COMP6044   Just another ECS Blogs weblog

It won’t be a surprise to anyone who sat in that class when we discussed our chosen topic that I found choosing really difficult. My problem fundamentally stemmed from one basic question: How can I examine A (the topic) through B and C (Disciplines 1 and 2) when I have no prior knowledge on any of them?  Add then to that the fact you’d hope the topics or disciplines had at least some relevance to something you might want to do in the future, or even just tickle your fancy…at least long enough for you not to immediately lose interest in all three. I was also afraid of my topic being too (for lack of a better word) ambitious, that the perspectives I was hoping to look at the topic from where too specialist or too wide, and I wouldn’t get a clear idea of anything. Yes, yes, that’s right, in other words, I was afraid of failing spectacularly.

After not-so-much brainstorming and much more just blurting out half-baked ideas, I have made the decision to go with a topic that I am very excited about. The two disciplines that I’m going to dip into are Psychology and AI. I’ve started doing some preliminary reading but nothing that I would confidently add to the bibliography as of yet…The most promising leads are from the seminar on Cognition and the Semantic Web I attended at Soton.ac.uk before term started, as well as some of the material we covered with Craig in his “Psychology 101” session last week in the coffee room. Having read some of the other blog posts as well, I’m hoping to chat to some of you in the next couple of days.

I have chosen Identity as my issue to study, and will examine this from a psychological and (socio-cultural) anthropological perspective. I am interested in the effect that the Web can have on different cultures and different people, so I think these two disciplines fit nicely with that interest and will hopefully build up a solid background in part of a wide area that I am keen on studying for my dissertation. The two disciplines should allow me to contrast what psychology says about the identity of the individual, with the theories of anthropology regarding the formation of cultural identity.

I will begin by reading the basic textbooks in each area:

• Handbook of Self and Identity by Leary, M and Tangney, P
• The Self by Sedikides, C
• Cultural Anthropology A Contemporary Perspective by Keesing, R and Strathern, A
• Small places, large issues : an introduction to social and cultural anthropology by Eriksen, T

Hopefully these will be a good start and direct me to other important books in this area!

The growth of the web has empowered consumer, irreversibly changing the way society conducts economic transactions. Individuals can now source goods from across the globe, rather than simply relying on local suppliers, escaping what some have labelled the tyranny of location. Consumers increased search ability has inevitably allowed consumers to source better value, and hence gain more for their money, in turn allowing for increased investment.

I plan to investigate the changes in consumer behaviour and a shift towards a more open economy which have been facilitated by the web. I plan to look at this from the perspective of both the consumer and the producer/ retailer, possibly going towards discussing the growth of the prosumer, for example within the entertainment industry. I also intend to look at the growth of online auction sites, such as eBay and consider whether the growth of such sites it solely due to them allow the consumer to access specific goods, at generally lower price, or whether being a member of such community has its own non tangible benefits, possibly talking a slight detour discussing whether or not such sites allow for the development of a social identity, and rank, and whether or not this can be considered a unique selling point, and benefit of using such a service.

One of the disciplines I plan to use to discuss this with is sociology, discussing how a change in social norms and attitude has facilitated the changes. I intend to look at both large scale macro theories, such as functionalism and Marxism but also looking at more specific and detailed micro theories, such as the development of social norms within online communities. It would also be interesting to look at whether there is a global shift or whether the changes are limited to key small populations or demographics, it may be that many lack the skills, time or equipment required to take advantage of the cheaper prices available online, and as such are still locale bound. If many are not taking advantage, it would be prudent to look at why not.   

The discipline I plan to contrast this with is economics, discussing the models that are available to illustrate the paradigm shift. For example discussing how the growth of the web has allowed suppliers to outsource parts of their business, allowing for lower prices, which could be passed to the consumer or held as greater profit margins, alternatively how companies do not need to rent shop spare or hire large teams of retail staff if they are primarily operating online, this further reduces company cost, allowing for them to retail such goods at lower prices, allowing to consumer to purchase more. As I currently know very little regarding academic economics, I hope this will provide a far more mathematical reasoning and will hopefully contrast well with the methodology and theories of sociology. It would also be interesting to do some future gazing, we all know that due to the recession businesses are facing increasing hard times, with consumers having considerably less disposable income, and expenses such as rent/ mortgages growing, is it inevitable that the vast majority of transactions will migrate to being online in the coming decades?

Upon deciding which disciplines to investigate I started to read through Sociology, Themes and perspectives, by Haralambos and Holborn, which focuses on the main macro theories of sociology and applies them to a variety of variant topic areas, I needed to look at this type of work as I have not looked at this topic area before, I intend to look at more specific works once I have established a grounding. I have made considerably less progress with my reading regarding foundations economics, progressing little further than reading the Wikipedia entries for both economics and game theory. This week I intend to build my economics foundation to allow to start to look at more specific texts.

Given the fact it helps understand so many of the issues I am interested in it is very difficult for me to avoid sociology. For alternatives, I am thinking about psychology/social psychology/neural psychology/biology. I need an issue that requires different explanations from these fields. Addiction, for example is understood as a biological phenomenon but it also needs certain environmental conditions before it escalates. I am sceptical about claims that overuse of the web can somehow alter the chemistry or structure of the brain. Therefore, I am also interested in investigating neural plasticity. This would give me an entry point into neural psychology however; it is hard to think of another discipline that would intersect this research. Perhaps a telescopic view would understand why this issue is given any attention at all. I.e. why does the media endorse and thrive on such stories?

So… I have chosen ‘gender’ as my topic for consideration.  Why am I looking at gender?  Over the past few years, whilst using social networking systems, and generally being ‘online’, I have become increasingly interested by the representation of identity online, in particular in virtual communities, and the ways in which social constructs in the real world, impact on, and in some cases dictate, social constructs in the online world.  I am going to be looking at the topic of gender over the next few weeks, concentrating on the ways in which gender (and perhaps also sexuality) are represented on the web, and how traditional ideas about gender are being challenged by the way that the web ‘works’.  By this I mean the ways in which the communities of the web work; how these communities communicate with one another, how they promote themselves, and how they understand one another through online profiles.

Some of the questions that I have been thinking about in the lead up to putting together my research question and looking to identify the best approaches to tackling these questions:

In some instances, is gender constructed online and then reified in the real world, rather than, as we would imagine, the other way round?  Are the possibilities identified in online communities really a way to escape hegemonic gender representations?  Does removal from the corporeal constraints of the real world allow for a reaffirmation of notions of gender, or do the social constructs that bind gender in the real world apply within those worlds that we have created on the web?  What are the differences online between actual and perceived gender and how do these manifest themselves? How would we begin to look at these from different perspectives to try to analyse the effects of adopting different genders online, or the effects of having to abide by the gender rules online, to which you are traditionally bound offline?

Themes in online communities like dynamics, harassment, recommendations, are all impacted on by understandings and interpretations of gender.  Sociology seemed like an obvious approach to tackling this issue, and I have chosen also to look at gender (and therefore identity) from the perspectives of biologists.  I think that this will provide me with two seemingly diametrically opposed perspectives to the construction of gender in the real world (although I am sure that this will not be the case when I start digging into the methods and methodologies of these two disciplines), and this could lead to some useful tools for looking at the construction of gender in the online world.  The use of gender to compartmentalise online users of virtual communities, for targeted advertising, gaming experiences, etc. could benefit from a better understanding of the ways in which gender can be constructed, and also deconstructed, online from both sociological and biological perspectives.

That’s all a bit repetitive!  I am going to put together a more concise research question and a list of expected key readings and key discipline perspectives later, I just thought I’d get my first thoughts up while they were fresh in my mind.

Welcome to COMP6044, the Independent Disciplinary Review for the Web Science MSc.

This blog allows you (the registered students) to provide a weekly update of the reading that you have undertaken. Partly it is a way of being disciplined and making sure that you are putting in the required hours, and partly it is a way of recording your emerging understanding by explaining it to your fellow students so that your “dissertation” writes itself over the period of the module.

This last blog post is purely anecdotal, and discussion some of the concepts uncovered as part of the IDR.

Interestingly one thing that is often spoken about in organisations is team-work. I had hoped to include a small paragraph about why organisations are keen to promote good team work and value members or employees with good team work skills. I couldn’t find any good chapters from either psychology or sociology to define it or discuss the mechanisms involved. This led to my own late realisation (rather than any serendipitous discovery) that teamwork is really a buzz word, an undefined concept, that has gained some traction. Fortunately from all reading I have done so far as part of this module I can formulate some of hypothesis for mechanisms behind ‘team work’.

The reasons for group of individuals working as part of a team can be explained using social psychology terms like goal theory, social facilitation and emotions. Even homeostatic theory could arguably be involved as humans can have a daily optimum level of contact or communication with others that they wish to fulfill. So, the next time you are asked at an interview or performance evaluation about what you understand by team work you can say that ‘team work is a complex social phenomenon in which individuals co-operate during activities in order to achieve certain goals, as well as fulfil a certain required level of some personal need, such as to communicate with others. Also, team work is product of social facilitation as it often causes individuals to become more involved and emotional about an activity because they are in the presence of others.’

Returning to why this is relevant for understanding groups, I had initially wanted to look at group behaviour and how it affects outputs. It now appears that fundamentals from sociology and psychology of human behaviour are base of most of the behaviours involved in groups. Applying abstract labels such as team-work can be a useful term to categorise the behaviour of a group working as a team, but looking at fundamentals is essential to understand actions of individuals working as part of a group.

A often cited experiment for understanding group behaviour, especially in relation to prejudice and conflict resolution is the

Robbers’ Cave’s experiment. This involved two groups, each of which were allowed to form a group identity and spend time engaged in some cooperative activities within their group. Later, both groups were entered to directly compete for prizes. Conflicts then quickly developed between the groups after losing rounds of the competition. Conflict resolution, and a reduction in intra and inter group prejudices was achieved by designing co-operative activities where the goals could only be achieved through co-operation of both groups.

I hope you enjoyed the blog posts, the final written report will contain the best of the blog posts plus some other ideas, and the what conclusions I have came to when comparing fundamental information about groups offline to online groups.

My previous posts gave an overview of the books that I was reading every week. After having read a number of books, that contain different viewpoints, I now have a more critical view on the subject of privacy.

The last few weeks I have focused my reading on certain textbooks from both Sociology and Psychology, but also on some books regarding privacy specifically (I discussed the second option with our lecturer and have taken his approval).

As far as Sociology is concerned, I read certain chapters from “Sociology” textbook by Giddens, that refer to social networks, as well as “The Power of Identity” by Castells. It was of great interest to my research finding out the differences between social networks and groups. “Thinking Sociologically” by Bauman helped me understand their differences more in depth, as the author describes in detail the way social groups are formed and behave towards other groups.

The “Power of Identity” along with a book entitled “The Invasion of Privacy”, written in the ’70s, helped me both to understand the relationship between people’s privacy and the State and the steps that the State has or hasn’t (??) taken towards protection of privacy from the ’70s till today.

As far as Psychology is concerned, I continued reading the “Social Psychology” textbook, which helped me focus more on the Self, his characteristics and the way the self regulates people’s behaviour. A book entitled “Between Public and Private – The Lost Boundaries of the Self”, helped me get a grip on further concepts that deal with the self and privacy, such as intimacy. Reading another textbook entitled “Applied Social Psychology” helped me understand the importance of material possesions in exerting control over other people and showing a social status.

Another book that appeared to be valuable to my study was “Privacy” by Young, which focused on several concepts that are related to privacy, such as anonymity, solitude, loneliness and confidentiality.

Finally, I have begun to focus my research on comparing the two disciplines and their relation to the concept of privacy. Psychologists place privacy at a micro scale, they consider it a problem of each individual, whereas sociologists locate it at a macro scale and regard privacy as a social issue. Which one is right and which one is wrong? Or are they both correct? More on this matter, in my final report…

Having discussed democracy as a form of government, it is only natural to continue with the concept of freedom (or liberty). Freedom is most often defined by using is opposite, that is freedom is the absence of constraint. Although freedom is considered intrinsically good, there are sometimes legitimate reasons to limit freedom in order to protect other values, so even in a democracy, there is no such thing as complete freedom. Even though democracy seems closely related to freedom, there are examples of democracies limiting freedom, albeit with sufficient reasons.

A type of constraints of freedom which are relevant to e-democracy, are economic impediments. Due to the economic inequality of society, not all its members are free to participate in political affairs, and more importantly, may not even have access to the internet.

Another matter that needs to be discussed is freedom of speech. Even though the web offers anonymity, there are cases of “imperfect democracies” where activities and websites with political content were deemed subversive by the regime and access to them was terminated. There is also the case of developed democratic states that have passed legislation that terminates internet access to users that have broken the law online. This could be argued that it limits their freedoms in an overwhelmingly excessive way and thus constitutes unfair punishment.

One interesting aspect of the Web is that it can enhance the -already high- efficiency of state bureaucracy. According to Weber, its characteristics are amongst others precision, speed, unambiguity, reduction of material  and personal cost. All this advantages can be augmented by the Web and that is why states have invested a lot in this direction, trying to establish an online bureaucracy and e-government portals. This is in part done in order to improve the quality of governance, according to the elements of “good governance” which are the following:

• Participation in making and implementing decisions
• Clear legal frameworks with respect to human rights
• Transparency in decision making
• Responsiveness towards social needs
• Consensus-oriented
• Equal opportunities for all
• Effectiveness and efficiency
• Accountability of decision makers

Some of the above elements can be clearly enhanced by the Web, while others are still bound to the offline realm.

Civil society is the framework that those without political authority live within. It stand apart from political authority (and even commercial institutions), however no clear boundary can be drawn between them. It is composed of voluntary civic and social organisations, for example non-governmental organisations. The Web has been used extensively by such organisations, which understood its benefits faster than governments.  Better horizontal communication as well as the ability to organise in online communities have enabled them to become larger and better coordinated. Faster mobilisation of supporters helped organise protests and activist ‘instant mobs’. There is also the use of blogs to post alternative versions of events, as mentioned above when discussing freedom of speech. Of course, as always, there are also negative effects. Political blackmailing, propaganda and libel were also used by some organisations, sometimes by posting anonymously on blogs and there are extremist groups recruiting in this way.

Finally, a concept that fits with my previous post about democracy. Voting is a mechanism for making collective decisions where the majority preference dictates the final decision. In the case of representative democracies, the representatives are also elected by vote. So far there have been various attempt to use electronic voting, with mixed results. It seems though that, being cost-effective and fast, it will eventually replace traditional voting. This however has little to do with the Web, as it just uses the internet. However, the Web has played a role so far in elections: it has facilitated the communication of political manifestos to voters, gave additional chances for debates and even helped candidates approach their voters directly with the use of social networking sites. As mentioned in the previous post, it remains to be seen if the Web can play a larger part in decision making. It has to be added that there are two schools of thought as to how electronic decision making should be used. Some propose using it as an efficient way for representatives to ask directly for the citizens’ opinion by referendum. Another more direct, albeit more small scale proposal is to have local communities try a direct version of democracy, perhaps as a pilot for larger scale adoption. Again, there is criticism that stems from the long identified problems of direct democracy, which current technology cannot so far alleviate.

I have now focused the areas of my research to question how the Web has had an impact on ‘Gender’ (Sociology) and ‘Crime’ (Criminology) in respect of identity. I want to observe the two approaches of these disciplines, making comparisons to gain a fuller understanding of how identity is defined and important to academic discussion.

Over Easter I looked at some general textbooks from both disciplines, including:

Giddens, A, ‘Sociology: Introductory Readings,’ (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1997)

Giddens, A, ‘Sociology,’ (Polity Press, Cambridge, 2006)

Morrison, W, ‘Theoretical Criminology,’ (Cavendish Publishing, London, 1995)

Maguire, M, Morgan, R. and Reiner, R, ‘The Oxford Handbook of Criminology,’ (OUP, Oxford, 2007)

From these textbooks I centred my Sociology reading on the theories behind ‘Gender’ and for Criminology I did the same, looking at the role of identity in crime. I hope by examining the theory behind my research questions in the offline World, I can build on them to better understand how the Web may have impacted on these areas.