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RESEARCH ISSUE – ONLINE IDENTITY:

Overview:

A very interesting issue for research would be to investigate the concept of identity on the Web and the possible consequences of potential anonymity – such as ‘Flaming.’

Identity on the Web is an important area to be examined, as people may be able to portray a different identity online than in the physical world. Therefore, it may enable people to voice an opinion without constraints, or depict a variant identity online – for example how an individual may use a social networking site.

In the Foundations of Web Science Module there was a sociology lecture focused on this area entitled: ‘Social Structures.’ Furthermore, there was also a politics lecture that centred on the concept of privacy on the Web and possible concealment of identity. Therefore, it would be very appealing to examine how both the sociological and political views on the Web in regards to identity are similar and compare these disciplines’ methodologies.

Intial Research Areas:

• Does the potential anonymity the Web affords offer an opportunity for individuals to express their real-selves? Or can it be used for exaggeration – such as, individuals portraying themselves as how they would like to act in the physical world, and over the top aggressive behaviour (‘flaming.’)
• Do individuals have a separate online identity? Is an individual’s identity online a reflection of their real-self, or an exaggeration?
• ‘Gender-Switching’
• How has the Web impacted on our identity? Does the way identity is viewed differ from before the Web?
• How does the ability to create anonymous identities and allow people to pretend to be other real-world identities create new issues such as cyber-stalking and online defamation?
• Can anonymity allow individuals a better way to express their real beliefs about Government and policy?

Preliminary Sociology Research:

What is Sociology?

http://www.soton.ac.uk/socsci/sociology/study/ug/degree.html

University of Southampton: BSc Sociology – The Modules

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/socsci/sociology/study/ug/socstruct.html

A Breakdown of the Available Modules

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/socsci/sociology/study/ug/modules.html#traditions

Current Reading:

Green, E. and Adam, A, ‘Virtual Gender: Technology, Consumption and Identity,’ (Routledge, London, 2001)

This book contains interesting studies in regards to ‘gender-switching’ on the Web. Why might a female individual wish to portray a male identity online – and vice versa?

Jones, P, ‘Introducing Social Theory,’ (Polity Press, Cambridge, 2003)

This book offers an overview of sociological theory; however, it has become apparent that there are many different schools of thought in regards to the concept of identity. For example, on one hand it is argued that ‘body-centredness’ governs the concept of identity, whereas other theorists believe that due to the modern age and ‘consumer culture,’ material belongings are now used in its expression.

Other Reading:

Sassen, S, ‘A Sociology of Globalization,’ (Norton & Company, London, 2007)

Nunes, M, ‘Cyberspaces of Everyday Life,’ (University of Minnesota Press, London, 2006)

Lull, J, (Eds.,) ‘Culture in the Communication Age,’ (Routledge, London, 2001)

Two disciplines chosen: sociology and psychology.
Title: Looking inside online social networks.

I intend to undertake a period of interdisciplinary study into the social structures, both past and present, on the Internet, with particular focus on communities existing on the Web. I intend to present ideas as to why unique groups and large online communities have formed, by bringing together knowledge from two areas, chiefly sociology and psychology.
The groups that form online can have unique creative outputs – such as Wikipedia or Open Source Software, and I would like to look at how disciplines such as sociology and psychology could offer insight into online group formation and group dynamics. The discipline of sociology will provide grounding in human society, and social activity, and psychology will help make sense of individual motivations for engaging in group activities.

Our knowledge of collective consciousness, the shared beliefs and moral attitudes of society, may not translate to online society. As such the unifying forces within online communities may be different to real world counterparts, and worthy of discussion.

• Do online communities have any effect on a society’s language or culture?

• Identify any shared beliefs and moral attitudes that act as unifying values within online communities.

• Parallels and differences between online and offline groups and associated activities.

• The advantages or disadvantages of being part of an online group

• How online social activities are made possible by identifying Internet and Web technologies that facilitate forming groups and maintaining communication between members.

• Describe and present reasons for features of different online communities, such as network graph, how they are distributed geographically, presence of weak ties, different roles of various group members.

• Parallels and differences between online and offline groups and associated activities.

• The advantages or disadvantages of being part of an online group

• How online social activities are made possible by identifying Internet and Web technologies that facilitate forming groups and maintaining communication between members.

• Describe and present reasons for features of different online communities, such as network graph, how they are distributed geographically, presence of weak ties, different roles of various group members.

• If there exists any hierarchies in communities or if it is a flat graph structure, and comparing this to knowledge from sociology about physical world communities.

• The psychology of why people want to form groups online, become part of certain groups or break off from groups.

• Do online communities have any effect on a society’s language or culture?

• Identify any shared beliefs and moral attitudes that act as unifying values within online communities.

Resources identified as being useful for proposed work

Sociology:

• Introductory sociology, 4th ed. Bilton, Tony

• Sociology, 5th ed. Giddens, Anthony

• Sociology : themes and perspectives 4th ed. Haralambos Michael.

• Social identity and social cognition : an introduction, Abrams, Domi

• The rise of the network society 2nd ed. Castells, Manuel.

Psychology:

• Psychology, 2nd European ed. Carlson, Neil R

• Psychology: the science of mind and behaviour, 5th ed. Gross, Richa
• Introduction to social psychology, 2nd ed. Lippa, Richard A

The prevailing assumption of cybercrime is that it is a massive threat that could cause unimaginable chaos to society. However, this is just a virtual threat. The reality is that cybercrimes most often involve small impact bulk victimisations which can be individually insignificant but collectively significant. Most cybercriminals target the long tail of crime where they prefer to commit more crimes with less gain. An example of that would be a cybercriminal scamming 50 million people for £1.

Such a model of crime has several advantages over traditional models of crime as individually insignificant amount of losses means:
1. Victims would be less bothered about reporting the crime
2. Police less likely to get involved
3. Credit card companies less bothered

For more information, please see the presentation on “Organized Crime and the Organization of Cybercrime” given by David Wall.

The study of cybercrime requires a multidisciplinary approach as the society is affected. Economics, law, sociology, psychology and criminology are just some of the disciplines involved. It is my intention to understand cybercrimes from the economics and criminology perspective so that I can have a better understanding on why cybercrimes occur.

Economics

After reading the presentation on “How Economics and Information Security Affects Cyber Crime and What This Means in the Context of a Global Recession” given by Peter Guerra, I believe that by understanding more about the economic incentives behind cybercrime, that is, the incentives to commit crime and the incentives to protect from crime, I would gain a better understanding of the rationale behind cybercrimes and whether critical points can be identified using economic theories.

The economic books which I’m proposing to read are:

1. Microeconomics: Principles and analysis by F.A. Cowell
2. Economics (6th Ed) by J. Sloman

Criminology

Criminology is the study of crimes and by studying criminology, I’m looking to develop an understanding on the theories in criminology and an imaginative mind on crimes so that not only I can understand why crimes occur but can also anticipate when and where crime is likely to occur. There are three textbooks I’ve found which are relevant:

1. Criminology: The Basics by Sandra Walklate
2. The Oxford Handbook of Criminology by Mike Maguire, Rod Morgan, and Robert Reiner
3. Cybercrime: The Transformation of Crime in the Information Age by David S. Wall
4. Handbook of Internet Crime by Yvonne Jewkes and Majid Yar

The Introduction

Trust is hugely important. In our everyday lives we put a  huge amount of trust in other people as we simply cannot do all of the things that we have to do to be able to get by. We depend on doctors to help us out with medical issues because we do not know everything about medicine to be able to treat ourselves; we put our trust in them. The same happens in the case of teaching, our finances and basically everything that we do. As we now begin to spend more and more of our time online; from shopping to socialising with friends to the rest, the trust that we have in the physical world now has to move with us into the virtual one.

In the real world we can however at least see the person we are interacting with and whilst we put our trust in that person who claims to be a gas inspector and let them into our house on the basis of no more than a badge, we have a security blanket in place in that we are at least there to monitor. In the online world however  you cannot see that person and so trust takes on a different perception. What drives the trust that we put in others when online is really interesting and something that I am going to be examining from sociological and psychological points of view.

Sociology is the study of society; refinement of the body of knowledge in respect of human activity. Psychology by contract looks at the human and his mental functions and operations. The two really work well with one another and complement one another as one hand you have the stud of the individual and his perceptions and what drive him and then subsequently an examination of society as a whole and what drives it.

The core texts in the disciplines will allow me to understand how the two view the issue of trust and in turn allow me to explore how these relate to the Web; why we adopt the notions that we do in respect of trusting people online as an individual and as a society.

References

Sociology

• ‘Introductory Sociology’ – Bilton, Bonnett, Jones, Lawson, Skinner, Stanworth & Webster
• ‘Thinking Sociologically’ – Bauman
• ‘A New Introduction to Sociology’ – O’Donnell.
• ‘An Introduction to Political Sociology’ – Rush

Psychology

• ‘Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology’ – Kolb & Whishaw
• ‘ Psychology: The Science of the Mind and Behaviour’ – Gross
• ‘Psychology: An Introduction’ – Hayes & Orrell

Title:

Core Sociological and Psychological views of Extremism on the Web.

Brief:

Recent articles such as Gerstenfeld’s “Hate Online: A Content Analysis of Extremist Internet Sites” have shown that extremist groups are using the web as a communication and promotion tool, uniting people with a common cause that is not necessarily tolerated in the offline world.  Some of the core themes of psychology and sociology explain why extremism is becoming more prevelant on the web than ever before, for example: the anonymity, security and community offered by online communications allows people to express feelings that they may have otherwise kept to themselves; the location-independent online world allows disparate groups, united by religious or political ideals, to come together and share their views.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee envisaged an ‘open’ web when he created WorldWideWeb in 1989.  The ideal that the web should be free to use and edit by anyone is open to abuse, but are extremist or hate websites abuse of this or part of the openness of the web?  As such should these types of online communities be allowed to exist freely or should they be censored?

Looking at the core textbooks in psychology and sociology allows an insight into the reasons for the prevalence of extremist web sites and discussion groups, from the point of view of a pre-web world, or at least looking at the core reasons for this behaviour.

The core sociological and psychological views on extremist behaviour will be translated to the online world in an effort to explain why hate groups and extremist websites are prevalent on the web, as well as providing an insight into the impact of censorship of such sites.

References:
Core:

• Introduction to social psychology: a European perspective. Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe
• Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior. Dennis Coon, John O. Mitterer
• Sociology: a global introduction. John J. Macionis, Kenneth Plummer
• Thinking sociologically. Zygmunt Bauman, Tim May

Relevant / Recent:

• Sociology in the Age of the Internet (Sociology and Social Change). Cavanagh
• The Social Net: Human behavior in cyberspace. Amichai-Hamburger
• The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. Ralph W. Hood, Jr., Peter C. Hill, Bernard Spilka

ISSUE:
This review will be focusing on how the Web is changing the way society is able to engage with the government, specifically with new forms of communications, such as E-Voting, E-Petitions (such as that on number10.gov).

Previously Society in general had a lack of contact with their government and local MP’s. However now with the Web, the general public can get in to direct contact with MP’s by the use of email, start political debate on Web based forums and have access to Government data / information much more easily. Furthermore as mentioned above, the ability now for E-Petitions could be seen to allow for a greater level of democracy. Furthermore from a MP’s prospectus, they can gain a greater national or even global reach very quickly, by use of such Web 2.0 tools as Twitter (or TweetMinster).

Not only are MP’s now using twitter to advertise their policies and everyday business involving government issues, but the general public are tweeting, blogging and using video media to actively engage and discuss such issues. Using trend trackers for tweets, governments have the ability to analyse key political topics which are being discussed. Reading different articles such as that of an article at corporate-eye suggests that such Web based tools are being used to a government party’s advantage.
Does this increase in communication methods available mean that the core structure of how governments operate is changing and do these changes change the fundamental principles of political and social structures? It is clear to say that the web is now one of the advertising/campaigning pathways for any government or political party, however what needs to be discussed is the changes that society will face in the near future.

DISCIPLINES:
There are several disciplines that can be examined, however two key disciplines, Politics and Sociology will be explored. The fundamental principles of both with be reviewed and then discussed in the context of the issue stated.

Exploring the sociological discipline, the topic of political sociology can be examined, which looks at the relations between state and society. Within this topic, there are certain areas which can be discussed in relation to Web Science: the socio-political formation of a state, how public movements and formal institutions outside the political power affect politics.

Exploring the Political discipline, political engagement is an area which may be changing due to the Web. Within this topic, such issues as Political campaigning can be discussed and then related to how the Web is changing the structure of such campaigns.
From gaining some understanding in the fundamentals of both disciplines, hopefully the key principles then can be applied to what is occurring on the Web (and in society) at present, hence forming a conclusion regarding whether the original political and sociological models are changing.

TEXTBOOKS:
POLITICS

• Introduction to politics and society – Best, Shaun.
• Comparative Government and Politics, an Introduction – Hague, Rod.
• Internet politics: states, citizens, and new communication technologies – Chadwick, Andrew

SOCIOLOGY
BOOKS CURRENTLY READING:
• Thinking Sociologically – Zygmunt Bauman
• Introduction to Sociology – Theodor W. Adorno
• Approaching Sociology: a Critical Introduction – Coulson, Margaret A.
• Doing Sociology: A Practical Introduction, Harvey, Lee.