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E-democracy (electronic democracy or digital democracy) is a relatively new concept. It can be defined as the usage of information and communication technologies (ICT) for the enhancement of the participation of citizens in the democratic process. However, it can be argued that these technologies and especially the World Wide Web can play a bigger role in that process, by providing opportunities for reshaping the way democratic institutions currently work.

In order to evaluate the above statement, a thorough study of the way Democracy works is needed. Furthermore, prevalent ideologies within democratic states are factors that affect the degree of adoption of e-democracy, so studying Political Science textbooks is a way to be introduced to the most important ones.

The study of issues like collective action, discourse and decision making is crucial for gaining an understanding of the democratic process on both an offline context and the Web. For this reason, knowledge of Sociology and its basic principles is needed.

Some books to be used as an introduction to the aforementioned disciplines are:

Political Science:

• Political Ideologies: an introduction – Eccleshal et al
• Political Sociology: a critical introduction – Faulks

Sociology:

• Sociology – Giddens
• Sociology: A Global Introduction – Macionis, Plummer

Some other books that may be useful are:

• The Myth of Digital Democracy – Hindman
• Sociology in the Age of the Internet (Sociology and Social Change) – Cavanagh
• The Social Net: Human behavior in cyberspace – Amichai-Hamburger

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively (as defined in Wikipedia). In other words, the individual has the ability to decide what is private, i.e. belongs only to him and what is public, i.e. is open to others as well.
However, in practice preserving one’s privacy or private information is not an easy task. In addition to this, in many cases the boundaries between private and public are obscure; especially on the Web, privacy is an area of controversy.
Nowadays, as people post their personal data online for various reasons (in social networking sites, blogs, electronic purchases etc.), many are concerned about who can control/access their data after these are exposed online. On the other hand, a significant number of people, especially younger people, are quite confident about posting their data online and feel no threats regarding their privacy; some of them are also ignorant of the possible threats. A privacy paradox emerges, as many people talk about intrusion of their privacy online, yet nobody actually takes action against it.
Numerous questions regarding privacy arise, such as which are the boundaries of privacy, how important is online privacy, how much information should people post online, how much information do organisations and governments actually need etc.
From a social standpoint, the Web is a “global village”, a very large social network, where anyone has the ability to access a great deal of information. This “global village” is beyond the boundaries of a specific group or nation, but extends itself worldwide. That means that each individual does not anymore belong to a small town or village; instead the Web contributes to bringing people from different backgrounds closer.
Since invasion of privacy is a common phenomenon on the Web, it affects global society directly.
However, different nations and cultures may have different opinions on what is public and what is private. Especially, eastern societies, which are more conservative, may have more strict opinions on certain privacy matters. Significantly, people who belong to some social/religious groups or are socially isolated for some reason, may be more vulnerable in terms of privacy.
Many are of the opinion that with the appearance of social networking sites, privacy is not anymore a social norm. Is this actually true? Should we stop believing that some information just belongs to us, but is open to the public instead?

From a psychological standpoint, people behave differently during their online interactions than during their offline interactions and something that they would consider public in the offline world, they may regard it as private in the offline world or vice versa. Of great interest are also topics such as the reasons why some people post their intimate thoughts or experiences online without thinking about the consequences and the way people manage or experiment with their online identities. Many people adopt an online persona, which might be very different than their actual self. This online role playing game, may be helpful to some (for instance to teenagers, who are at the stage of establishing their identity), but it might provoke privacy breaches, when malicious users try to hide themselves behind a mask. In the past, there have been many cases where people with malicious motives have approached others online (especially younger people).
To sum up, all the above mentioned are some initial thoughts on approaching the matter of privacy on the World Wide Web and are definitely going to be enriched and altered after thorough research. The list given below contains a number of books taken from these two disciplines that may be helpful in the analysis of the concept of privacy.

Reading List:

A. Sociology
• Global Sociology by R. Cohen, P. Kennedy 2nd Edition (2007)
• Social Divisions by G. Payne 2nd Edition (2007)
• Introductory Sociology by T.Bilton et al. 4th Edition (2002)
• Sociology by A. Giddens 6th Edition (2009)
• Sociology, Themes and Perspectives by Haralambos and Holborn 7th Edition (2008)
• The rise of the network society by M. Castells Volume 1 2nd Edition (2000)
• The power of Identity by M. Castells Volume 2 2nd Edition (2004)
• The Internet Galaxy by M. Castells (2001)
• Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices by R. Kling 2nd Edition
(1996)
• Social Identity and Social Cognition by D. Abrams (1999)
• Born Digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives by J. Palfrey (2008)
• Understanding Social Problems: Issues on Social Policy by M. May (2001)

B. Psychology
• Psychology by G. Martin et al. 3rd European Edition (2007)
• The Psychology of the Internet by P. Wallace (1999)
• Introduction to Social Psychology by R. Lippa (1999)
• Psychology – The Science of Mind and Behaviour by P. Gross 5th Edition (2005)

Issues

The Web has been always studied as a technology. The features of it usually are associated with technology invention rather than evaluating its value in the market. For example, people want to press their blogs and contribute to the Wikipedia without any money returns, which are considered as a social activity. That is true. However, how to transfer this activity into real market to make profit should be considered as well.

The issue I want to address in this module is to find out how to measure the value of user-generated content and also the valuable assets in the Semantic Web, which is one of the open questions in the economist’s view of Web Science. The Web has been changing without a break since it was released in the world. It changes from a system to publish information into a platform in which people can edit and publish their contents freely and easily. One of the reasons that bring this change within the Web is coming from Web 2.0, especially the user-generated feature of Web 2.0. Although it is the freeness and openness that promotes people to participate in the content construction with a great enthusiasm, it does not mean that the nature is to generate contents only. However, there should be a market to make these activities valuable. Consequently, how to dig out the element of economic stimulus and at the same time without losing the passion of people to build those contents is becoming a question to be studied in further researches. Moreover, the next generation Web visibly tends to be the Semantic Web which will integrate information and supply intelligent services through intelligent agents rather than artificially. The value therefore will not only come from the services, but also stay in the mechanism and the intelligences on the Web. So it is worth digging out the value of the Semantic Web and transferring it into the society and the market as well.

Disciplines

There are two disciplines in this research which are economics and sociology. The main focus of this research is standing in the economic point of view to measure the economic value of the Web. Therefore, it is very necessary to do research in economic aspect. Meanwhile, as economics cannot be applied without the society, it is helpful to combine the sociology with economics to get deep understanding about it. The sociology is based on the whole society to understand the structure, function and the law of development of our society through studying the social relations and social behaviors. Due to the enlarging influence of the Web, the social relations and social behaviors have been changed correspondingly. Consequently, by studying the nature of society and the changes caused by the Web, we can sufficiently to understand the society in nowadays and the development tendency, catching the insight to apply on the economic analysis.

Current Reading List

Economics by N. Gregory Mankiw , Mark P. Taylor

This book is about the basic concept of economics. It will help to understand how the economy works in the society.

Innovation Management and New Product Development by Dr Paul Trott

It is a useful book for transferring the technology into the real market. It is also used in the innovation module to help find a suitable way to connect different disciplines from technology aspect to the management aspect. The most important part is to tell us how to apply the new technology within the real market to improve the society.

Sociology Work and Industry by Tony J. Watson

This book describes how the discipline of sociology are understood and used in industry aspect. In the book, what is sociology is explained first and then connected with the industry to give wider understanding.

Understanding Classical Sociology by John A. Hughes, Wes W.Sharrock, Peter J. Martin

To give me some ideas of what chapters to focus on when studying the very large introductory texts on my chosen topics – sociology and psychology I scanned over two books for current ideas into online societies.

1. Reputation in Online Societies, Roasari Conte and Mario Paolucci.

Subject of the book was an investigation into a set of intertwined phenomena: image, reputation and gossip, that play a vital role in societies. The books main conviction is that this same or analogous set is likely to promote the development of information and technology societies.

I found this book difficult to read, very technical and I believe it was just a phD thesis that had just been dumped into book form, with little care for layout of chapters, themes and conclusions.

Also the book is more concerned about user-agents rather than actual physical people as authors wanted to test their hypotheses about behaviour using computer user-agents. This book was not as useful to my review as its title had originally suggested.

2.The Rise of the Network society, Manuell Castells

This book was better structured and had some good insights into why individuals sometimes join societies. One of the ideas put forward is that it is part of the search for new connectedness around shared, reconstructed identity. Also that shift from mechanical to information technologies has subverted our notions of sovereignty and self-sufficiency that had provided us with some anchoring for individual identity since two millennia ago. This search for new connectedness was found not only to exist in West but also in East where in Japan in 1995, the young highly educated generation exhibited an almost desperate need to build a new collective self, significantly mixing spirituality and global business relations.

Also I have been reading World Brain by HG Wells, to see how ideas for highly connected societies with collective outputs occupied the thoughts of a famous science fiction writer, who was writing in age before the information technology society of late 1900s even existed. My initial conclusions is that HG Wells was an unwavering optimist, and that part of reasons that many of his predictions and hopes have never been realised is that humans and human societies are imperfect, and due to their large population size the voices of a few luminaries often gets drowned out in the crowd.

Actions decided for next week:

Find most useful key themes for society’s values, cultures and norms from core textbooks and  start to find links to further related material

Next week I will do a more controlled approach, instead of looking for proof of how online communities are found to be similar or else unlike traditional physical communities, I will look at case studies or examples of each and do my own comparing and contrasting. This is because after an initial search of library there is little or no material about this particular theme. While this makes it harder to back up and verify any conclusions it will at least mean I will be adding new knowledge to an interesting Web Science related theme.

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 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.