schrockmedia

Another musical giant has left us; I was profoundly saddened to read today of the passing of the British trumpeter Ian Carr. He wrote and performed the most beautiful jazz music of his generation in the 60s, particularly in a quintet with Don Rendell. He was also one of the few musicians who was able to gracefully make the jump to "electric" jazz in the 70s, recording key sides on the Vertigo label (more known for its rock offerings). In addition to his work as a musician, he was also author of several books, including, in my opinion, the best biography of Miles Davis ever written. The world is a less bold, vibrant, and musical place without him. Even if you've never considered yourself a "jazz person," you owe yourself to listen once, late at night, to "Dusk Fire"...

It strikes me as amazing that with all the attention on Internet safety, we don’t yet even have a taxonomy of online “solicitation.” This lack of definition has led to all kinds of misunderstandings on the part of parents, the media, and those seeking to understand studies on the topic. For instance, “online solicitation” includes unwanted (and in many cases, wanted as well) contact with a sexualized theme. This includes teasing (say about real or fictionalized gender preference), sexual harassment (designed to intimidate or threaten), and, coercive requests for cybersex or pictures. These communications range from the merely risqué to those designed to threaten to entice youth into sexualized online discussions. Depending on their age, it could be difficult to get youth to even understand the distinctions between these various modes, which have vastly different goals and motivations.

The latest media blitz, partly in response to the Berkman report, attempts to simplify the issue by focusing on the number of sexual offenders online (See: “MySpace: 90,000 sexual offenders removed from site”). This follows a pattern of individuals less interested in solid research and discourse than sensationalized presentations, and of course, overlook the role of the minors. I’m not going to revisit the areas of concern that danah boyd, Amanda Lenhart, Mimi Ito and others have covered well (minor-minor relationships, everyday usage, etc.). Rather my query is techno-social in nature: why do a majority of online solicitations (77%-86%) still predominantly occur through chat (Wolak et al., 2006)?

Also, from the perspective of law enforcement, 86% of Internet solicitation incidents that resulted in arrest involved communication that first occurred over chat or instant messaging. This is a fascinating topic, and one that is not simply explained by the popularity of online chat with youth. Chat room use itself was found to be correlated with depression (Ybarra et al., 2005), which to me says that youth are using these online resources as support mechanisms. In other studies, youth have reported that dating requests to other youth are popular using text messaging, because it can always be explained away as a joke, deflecting a refusal of affection. A certain amount of contact is likely this motivation, and similar flirting activities that are developmentally normal for teens.

Then there is the solicitor side of the equation, where individuals delivering sexualized messages to youth get a certain charge (arousal?) out of the experience. By comparison, it probably simply isn’t as exciting to send an email or MySpace solicitation to a youth. Or perhaps typed chats are an analogue representation for brief verbal contact in the real-world: honking at or yelling lurid comments out of a moving vehicle at another individual. Harassers do this full with the knowledge that there is no possibility of it coming back to haunt them, but it offers increased power and satisfaction. In this sense, sexualized online solicitation might be more like a test to see if a response is gained, more like passing words yelled out of a vehicle than other dynamics. This mode of harassment, while not entirely benign, is far less dire than the perception of many that most forms of online contact by adults are designed for seducing youth into offline relationships. This idea is not supported by the data; Internet-initiated connections by adults with youth that result in offline contact are typically friendship-related, nonsexual, formed between similar-aged youth and the parties are known to parents (Wolak et al. 2002).

Labels: amandalenhart, berkman, danahboyd, internet, online, pewinternet, safety, solicitation

In 1980, Tomita created a simple chart of communication technologies, mapping the number of participants by speed of communication. What was revealed in simple terms, and popularized in 1991 in Neuman’s “The Future of Mass Audience,” was a “gap” in the functionality in existing mediated communication. Online communities clearly fit easily here, providing new ways for audiences/users to communicate in nearly real-time speed. Nearly 3 decades later, the question is: has this area been saturated, or is there still room for expansion?

Certainly, it is here that Internet communicative modes and collaboration has experienced growth that continues to this day. According to a recent study by the Pew Center for Internet and American Life, around 11% of American adults use (and 20% of adults 25 – 34 have ever used) a service that involves “status updates.” However, this is inclusive of Facebook, which has couched status updates within a more familiar website framework, and is doubtless more popular than the newcomer Twitter. Even more popular, worldwide, is messaging (SMS or otherwise) on mobile phones.

I’d go so far as to say that we’re reaching a saturation point for short-message, different-place, fast-but-not-quite-synchronous communication. Message boards famously filled this gap quite well decades ago. Rather than being a purely functional issue, the question becomes whether average users, on a fundamental social level, find a need for a micro-blogging such as Twitter. RSS feeds are my favorite example of a technology that never reached mainstream use. It has always remained on the cusp of acceptance, but used more by leading edge adopters, and is more used as a common format to transmit information of various kinds across a network behind the scenes. There is another roadblock to Twitter: it offers functionality that can be easily replicated. And if Twitter never acquired significant usership, and doesn’t emerge as a brand name a la Yahoo or Google, users could easily be poached by another service that offers significant advantages - less frequent downtime, closer mobile integration, or multimedia capabilities.

Labels: addiction, mass media, neuman, tomita, twitter

My friends and colleagues can tell you that I am somewhat allergic to the outlook and self-promoting nature of Los Angeles online culture. Scenesters and professionals alike are constantly involved in a one-upmanship of terms that sounds at times like a terminology land-grab. Maybe it’s the financial downturn, but I’ve noticed lately that people are declaring themselves all manner of hyperbole online, from the simply self-promoting to entirely absurd. The situation has turned south with LinkedIn. What was previously confined to back room conversations and bouts of braggadocio is now publicly available for perusal. With that in mind, here are five terms that you should eradicate from your resume:

Expert – expertise is demonstrated, not self-awarded. Even true experts don’t just stand up and declare themselves experts on a subject. They write books, speak, and pursue goals. More likely, if you call yourself an expert (or even doubly so, a “success expert”), you’re a shady pyramid scheme type.

Visionary – this is a word that literally means you are able to see the future. Ironically, people who use this word to describe themselves rarely find others, later, using it to actually describe them. Talk about a lack of vision.

Pioneer – makes me misty-eyed for the Oregon trail video game.

Entrepreneur – appropriate if you are involved in venture capital, angel funding, or other entrepreneurial investment. You are not an entrepreneur just because you have ideas. Double no-no for “Internet entrepreneur” just because you use the Internet.

Innovative – innovation isn’t so much a bad idea, as overdone. I predict that it’s that adjective of the moment that captures the current energy, but will age badly. At its core, innovative is frequently used synonymously with “new.” “New media,” whose Wikipedia entry is a baffling mash-up of references and concepts, has suffered greatly for being unable to remain contemporary. Also, similar to “expert,” innovation is more difficult to put into practice than it is to simply declare.

Bonus:

Guru – Namasté!

I've been deep in a post-application malaise for much of January. As some people know, I've applied for doctoral programs starting in fall, 2009. The prospect of joining a doctoral program still felt very unreal, despite all my applications being in. (Maybe it was just the bronchitis talking, which I was saddled with for 2 weeks) Yesterday I received word that I got into an R1 school, which jolted me back into reality. Even though I've been spending years doing research, teaching, and working, it's still a surprise that somebody I've never met would want to bring me on board and work with me over 5 years based solely on information contained in my C/V, GRE, GPA, and a few letters of recommendation. Now I'm going back to my current projects and started listing upcoming conference deadlines and possible fits; the thrill of a new shift just does that to me. It still will be 2 months before any serious decisions get made, but that's no reason I shouldn't keep pushing forward.