tag and blog, post and share.
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undane personal details posted on profiles, and the connections made with online 'friends', that become the commodities of Web 2.0.
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networks are free-to-access and user-generated they remain overwhelmingly commercial.
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ser profile that has become the commodity of Web 2.0,
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private information becomes open and accessible to anyone with access to the Internet.
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shift in the values of privacy t
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reported that the Pentagon's National Security Agency is funding research into the 'mass harvesting of information' posted on social networking sites (Marks, 2006).
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threat to privacy it will come down to the 'common sense' of users to moderate the disclosure of their own information
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little attempt here to conceal information.
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revealing as much information as possible in line with the projected image that the user wishes to cultivate.
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build up an archive of their 'everyday life'
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elf-production of such data also allows for the emergence of a new more general culture of 'sort' to be facilitated.
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'the people' reclaiming the Internet and taking control of its content; a kind of 'people's internet' or less positivley, the emergence of the cult of the amataur (Keen, 2007)
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led to a new collaborative, participatory or open culture
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Web 2.0 is a commercial and lightly regulated market
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t form of consumerism can easily undermine 'democratic ideals'
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effectively dehumanised accounts of lecturers. What are the implications for the health and welfare of staff on the receiving end of such public criticism? I
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egard to the consequences of the availability of this type of information for working practices and self-identity
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pointing to the way in which Web 2.0 is being constructed or, as we say here, ushered in by particular discursive frameworks.
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Understanding these connectivities, their motivations, how they come about, the hierarchies and divisions, and even who it is that populate and contribute to these applications is a problem with which we are now faced if we wish to form sociological understandings of Web
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ne possibility is that future research will have to 'come from inside the information itself' (Lash, 2002: vii).
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e need to be inside
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in order to get some idea of users and their practices it is necessary to become a 'wikizen'
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ur ability to carry out virtual ethnographies will – by necessity – involve moving from the role of observer to that of participant observer.
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second issue is that once inside these networks we may explore the possibilities of using Web 2.0 applications, and particularly the interactive potentials of SNS, as research tools or research technologies
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ut can we, should we, use it to study itself?
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s sociologists what we may need to do is take a leaf out of the 'wikizens' book and adapt to the possibilities of research from within the information flows
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SNS in particular reveal a sociological tendency in web users as they search and browse through profiles of their fellow 'wikizens', reading about them, looking at photographs and so on.
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In terms of conceptualising this change it would seem that Urry's (2003) recent call for new concepts that better capture the contemporary complexity turn is entirely fitting
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Web 2.0 applications it may also be worth giving some thought as to how they may be used to teach sociology.
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At the moment it is hard to locate areas that go untouched by the implications of user-generated and openly accessible content
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range of implications for us as sociologists.
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05 Feb 13
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29 Nov 12
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17 Oct 12
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'generating' and 'browsing', 'tagging' and 'feeds', 'commenting' and 'noting', 'reviewing' and 'rating', 'mashing-up' and making 'friends'
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The Web 2.0 we begin to characterise and describe here is complex, ambivalent, dynamic, laden with tensions and subversions, and, we would argue, of increasing sociological significance
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expand the network, make new 'friends', edit and update content, blog, remix, post, respond, share files, exhibit, tag and so on. This has been described as an online 'participatory culture' (Jenkins et al., 2006) where users are increasingly involved in creating web content as well as consuming it.
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19 Sep 12
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16 Sep 12
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14 May 12
Steven YoungAn academic introduction to the sociology of Web 2.0
web2.0 investigación_social investigación sociology web_2.0 media
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18 Apr 12
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20 Feb 12
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28 Sep 11
Lucie Fléjouarticle de David Beer and Roger Burrows, Sociological Research Online, Volume 12, Issue 5
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17 Mar 11
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20 Dec 10
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09 Dec 10
anja 01Sociology of web 2.0
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06 Oct 10
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03 Oct 10
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11 Sep 10
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19 May 10
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10 Feb 10
Keith HamonOur concern here is with a cluster of contemporary networked technologies which, popular rhetoric suggests, are reworking hierarchies, changing social divisions, creating possibilities and opportunities, informing us, and reconfiguring our relations with objects, spaces and each other.
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10 Dec 09
Ian WilkerAbstract: "This paper introduces the idea of Web 2.0 to a sociological audience as a key example of a process of cultural digitization that is moving faster than our ability to analyse it. It offers a definition, a schematic overview and a typology of the
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31 Aug 09
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supposedly second upgraded version of the web that is more open, collaborative, and participatory (O'Reilly, 2005).
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Pew Internet & American Life project reported as far back as 2005 (a long while ago in 'Internet time') found that 'more than half of all teens who go online create content for the internet' (Lenhardt and Madden, 2005: 8).
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This represents an instance where the 'technology itself – in terms of both applications and operating software – moves from the desktop to the webtop' (Lash, 2006: 580). For Lash this has created an 'age of the portal' where 'the data find you' (Lash, 2006: 580). This is highlighted as we are frequently confronted with recommendations, news specific to our interests or about our friends, suggested purchases and other things of supposed interest. These 'knowing' (Thrift, 2005) systems anticipate, through strategic data mining and classification, and search us out rather than the reverse.
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the changing relations between the production and consumption of content; the mainstreaming of private information posted to the public domain; and, our main focus here, the emergence of a new rhetoric of 'democratisation'.
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It is the profile, the informational archive of individuals' everyday lives, that draws people into the network and which encourages individuals to make 'friends'
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Although it remains unclear what the motivations for participating in such collaborative ventures are, it is certainly clear that there are millions of (what we might call) 'wikizens' making active contributions to the shaping of content and the virtual spaces through which they navigate
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The pressing questions here relate to the 'cultural circuits of capital' (Thrift, 2005) that underpin Web 2.0. First, it is important to note that although these networks are free-to-access and user-generated they remain overwhelmingly commercial. Second, it is the user profile that has become the commodity of Web 2.0, as users engage in simultaneous acts of production and consumption.
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Lash's (2006) emphasis upon the importance of 'the feed' and the image of the data actively 'finding' us. The movement toward the user-generated profile as commodity, and even the collaborative accumulation of repositories of the wiki, folksonomy and mashup, may be understood in broader terms as a part of the 'changes in the form of the commodity [that] point to the increasingly active role that the consumer is often expected to take.' (Thrift, 2005: 7).
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it will come down to the 'common sense' of users to moderate the disclosure of their own information as they become aware of the consequences.
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As we have noted, this type of information about preferences, choices, and other personal details are considered valuable in an age of 'knowing capitalism' where data-mining and predictive technologies are prominent
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Finally, Web 2.0 has been ushered in by what might be a thought of as rhetoric of 'democratisation'. This is defined by stories and images of 'the people' reclaiming the Internet and taking control of its content; a kind of 'people's internet' or less positivley, the emergence of the cult of the amataur (Keen, 2007).
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This rhetoric demands detailed and critical interrogation to reveal: how it is formed; the formation of new hierarchies and social divisions; the power of the new culture industries; the problems and subversions afforded by the collaborative culture; patterns of social participation; the creation of new 'in-crowds'; the operations of new viral marketing strategies; and, who it is that gets heard above the din that is Web 2.0.
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Are formal systems of measurement and feedback being bypassed by these informal postings and ratings
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Are staff and students more accountable?
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In this paper we have briefly highlighted a range of 'flickering connectivities' (Hayles, 2005), or, in the case of SNS, flickering friendships. Understanding these connectivities, their motivations, how they come about, the hierarchies and divisions, and even who it is that populate and contribute to these applications is a problem with which we are now faced if we wish to form sociological understandings of Web 2.0.
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One possibility is that future research will have to 'come from inside the information itself' (Lash, 2002: vii). There are two issues here. First, we need to be inside of the networks, online communities, and collaborative movements to be able to see what is going on and describe it
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It is certain that one significant difference between the citizen and the 'wikizen' is the value that they place on privacy.
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On the later we can imagine reworkings of the concept of the flâneur for instance. Here we can visualise the 'wikizen' as flâneur, wandering without direction around wikis, folksonomies, mashups and SNS, taking in the surroundings without concern for a final destination. Indeed, recently the flâneur has been re-energised as a concept for understanding the experiences of virtual space – the 'virtual flâneur' (Featherstone, 1998), the 'cyborg' flâneur (Shields, 2006), and the 'flâneur electronique' (Atkinson & Willis, 2007). The problem is that unlike the flâneur wandering around the Paris arcades as described in Benjamin's 1930s Arcades Project (1999), or even the more recent reworkings of the flâneur wandering around virtual space, the wikizen is instead involved in generating and shaping the environments that they wander through and observe.
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27 May 09
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03 May 09
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11 Feb 09
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21 Jan 09
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18 Nov 08
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18 Jul 08
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23 Jun 08
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05 Jun 08
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03 Jun 08
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22 May 08
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14 May 08
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06 May 08
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06 Feb 08
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15 Jan 08
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20 Nov 07
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30 Oct 07
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29 Oct 07
Concepción Abraira FernándezSociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations by David Beer and Roger Burrows University of York; York St John University
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22 Oct 07
pete mecThis paper introduces the idea of Web 2.0 to a sociological audience as a key example of a process of cultural digitization that is moving faster than our ability to analyse it. It offers a definition, a schematic overview and a typology of the notion as
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15 Oct 07
arne krokanThis paper introduces the idea of Web 2.0 to a sociological audience as a key example of a process of cultural digitization that is moving faster than our ability to analyse it. It offers a definition, a schematic overview and a typology of the notion as
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11 Oct 07
Jane SeckerUseful article about sociology and web 2.0 following the conference we attended in York
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10 Oct 07
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04 Oct 07
Rene Clausen Nielsen"The paper [discusses] some of the ways in which we can engage with these new web applications and go about developing sociological understandings of the new online cultures as they become increasingly significant in the mundane routines of everyday life"
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03 Oct 07
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