Sunday, February 09, 2003

Smart Mobs is on top of Sociology of the Mobile Phone, in particular Towards a Sociological Theory of the Mobile Phone, by Hans Geser of the University of Zurich. The most general function of cell phones is to lessen the degree to which social relationships and social systems are anchored in space, and they increase the degree to which they are anchored in particular persons. From the point of view of individual users, the cell phone provides opportunities: to enlarge the number of potential communication partners available at any specific place and moment to distance oneself from current collocal interaction fields by directing attention to remote partners to expand the peripheral layers of social relationships by cultivating weak ties to partners one is not ready to meet to shield oneself from new and unpredictable contacts by signaling unavailability and by maintaining more frequent interaction with familiar partners (e.g. friends and kin) to maintain contact with any other individuals (or organizations) irrespective of movement and changing spatial locations to combine divergent roles which would otherwise necessitate one's presence at different places at the same time to switch rapidly between highly different (and usually segregated) roles and situational contexts, so that there is more discretion as to how they should be separated or combined to take over “boundary roles” in any social system: e.g. in order to get information about the external environment or to participate in processes of external interaction and adaptation to fill empty waiting periods with vicarious remote interactions to reduce the reliance on one’s own inner judgment by asking others for advice to occupy highly diffuse roles which demand involvement at any hour of the day (e.g. care-giving functions etc.); or “standby” roles which demand permanent readiness (e.g. in emergencies) to live more "spontaneously": without strictly scheduled agendas, because meeting hours can easily be rearranged. From the point of view of social systems the cell phone will: decrease the positive impact of spatial proximity on social interaction and integration increase the functional viability of very small groups and single individuals, because they have increased opportunities to mobilize additional resources from outside actors, or to include additional remote members on an ad hoc basis when needed ease the penetration of bilateral interpersonal microsystems into multilateral groupings, formalized social collectivities as well as public spheres. increase the capacity of organizations to fully integrate spatially remote and moving subunits and to relate to customers whose location is changing and not known increase the functional capacity of collectivities and organizations on the move: e.g. military or police units, ambulances, refugee groups etc. privilege collectivities constituted on the basis of particular members rather than particular places or territories (e.g. families and ethnic groupings rather than cities, parishes or schools) encourage emphasis on highly segregated bilateral relationships - while larger multilateral allegiances are losing ground facilitate swiftly constituted, ad hoc gatherings with highly variable composition, so that social system structures can be flexibly adapted to rapidly changing situational conditions facilitate the shift from rigidly programmed bureaucratic organizations to "adhocracies" where timetables and cooperation patterns are constantly reshaped lessen the need for central “communication hubs” within groups and organizations because each member can directly receive (and send out) his/her own calls minimize the “spill over” of communications to unintended third parties because messages can be precisely targeted to intended individual receivers increase intersystemic permeabilities, blendings and interpenetrations, while lowering the capacities to keep such contacts under centralized and regularized control. 3:41:59 PM    comment []

Whoa. Somewhere else needs an integrity injection. Doug blinked and quoted a piece from Plastic on one of the ways the New Hampshire republicans tried to depress democratic turnout: At least one NH Republican Party official has resigned after news broke that his party paid a Virginia group called GOPMarketplace to hire an Idaho telemarketing firm to jam NH phones on election day. And the plan was to jam all the phones of folks who gave people rides to the polls--not just the Democrats but also the Firefighters Union. According to the usually-pro-Republican Manchester Union Leader the NH GOP paid GOP Marketplace $15,600 to set this up. Democrats, whose phones were jammed for two hours until Verizon managed to block the incoming barrage, say many elderly people missed rides to the polls as a result. GOP Marketplace refuses to comment, but the Idaho telemarketing firm is cooperating with police. 3:33:35 PM    comment []

Phil Spector: Mad Genius, By Kurt Loder, at MTV News. [News Is Free: Popular Items] 3:21:43 PM    comment []

Three years ago on 'tother blog: What next? some thoughts of mine on the recent Distributed Denial of Service attacks Smells Like Teen Malcontent by Leander Kahney, and a variety of other coverage in Wired News. Benton headlines, such as "BRAZIL IS TEST CASE FOR FREE WEB ACCESS," two stories on iCraveTV (a Canadian company that put live US broadcast network TV on the Internet), "IN FINLAND, A GLIMPSE OF A FUTURISTIC WEB ON WIRELESS PHONES," some news from Africa, a Junkbosters report on privacy, and EPIC preparing to sue Doubleclick. And two years ago: R.I.P, Nobel laureate, Herbert Simon, "REALITY SETS IN FOR EMMY NOMS: Nonfiction p'gramming trophy added to mix," by Michael Schneider, Variety But wait! There's more on reality TV! Public Property It's real life 'Sims' (simulation game) and you can make their lives for the better or for the worse, said Grant Bremner, manager of interactive television at Pearson Television. These people have been able to give their lives over to the public. If they turn out to be arrogant and annoying and you want to ruin their lives, fair enough. "Patently Ridiculous Claims," by Rob Pegoraro, in the Wash Post. The great line is Tim O'Reilly's: As you start to go down that path, you're turning more and more of human interaction into property. 2:48:48 AM    comment []