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online communities and computer-mediated communication

justine cassell - instructor // email

david huffaker - t.a. // email

Spring Quarter, 2006 Northwestern University

March 28 / Week 1: Introduction

April 4 / Week 2: What is a virtual community?

Readings

• Putnam, R. (1995) "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," Journal of Democracy, vol. 6 (1), pp 65-78. (Note: you must be on-campus, or using a VPN to access this reading via the web)
• Wellman, B. & Gulia (1997). Netsurfers don't ride alone: Virtual community as real community. In P. Kollock & M. Smith (Ed.), Communities in cyberspace. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Rheingold, H. (2002). Chapter 1 "Shibuya Epiphany" in Smart mobs: The next social revolution. (check out the Smart Mobs website, naturally!) see Blackboard > Course Documents

Artifacts

• Just about everybody uses Instant Messenger . If you already use AIM, Yahoo or MSN, try an old school one like ICQ or a new one like Skype or surprise us! Be prepared to talk about it in class.

April 11 / Week 3: Research methods

Readings

• Pennebaker, J.W. (2002) What our words can say about us: Toward a broader language psychology. Psychological Science Agenda, 15 , 8-9. one page long, woohoo!
• Herring, S.C. (2004). Computer-mediated discourse analysis: An approach to researching online behavior. In: S. A. Barab, R. Kling, and J. H. Gray (Eds.), Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning.. New York: Cambridge University Press, (pp. 338 - 376).
• Garton, C., Haythornthwaite C. & Wellman, B. (1997). Studying online social networks. Journal of Computer-mediated Communication.
• Elizabeth F. Churchill and Christine A. Halverson, "Social Networks and Social Networking," IEEE Internet Computing , vol. 9, no. 5, 2005, pp. 14-19.
• Institutional Review Board (IRB). Northwestern University.

  Recommended

  • Jones, Steve (ed.) (1999). Doing Research on the Internet. London: Sage Publications.
  • Miller, Daniel, and Slater, Don. (2000). The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach. New York: Berg Publishers

Artifacts

• Check out the world of online groups, newsgroups (USENET), and message boards.
• Find news. Aggregate it.
• Flash forward. Check out the massively massive online role playing game (MMORPG)

  Assignment Due

• Analyze the social networks in an online community. Click here for description.

April 18 / Week 4: Online relationships

Readings

• Standage, T. Chapter 8 "Love Over the Wires" in The Victorian Internet. New York: Walker and Co., 1998. pp. 127-144. see Blackboard > Course Documents
• Cummings, J., Butler, B., & Kraut, R. (2002). The quality of online social relationships. Communications of the ACM, 45(7), 103-108. see Blackboard > Course Documents
• Rainie, L. & Madden, M. (2006). Romance in America. PEW Internet and Family Life.
• Rheingold (2002). Smart mobs: The next social revolution. Chapter 5.

Artifacts

• Hooking up online: Match.com; lavalife; jdate; makeoutclub; amihotornot
• Auction sites and classifieds, the underground marketplace: ebay; craigslist

April 25 / Week 5: Online Identity

Readings

• Suler, J.R. (2002). Identity Management in Cyberspace. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 4, 455-460.
• O'Brien, J.(1990).Writing in the Body: Gender (re) production in Online Interaction In Marc Smith and Peter Kollock (editors). 1999. Communities in Cyberspace. London: Routledge.
• boyd, d. & Heer, J. (2006) Profiles as conversation: Networked identity performance on Friendster. Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-39), Kauai, HI: IEEE Computer Society.

  Recommended

  • Littler, D. (1999) The Impact of the Internet on the Expression and Perception of Social Identities WWW.NewMediaStudies.com
  • Herring, S. (2001) "Gender and Power in Online Communication," Center for Social Informatics Working Papers, Bloomington

Artifacts

• Sure, you've been making your own blog. But let's check out some more: Blogger; Xanga; MoveableType; WordPress.

Assignment Due

• Proposal for an Online Community . Description for assignment.

May 2 / Week 6: Children online

Readings

• Putnam, R. ibid. Chapter 10. see Blackboard > Course Documents
• Katz, J. (1997) "The Rights of Children" in Virtuous Reality; How America Surrendered Discussion of Moral Values to Opportunists, Nitwits, and Blockheads Like William Bennett. Random House, New York, NY.
• Rideout, V., Roberts, D.F., Foehr, U.G. (2005). Generation M: Media in the lives of 8-18 year-olds. Kaiser Family Foundation. Pages 4-8 only.
• Cassell, J., Huffaker, D., Tversky, D. & Ferriman, K (in press). The Language of Online Leadership: Gender and Youth Engagement on the Internet. Developmental Psychology.
• Grinter, R., Palen, L. (2002). Instant Messenging in Teen Life. Proceedings from Computer Supported Cooperative Work 2002, ACM.

  Recommended:

  • Teenage Life Online: The rise of the instant-message generation and the Internet's impact on friendships and family relationships. Pew Internet and American Life Project.
  • "Why Parents Must Mind MySpace" (MSNBC Online)
  • "Don't Talk to Invisible Strangers" (New York Times)
  • FBI Innocent Images National Initiative

Artifacts

• So what are the kids doing online? Checkout Neopets and Whyville.
• Of course there's mySpace and Livejournal.
• Online bridge anyone? There's plenty of online game spots.

May 9 / Week 7: Designing online communities

Readings

• Preece, J. & Maloney-Krichmar, D. (2005). Online communities: Design, theory, and practice. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(4), article 1.
• Andrews (2002). Audience-specific online community design. Communications of the ACM. 45(4), 64-68. Need to be logged into NU VPN.
• Peruse Weblogg-ed.com, a site for educators.

  Recommended

  • Suler, J. (1998). Making virtual communities work . In The Psychology of Cyberspace , January 1996, revised October 1998 (v1.0)
  • Kim, A.J. (2000) Community Building on the Web . New York: Peach Pit Press.

Assignment Due

• 1-page proposal for final paper. Description of assignment.

May 16 / Week 8: Your Communities + TBA

In-class presentations of online communities!

Readings

• TBA

  Assignment Due

• Implement your own online community. Description of assignment.

May 23 / Week 9: The future?

Readings

• Putnam, R. (2001). ibid. Chapter 24. see Blackboard > Course Documents
• Rheingold, H. (2002). ibid. Chapter 6 - 8.
• Moblogs (retrieved 2006). Wikipedia.

Artifacts

• Will moblogs take over? Check out TextAmerica.
• From napster to kazaa to bittorrent: peer-to-peer applications oh my!
• Digital rights management is hot. Check out EFF and Creative Commons.

CTECS

• Please fill out CTECs for class! Click here.

May 30 / Week 10: Final presentations

In class-presentations of final papers. Make us proud!

Assignment Due on Monday May 29 @ 5pm

• Final Paper. Description of assignment.