journal

"Cultures du numérique" : Table ronde pour les 50 ans de Communications (14 juin 2011, 14h)

6 June 2011adminsocial networksacademia, Centre Edgar Morin, communications, digital cultures, edgar morin, ehess, journal, mediapart, paris, sociology

Vous avez sans doute déjà feuilleté “Cultures du numérique”, le numéro spécial du cinquantenaire de la revue Communications (mai 2011) que j’ai eu le plaisir et l’honneur de diriger. Nous aurons l’occasion de le présenter comme il le faut lors d’une table ronde all-star avec : Edgar Morin, Edwy Plenel, Nicole Lapierre, Milad Doueihi, Serge Tisseron et moi-même, à la Maison de l’Amérique Latine (217 bd Saint Germain, Paris 75007). Organisée en partenariat avec Mediapart et à la présence des auteurs du numéro, la rencontre aura lieu le mardi 14 juin 2011, de 14h à 17h.

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Parution de "Cultures du numérique" (Ed. du Seuil)

18 May 2011adminbody, social capital, social networks, spaceCentre Edgar Morin, communications, ehess, journal, social capital, social network analysis, social networking, sociology

Le voilà entre mes main : le premier exemplaire de « Cultures du numérique » que j’ai dirigé et dont j’ai le plaisir de vous annoncer la parution aux Editions du Seuil.

Il s’agit du numéro 88 de la revue Communications, un numéro spécial qui marque le cinquante ans de cette glorieuse publication fondée en 1961 par Roland Barthes et Edgar Morin. Nous en sommes tous très fiers, et à juste titre. Ce numéro est appelé à devenir un ouvrage de référence pour les étudiants et les chercheurs qui – en nombre croissant – s’intéressent au Web et à ses conséquences sociétales, culturelles, politiques.

« Cultures du numérique » propose un panorama des études francophones sur les usages des technologies de l’information et de la communication. Vingt-trois chercheurs, venant des domaines les plus disparates, ont participé : psychologues, philosophes, médecins, économistes, sociologues, experts de digital humanities et de sciences de la communication.

Voilà la table des matières complète, (more…)

The number of my online friends and Dunbar's not-so-hidden scientific agenda

16 May 2011adminbody, social capital, social networksanthropology, biology, dunbar's number, facebook, journal, medicine, network size, personal networks, physiology, social network analysis, social networking

First of all, you might want to read this remarkably insightful blog post featured in Paola Tubaro’s Blog – about a recent article on social network size, online friending and Dunbar’s number published in Cyberpsychology. Here’s the complete reference to the article:

Pollet, T., Roberts, S., & Dunbar, R. (2011). Use of Social Network Sites and Instant Messaging Does Not Lead to Increased Offline Social Network Size, or to Emotionally Closer Relationships with Offline Network Members Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14 (4), 253-258 DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2010.0161

As for the analysis, let me just quote from Paola (it’s not that I’m lazy, but I tend to agree with pretty much evertything she says, especially because she draws heavily on previous posts and conferences of mine dealing with the same subjects ;P)

How many friends do you have? « Paola Tubaro’s Blog

What I would like to add here is just that the article might not be all that interesting, weren’t it authored by Robin “Dunbar’s number” Dunbar himself. (more…)

Friendship changes, but 'friending' stays the same across cultures

7 May 2011adminsocial capital, social networkscross-cultural comparison, friending, friendship, journal, Myspace, network, social capital, social network analysis, social simulation, taiwan, US

Following in Judith Donath and dana boyd’s researches on online friendship and drawing on social network analysis of tie formation, this Hui-Jung Chang article sets up to detect cross-cultural variations in ‘friending’ between a US-based service (Myspace) and a Taiwan one (Wretch).

Hui-Jung Chang (2010). Social networking friendships: A cross-cultural comparison of network structure between MySpace and Wretch Journal of Cultural Science, 3 (2).

Understandably, Taiwanese and US cultures have different approaches to friendship. The author characterizes Taiwan as a more collectivistic culture where explicit messages and content exchange are less important that the context (all the information either coded in the physical setting or internalized in the person) for establishing who’s your friend. US, on the other side, is defined as a “low-context”, individualistic culture [note: pictures are just random. Neither peace sign nor thumbs up in photos appear to bear any significant effect on friendship formation]. Consequently, Hui-Jung Chang formulates the hypothesis that Taiwanese offline friends networks are larger and denser. Does the same apply to online networks?

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My article "A History of Virulence" finally published in Body and Society

21 December 2010adminbody, social capital, spaceactivism, AIDS, body, computer virus, journal, medicine, sociology, virality

Sage journal Body and Society vol 16, n. 4 is finally out! Pardon my enthusiasm, but this issue features my 30-page essay A History of Virulence: The Body and Computer Culture in the 1980s: a killer mix of hackerdom, virality and computer nostalgia that also happens to be IMHO one hell of a contribution to the cultural history of the body in cyberculture.

Body & Society

Abstract: The recent turn in ubiquitous computing challenges previous theories of ‘technological disembodiment’. In a mediascape where technology permeates bodies, the current discourse of viral information insinuates elements of fear and risk associated with both physical presence and computer usage. This article adopts a socio-historical approach to investigate the factors underlying the early emergence of such features of our social imaginary by tracking them back to the computer culture of the 1980s. Analysing both mainstream and underground press sources from 1982 to 1991, a discursive core is revealed that revolves around the ‘computer virus’ metaphor. Popularized in this period, this notion came to resonate with mounting moral panic over the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Anxieties about the body in computer culture are then conceptualized (and historically contextualized) along two dimensions: first, the political proximity between HIV/AIDS activists and computer hackers during the FDA clinical trials controversy of 1987—8; and, second, the ideological reinforcement provided by academic progressive elements to these political actions. The implications of these results are discussed.

A few weeks ago, I published a “autor’s cut” version on this very blog (here part1 and part2) and you can download the unread proofs by clicking here (not for citation, please). Of course, if you want to download the published version, help yourself here. You might as well drop me a kind email and ask for a certain attachment 😉 And if you want to cite the article, because that’s what academics do, please find enclosed the complete reference.

Casilli, Antonio A. (2010). A History of Virulence: The Body and Computer Culture in the 1980s Body & Society, 16 (4), 1-31 DOI: 10.1177/1357034X10383880

Sociologie en boîte vs. analyse des réseaux sociaux

15 December 2010adminsocial capital, social networksannales des mines, journal, network, Peer-reviewing, réalités industrielles, social capital, social isolation, social network analysis, sociology

Mon article “‘Petites boîtes’ et individualisme en réseau. Les usages socialisants du Web en débat” – que vous pouvez télécharger ici en version PDF – vient d’être publié dans les Annales des Mines, série Réalités Industrielles, dans un numéro spécial Web d’aujourd’hui, Webs de demain (novembre 2010). L’article est un état des lieux du débat sur la socialisation (ou le manque de socialisation) des internautes. En montrant les différentes approches adoptées, et en passant en revue les résultats des études menées notamment par Robert Kraut et par Barry Wellman dans les années 1990-2000, le texte montre comment le débat scientifique a accompagné et expliqué la transition vers le Web social.

Des analyses encore fortement centrées sur les risques de rupture du lien social générés par les TIC ont cédé la place à une perspective emphatisant les potentialités de mise en relation des usagers (…) Sans empêcher les liens d’affinité traditionnels, ce modèle de sociabilité en ligne permet potentiellement d’activer davantage de liens qui apparemment sont les plus faibles. Dans ce contexte, une socialité forte n’est pas déterminée par le niveau de conformité des individus à leur environnement proche, ni par le nombre total de leurs amis. Il s’agit de faire coexister la cohésion sociale au niveau de petits groupes (bonding) et la création de passerelles entre ces mêmes groupes. Cette logique de communication entre composantes éloignées, que l’on désigne par l’expression « jeter un pont » (bridging), serait le propre du Web contemporain. Grâce aux effets de petit monde et aux propriétés de transitivité des réseaux numériques, la société façonnée par Internet, loin d’éclater, se resserre. (…) C’est une envie de cohésion qui anime les internautes, une envie de resserrement de leurs rapports sociaux. C’est aussi une envie de maîtriser et de façonner leur environnement social, tout en respectant certaines contraintes qui leur viennent de la vie hors-ligne. Cela nous conduit à ne pas sous-estimer l’effet spécifique des divers moyens technologiques mobilisés pour assouvir ces envies de sociabilité. En effet, les usages informatiques ne sont pas neutres : dans une réalité façonnée par les TIC, les affinités entre les individus (ou leurs rivalités) ne s’expriment pas de la même façon que dans le monde décrit par les sociologues du 19e siècle. Les analyses récentes sur l’impact du Web se sont heurtées à la nécessité de contextualiser la prétendue désocialisation des internautes au jour des divers cadres d’usage.

Petite précision : Les Annales ont été créées en 1794, ce qui en fait officiellement la revue la plus ancienne dans laquelle j’ai jamais publié 😉

Antonio A. Casilli (2010) “‘Petites boîtes’ et individualisme en réseau. Les usages socialisants du Web en débat”, Annales des Mines (série “Réalités Industrielles”), 216 (4), 54-59

"How come it's BLUE?" The origins of James Cameron's Avatar

20 December 2009adminbody, social networksart, avatar, body, CGI, communications, computer culture, cyberculture, journal, MMORPG, sociology, superheroes

By: Antonio A. Casilli (Centre Edgar-Morin, EHESS, Paris) ^[1]

By now you all must have a pretty clear opinion of James Cameron’s Avatar. Is it the new Star Wars? Or is it just another CGI-ridden crapbuster movie? You are entitled to your own opinion. As I am not a film critic, my job is not to change it. What this movie represents to me, and to many a colleague of mine, is a chance to resuscitate some forgotten pieces of cultural analysis written in the last 15 years – approximatively the time this movie has been in the making. As a concept, the avatar has a long history.

Visual genealogy: left The Lawnmower Man (1992); right Avatar (2009)

And a long history also means a lot of bibliographic references. And some of them still come handy to understand what the hell Cameron’s film is about. It’ like a garage sale, where I give away those old records I used to cherish a lot, so that some freshman neighbour with deejaying penchants can make a mashup mp3 out of them.

A few years ago, for example, the French journal Communications published an article of mine whose title, quite self-explanatorily, would read something like: Blue Avatars, about three strategies of cultural borrowing at the heart of computer culture.

Antonio A. Casilli (2005). Les avatars bleus, Autour de trois stratégies d’emprunt culturel au cœur de la cyberculture. Communications, 7 (1), 183-209

Yeah, well… maybe not that self-explanatorily, after all. Anyhow, in this article I gave form to a socio-visual genealogy of the avatar, as one of the main archetypes of contemporary culture.

Now I assume some of you don’t speak French. Also, some simply can’t be bothered to go through 30 pages of socio-babbling. So here I provide a summary of the main results of the article.

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CfP: ICTs-and-Society. A new Transdiscipline?

26 November 2009adminNon classéICTs, journal, social sciences, sociology, transdisciplinarity

Special Issue of TripleC – Cognition, Communication, Co-operation: Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society:
ICTs-and-Society. A new Transdiscipline?

Guest Editors: Celina Raffl and Joseph Brenner
For inquiries about potential papers please contact Celina Raffl (celina.raffl@sbg.ac.at).

Deadline for full paper submission:
February 28th, 2010.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have changed our lives significantly over the last few decades, and they will continue to do so. ICTs influence the way we live, work, and organize. These changes we are facing as societies (and as individuals) bear positive and negative side effects that concern academia as well, since science and research serve a function in and for society.

What kind of academic field do we need to meet the challenges of the information age?

Many different research approaches have emerged over the last decades that aim at explaining, shaping, and forecasting social change related to an increasing penetration, miniaturization, and convergence of ICTs.

tripleC suggests the designation of this research area as ICTs-and-Society to indicate its broad perspective. The term ICTs itself is broad enough to capture Internet, Web, Web 2.0, Social Media, Social Networks, new mobile technologies, ambient technologies, etc. Society too, can refer to society at large, or to certain aspects, of society, such as economy, ecology, politics, culture, etc., and includes both individuals and organizations.

However this research area is defined, and from which disciplinary background it is viewed, there are several shared problems, since ICTs-and-Society is not (yet?) an established discipline. “Disciplines share central themes, shared terminology with (assumed) common definitions, a canon of literature considered essential. There are agreed-on methodologies, theoretical structures, and evaluative criteria to assess research […]” (Baym 2005, 230). Internet or ICT-research therefore is more like an organization with a core problem. For Shrum (2005, 274) it is an “indiscipline” where “[e]veryone is welcome, no matter what your perspective, no matter whom you cite, no matter what method you choose for your research.” Researchers such as Hunsinger (2005), Fuchs (2008), Hofkirchner et al (2007), suggest that ICTs-and-Society research should be considered as a transdiscipline. (more…)