COMP6044   Just another ECS Blogs weblog

My idea is that every sciences are, at least, define by their object but also by their methodology. For now, sociology and psychology used the same methods on the web than for other subject. But the web offers the possibility to collect and analyses other kind of data than is allowed, for example, by experimentation in lab or by collecting information in traditional ethnography methodology. I think it will be very interesting to see how the among of data, their availability and their representativeness could modified the methods to collect and analyse them.

I want to emphazis on two aspecst, ethical and technical.

About the ethical issues to collect data which are still unclear if it is public or private (or any other conceptions). This point  will be more linked with law and understand which is allowed or not in collecting information about users.

The technical aspect will try to see and understand which kind of tools are already available to collect datas, but also which are their limits and what is possible to analyse the information.

I’m intrigued by the concept of ‘taking part’, or rather what makes people do so and what makes the participation grow into a mass participation, movement. I am however, not really concerned in this instance with political factors, as such.

For certain this is a well trodden path, but drawing on Sociology and Psychology as it must, it is certainly new to me. I have never having formally studied Sociology and last touched Psychology at A’level.

Therefore, I feel that these subjects are both sufficiently new and distant to warrant investigation.

Particularly of interest are the necessary factors that a movement must possess, in order to move from the underground to the overground.

Multiple studies of mass movements, will have investigated peer pressure, elements of conformity, the necessary perceived benefits and advantages, as well as other influences that must combine, for crowd behaviour to succeed. Conversely, I would like to look into that which might be absent when such ‘crowds’ fail.

I think there’s something here that is of interest. However,  there’s an element of it that doesn’t quite ring right, as far as the idea is concerned. Plainly, I’m wondering if it appears ‘weak’ as an attempted combination.

I’m definitely out of date with my reading:  Many searches against this topic (Crowds/Popular movements) throw up politics and revolution. In order to filter these for Sociological and Psychological factors, whilst avoiding purely classical Marxist interpretation, further investigations will have to take place (by w/e Nov 7th).

1) The tipping point : how little things can make a big difference
Author :Gladwell, Malcolm, 1963-

2) The wisdom of crowds [electronic resource] : why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies, and nations 1st ed.
Author: Surowiecki, James, 1967