Computer Networks as the Embodiment of Social Networks

Author(s):  
Juan D. Rogers ◽  
Ivan Tchalakov

The Internet, both as a technological system and a set of social phenomena, has global reach. Its development is comparatively recent but the Internet has already become established as an ordinary feature of the everyday activities of people around the world. However, the very familiarity of this information infrastructure tends to obscure important dynamics of the process by which the current state of affairs was reached. This paper is the result of the confluence of two research efforts into the nature of this process in the United States and Bulgaria that began independently. The commonalities and differences between the two cases seemed to present a very compelling case for a comparative case study approach. The United States case had shown that the practice of science and its institutions played a central role in creating today's global Internet. The world of scientific research, with its institutions, policies and disciplinary distinctions, shaped the network and the way in which it spread to other sectors of society creating the conditions for contemporary activity toward the construction of a national information infrastructure1. At the same time, from interviews with the pioneers of Internet in Bulgaria2 it was found that the Bulgarian scientific community played a key role in establishing the patterns of subsequent development of Internet in the country. In spite of the many obvious differences between the two countries, the two cases reveal a significant common dynamic in the implementation of infrastructural information networks. The first implementation of such a system is a congealed version of certain social networks that deliver the computer network as a by-product of other goals and priorities internal to their existence.

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 186-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malini Ratnasingam ◽  
Lee Ellis

Background. Nearly all of the research on sex differences in mass media utilization has been based on samples from the United States and a few other Western countries. Aim. The present study examines sex differences in mass media utilization in four Asian countries (Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Singapore). Methods. College students self-reported the frequency with which they accessed the following five mass media outlets: television dramas, televised news and documentaries, music, newspapers and magazines, and the Internet. Results. Two significant sex differences were found when participants from the four countries were considered as a whole: Women watched television dramas more than did men; and in Japan, female students listened to music more than did their male counterparts. Limitations. A wider array of mass media outlets could have been explored. Conclusions. Findings were largely consistent with results from studies conducted elsewhere in the world, particularly regarding sex differences in television drama viewing. A neurohormonal evolutionary explanation is offered for the basic findings.


There has been a neglect on the part of Western governments with focus on the U.S. to take seriously the internet campaign that ISIS has been waging since 2014 and the affective response that still draws citizens from across the world into their promise of a civilized, united nation for Muslims. It is possible that the West, even with a severely increased commitment to fighting the Islamic State, may be too late. This chapter will explore responses by Western governments including the United States to fight internet-enabled terrorism.


Author(s):  
Rachel Baarda

Digital media is expected to promote political participation in government. Around the world, from the United States to Europe, governments have been implementing e-government (use of of the Internet to make bureaucracy more efficient) and promising e-democracy (increased political participation by citizens). Does digital media enable citizens to participate more easily in government, or can authoritarian governments interfere with citizens' ability to speak freely and obtain information? This study of digital media in Russia will show that while digital media can be used by Russian citizens to gain information and express opinions, Kremlin ownership of print media, along with censorship laws and Internet surveillance, can stifle the growth of digital democracy. Though digital media appears to hold promise for increasing citizen participation, this study will show that greater consideration needs to be given to the power of authoritarian governments to suppress civic discourse on the Internet.


Author(s):  
James Weinstein

For most people the internet has been a dream come true, allowing instantaneous access to a vast array of information, opinion, and entertainment and facilitating communication with friends and family throughout the world. For others, however, the internet has wrought a nightmare, allowing often anonymous enemies a platform for vicious attacks on the character of their victims and a means for revealing to the world embarrassing private information about them. To combat these attacks, victims and law enforcement officials in the United States have employed both analogue remedies such as harassment and stalking laws as well as cyber-specific provisions. Since the attacks involve speech, however, all these remedies must comport with the First Amendment. The typical response of courts and commentators to the First Amendment issues raised in these cases is to ask whether the perpetrator’s speech falls within one of the limited and narrow traditional exceptions to First Amendment coverage, such as true threats, defamation, obscenity, or fighting words. This approach is understandable in light of unfortunate dicta in several United States Supreme Court decisions—that all content-based restrictions of speech other than speech falling within one of these exceptions are subject to “strict scrutiny,” a rigorous test that few speech restrictions can pass. This chapter argues that this approach to dealing with cyber harassment is misguided. This methodology often results in shoehorning the speech at issue into exceptions into which the speech does not fit, or worse yet, in a finding that the speech is protected by the First Amendment simply because it does not fall within a recognized exception.


2021 ◽  
pp. 203-210
Author(s):  
Jenna Supp-Montgomerie

The telegraph wove its way across the ocean at a time when religion’s role in public life was commonplace. Since then, networks have become more vital to everyday life in easily perceptible ways while religion is considered a less overt part of so-called secular public culture in the United States. The epilogue proposes that the relationship of telegraphic networks to the networks that shape our world today is not causal or continuous but one of resonance in which some elements are amplified and some are damped. The protestant dreams for the telegraph in the nineteenth century—particularly the promise of global unity, the celebration of unprecedented speed and ubiquity, and the fantasy of friction-free communication—reverberate in dreams for the internet and social media today. In cries that the internet makes us all neighbors reverberates the electric pulse of the celebrations of the 1858 cable’s capacity to unite the world in Christian community. And yet, it is not a straight shot from then to now. Some elements have faded, particularly overt religious motifs in imaginaries of technology. The original power of public protestantism in the first network imaginaries continues to resonate today in the primacy of connection.


Author(s):  
Kate Vieira

This chapter tells the story of the research. It first lays out the research question: How do transnational families’ experiences with migration-driven literacy learning shift across their lifespans in relation to changing political borders, economic circumstances, and technologies? It then describes the field sites in which the question was addressed: Latvia, Brazil, and the United States. Next, it outlines the reasoning behind the author’s methodological choices. Specifically, it elaborates on the author’s use of a comparative case study approach to develop the book’s central concept, “migration-driven literacy learning.” In doing so, the chapter describes how the project entailed both “reasearching across lives” and “researching across continents.” Finally, it offers a brief overview of the rest of the book.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-186
Author(s):  
Jashim Uddin Ahmed ◽  
Ayesha Tahsin Ananya ◽  
Kazi Pushpita Mim ◽  
Asma Ahmed ◽  
Sarika Iqbal

Barbie in a wheelchair has heralded a new era in the magical world of Barbie. Mattel, one of the biggest toy manufacturers, has redefined the way Barbie has been portrayed to the world by introducing their new Black Barbie in a wheelchair. After years of innovation and trial and errors, it has proved that Barbie is not just a make-believe plaything or a representation of a singular aspect of beauty standards. These dolls should be relevant and wholesome when it comes to creating a bridge between customers and the brand itself. Mattel realized not too long ago the significance of inclusion, and now it has ended up hoisting a sensation in all of the United States and globally through the Internet and social media such as Twitter. The IDIC (Identify, Differentiate, Interact and Customize) model, which is an effective customer relationship management (CRM) tool, has been deployed by Mattel to demonstrate how Mattel cares for its customers. Mattel’s customer centrism, devotion towards innovation and inclusiveness are the key aspects which has rewarded the company with a whole new spectrum of acceptance from minority groups with a smile on their faces.


Author(s):  
A. K. Pavelieva ◽  
◽  
I. V. Sotnichenko ◽  
◽  

The article considers the slang of the fashion industry, systemization of slang units by speakers, as well as the main difficulties in translating English fashion slang into Ukrainian. It turns out that the vocabulary of fashion industry slang is enriched in epoch-making moments, important for the state as a reaction to turning points in history and to the emergence of new social phenomena. The article proves that fashion slang unites a large number of social groups: people working in the fashion industry, who create trends and fashionable novelties; fashion distributors and fashion buyers and even forms a new social group around them ‒ hypebeasts. The authors of the article analyse the slang of the fashion world through the prism of its interdependence and interaction with social networks and the Internet as a communicative space. Such methods of word formation of fashion slang units as metaphorization, word formation, appearance of telescopies have been considered in this scientific article. The presented research paper proposes to classify fashion slang by different groups of people who are somehow related to fashion, and thus cause the emergence of new slang units, forming their own kind of fashion slang, taking into account the peculiarities of their activities. It is emphasized that the basis for the formation of new slang of the fashion industry is the slang of young people mad about fashion, who build their own cult around it. The article also considers the most common ways of translating hypebeasts slang, such as transcoding (mixed and adaptive ones), transcription and transliteration.


Author(s):  
Murugan Anandarajan

The ubiquitous nature of the World Wide Web (commonly known as the Web) is dramatically revolutionizing the manner in which organizations and individuals alike acquire and distribute information. Recent reports from the International Data Group indicate that the number of people on the Internet will reach 320 million by the year 2002 (Needle, 1999). Studies also indicate that in the United States alone, Web commerce will account for approximately $325 billion by the year 2002.


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