Generational and Geographic Effects on Collective Memory of the USSR

This study examines memory of the Soviet Union and political opinions in modern Russia through qualitative, semi-structured interviews across generations in two Russian cities. The study aims to explore the differences in memory and meaning of the Soviet Union across generation and geography, and to connect those differences to political dispositions in modern Russia. Respondents were asked about their impressions of the Soviet Union and modern-day Russia, and responses were coded for emergent themes and trends. The research finds that youth bifurcate along geographic lines; respondents in St. Petersburg were more likely to reject Soviet ideals than their counterparts in Yoshkar-Ola. The former also tended to prefer liberalism and globalization, while the latter expressed greater nationalism. Older respondents showed no distinct geographic trend, but gave more nuanced assessments of the Soviet Union due to the power of personal memory over cultural reconstruction. In younger respondents, these findings indicate that living in a cosmopolitan metropolis may condition interpretations of the Soviet past and influence contemporary political identity toward globalization. Youths living in smaller cities have less interaction with other global cities and therefore may have more conservative perceptions of the Soviet Union and Russia.

Geographic Divides and Cosmopolitanism: Evidence From Switzerland

Large cities are cosmopolitan environments where people embrace inter-national connections whereas small towns, villages, and the countryside are more likely to prioritize the maintenance of national traditions. These geographic divides are at the center of contemporary politics but we do not know why they exist. One possibility is that cities make people more cosmopolitan while smaller areas make people less cosmopolitan. However, credibly measuring geographic effects is difficult because people sort across geography in ways that are correlated with political attitudes. I address these methodological challenges with longitudinal data from the Swiss Household Panel. My central result is that evidence of contextual effects is limited and unlikely to account for the broad geographic divides. Instead, sorting is likely to be the most important explanation for spatial polarization over cosmopolitanism. These findings have several implications for our understanding of geographic divides.

Two Hundred Years of Textile Factories in the U.S. South

During the 1800s, many textile manufacturers moved to the U.S. South for economic and geographic reasons, fueling economic growth in the South. Although extensive documentation exists about textile factories in the northeast, limited documentation was found about the thousands of textile factories built in the South. This study examined over 150 textile mills and plants (i.e., factories) in two U.S. states. The qualitative study was made with on-site photographic evidence, historical documents, and other primary and secondary sources. An examination resulted in five groups of factories from 1815 to 2015. The factory architecture was observed as reflective of technological and geographic effects. For example, the factory style from 1950 to 1969 was that of low rambling structures, reflecting environmental and economic conditions of the South, and the period’s manufacturing technology. This study provides an outline for documenting these historic structures and a foundation for examining their characteristics and associated technologies.

A Geography of Participation in IT-Mediated Crowds

In this work we seek to understand how differences in location affect participation outcomes in IT-mediated crowds. To do so, we operationalize Crowd Capital Theory with data from a popular international creative crowdsourcing site, to determine whether regional differences exist in crowdsourcing participation outcomes. We present the early results of our investigation from data encompassing 1,858,202 observations from 28,214 crowd members on 94 different projects in 2012. Using probit regressions to isolate geographic effects by continental region, we find significant variation across regions in crowdsourcing participation. In doing so, we contribute to the literature by illustrating that geography matters in respect to crowd participation. Further, our work illustrates an initial validation of Crowd Capital Theory as a useful theoretical model to guide empirical inquiry in the fast growing domain of IT-mediated crowds.Prpić, J., Shukla, P., Roth, Y., & Lemoine, J.F. (2015). A Geography of Participation in IT-Mediated Crowds. Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences #48. January 2015, Kauai, Hawaii, USA. IEEE Computer Society Press.