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Welcome to Eszter's Weblog Here you will find my thoughts and comments about all sorts of things from sociology, the Internet, academia, teaching, research, books and movies to current events, fun Web stuff, art, gadgets and just about anything else that comes to mind. If the inspiration strikes you during your visit, feel free to leave a note via the comments link.

[Previous entry: "Silly.. but we all do it"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "The right to a soda.. at any price"] "Online communities" 07/06/2004 Entry It has been interesting to follow the various discussions about blogs and what types of communities and discussions they resemble. I thought I would post a note to remind people (or let people know) that the study of online communities1 is one of the oldest topics explored by academics about the social aspects of information technology use. There are probably hundreds of papers written about Usenet, mailing lists and bulletin board systems. Of course blogs have some distinct characteristics, but overall the existing body of literature about online communities would probably yield some interesting and helpful reading to those interested in blogs. Let’s not reinvent the wheel. One place to look for such work is the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (almost a decade old), but a simple search in a library catalog will yield numerous sources on virtual communities. Of particular interest to those pondering the social network aspects of online communities may be some of the excellent work by Warren Sack and much interesting research done on Usenet by Marc Smith. I realize mapping the blogosphere is a somewhat different issue, but some of the questions that have been raised are relevant to other online communities as well. People have worked for years to find some answers, let’s not ignore them. A piece that seems especially related to some issues that have come up is “Community without Propinquity Revisited: Communications Technology and the Transformation of the Urban Public Sphere” [pdf] by Craig Calhoun. 1 When I use terms such as “online communities” and “virtual communities”, I do not mean to suggest that these exist in isolation from other types of communities. See this piece [pdf] by Barry Wellman and Milena Gulia for more on this point. Replies: 1 Comment has been posted, click here to see it and add your own Hello, may I use this informal greeting. I just stumbled upon your blog and thought to put your attention on a very special "bloging culture" which is developing in russian sector of LiveJournal. This might be for no special "discovery" for you, just in case you didn't know it. As a whole I think it could be interesting for your research. Though if you don't read russian there will be some difficulties to appreciate what is so unique in their blogs :) Posted by Goretz @ 08/14/2004 10:10 AM CST July 2004 S M T W T F S         1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Links of Interest How to win the Nobel Prize Click for Mammogram Play "Match That Blogger" Blogathon 03 Archives Recent entries » Extending Internet access to low-income communities » Shattered » The story behind red alert » Weekend trivia » Would you cut up a book? » Pizza, cholesterol check, the works » Welcome » A different kind of road trip » Allowing comments on blogs » Paddling for bandwidth » The right to a soda.. at any price » Online communities » Silly.. but we all do it » Paris notes » New book on Social Inequality Previous entries May, 2002 - July, 2003 Blogger info Eszter Hargittai Communication Studies Department Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois 60208 blog at eszter dot com Blogs I Visit The small print A few words on what I will and will not post on this blog (taken from my E-LIST entry of January 2, 2002). I have nothing against posting commercial sites as long as they come highly recommended. In fact, I'm quite interested in improving informed consumer choice so I'm very curious to hear about good experiences with online retailers. What I will refrain from posting are sites that require plug-ins or programs that are painful to deal with. Example: I will not post anything that only works with RealOne/RealPlayer as that program is intrusive and annoying beyond belief and I am not willing to reinstall it on my machine (it was hard enough to get rid of it completely in the first place) nor do I want to encourage others to have it. If your site has audio content, please make it available in multiple formats or choose one that can be run on multiple players (e.g. .avi). Feel free to link to my Weblog with or without this graphic button. http://www.esztersblog.com

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