Looking for someone? Here is a handy GPS service to help you find them. Just punch in their phone number at this satellite tracking site.
The idea that we are living in a surveillance society is not new. George Orwell’s 1984, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, and Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 are just a few [...]
Archive for the ‘Terms and Concepts’ Category
Surveillance and Surveillance Society
Posted in Terms and Concepts on 2 July 2007 | 6 Comments »
Cyberspace
Posted in Assignments, Terms and Concepts, Weblogs on 29 June 2007 | 1 Comment »
Remember: Theories, terms and concepts are ideas that we use to make sense of the world around us, to understand and predict how the world works, and to help us decide how we can and should act in the world. They are socially constructed but they often have a real effect on how we perceive [...]
Crowdsourcing
Posted in Terms and Concepts on 27 June 2007 | 1 Comment »
There has increasing discussion in recent years, in academia, in business, and in popular discourse, about the importance of social and technological networks for producing, evaluating, and disseminating information. Crowdsourcing is one example of a term that draws on network theory to describe (and also to advocate) new ways of producing information using social and [...]
Open Source and Collaborative Production
Posted in Assignments, Terms and Concepts, Weblogs on 21 June 2007 | 3 Comments »
“Open Source” and “Collaborative Production” are important concepts for understanding new information technologies and their relation to social networks. For our purposes, we can understand these as closely related terms describing social arrangements through which groups of people work together in order to create something.
The term open source is often used to refer to a [...]
In-Class Activity: Participatory Journalism and Web Communities
Posted in Class Activities, Terms and Concepts, Weblogs on 14 June 2007 | 1 Comment »
(Note: If you were absent for this class, you will need to do a similar exercise on your own for another news site. Please speak to me about it.)
In class today we will begin an activity in which we examine news oriented websites in order to learn about their communities. This is a group exercise. [...]
Social Networks and Communities
Posted in Assignments, Class Activities, Terms and Concepts, Weblogs on 12 June 2007 | Leave a Comment »
In chapter four of We Media, “Rules of Participation,” the authors suggest that people who participate in online communities (or social networks) do so in order to fulfill certain needs, which may include (among others):
Building status or reputation
Creating connections with other people (”networking”)
Making sense or building understanding
Informing and being informed
Entertaining others and being entertained
Creating
For today’s [...]
Class for 8 June: Participatory Journalism
Posted in Class Activities, Terms and Concepts on 8 June 2007 | Leave a Comment »
(Reminder: The first formal weblog review starts today. Be sure that your weblog entries are up to date (including all assigned entries both in and out of class) and that your weblog link appears on this course list. (If your link does not appear on this list, you urgently need to provide me with the [...]
June 7: In Class Today
Posted in Class Activities, Terms and Concepts on 7 June 2007 | Leave a Comment »
(Reminders about readings, weblog journals, Bloglines, and Final Projects.)
Most of our time in the course so far has been focused on tools (WordPress weblogs and the Bloglines aggregator) and their use. Over the next several days we will focus a bit more on thinking about these tools (and perhaps some others) as examples of new [...]
What are “New Information Technologies?”
Posted in Terms and Concepts on 30 May 2007 | 1 Comment »
Today in class we will discuss some important terms for the course as we give a preliminary answer to the question, “What are New Information Technologies?” We will begin with a brief definition:
New information technologies (NITs) are digital, networked, interactive, socio-technical systems for gathering, producing, and distributing information.
Digital: Information is converted into computer-readable formats consisting [...]
What is a Weblog?
Posted in Required Reading, Terms and Concepts, Weblogs on 29 May 2007 | 2 Comments »
By now you may be wondering, “What is a weblog? And why do I need one for this course?” Here is a brief answer, along with a link to some required reading.
A weblog (sometimes also called a ‘blog) is a webpage that is designed to make posting content (whether text, graphics, audio, or video) a [...]
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neweurasia main site- A forgotten dawn in Ashgabad 16 November 2009Turkmenistan’s former ruler, Saparmurat “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov, often prophecized that his nation had a grand destiny. From the perspective of the world’s youngest global religion, the Baha’i Faith, he was indeed prophetic, but just not in ...Schwartz
- Influenzastan, part 1: take two pills of denial and call me in the morning 16 November 2009The Turkmen authorites haven't reported a single case of swine flu in the country. Is Turkmenistan an oasis of health? Unlikely, says newueriasia's Annasoltan, and of all the pandemics to sweep the globe in the last twenty years, ironically, this one seems to be giving the Turkmen authorities a serious headache.Annasoltan
- Another conspiracy theory 16 November 2009Let’s agree that Central Asia is sometimes behind the rest of the world. This is not due to decline or inability, but distance and difficulties in translation. For example, when the Internet was first speeding ...Timur
- Want to rent Monica Bellucci for a night? Uzbekistan did. 15 November 2009This past April, the daughter of Uzbekistan's president hired Italian supermodel Monica Bellucci to attend a gala for her new charity. The price: $300,000. "I suspect that the real goal of the event wasn't to promote this joke of a charity," writes neweurasia's Musafirbek, "but to promote Uzbekistan as a happy, shiny country wit […]Musafirbek
- Swine Flu Fear Syndrome 14 November 2009This post is more or less in direct opposition to Bakhrom’s post on Swine Flu. I agree with Michael Hancock here, but I’m going to go a little bit further and try to flesh out ...Timur
- Swine flu scares Osh residents 13 November 2009Days were passing without any hysteria until the recent news. Discovering swine flu from two citizens of Kyrgyzstan made many people scare. This disease which is also famous with name H1N1, already has taken lives ...Bakhrom
- Muslim punks are just punks: Muslims in Europe and America 13 November 2009What is the situation of Islam in the West and can Central Asia's Muslims gain insight from it? neweurasia's Managing Editor for English, Chris Schwartz, who holds degrees in Islamic history and philosophy and is currently living in Europe, gives his his opinion on the situation. "Any stroll through a city park will be revelatory," he wri […]Schwartz
- Has WordPress been banned in Kazakhstan? 13 November 2009The WordPress blog platform, which services most of the Kaznet, is inaccessible in several Almaty offices. This blockade has been the result of internal rules and electronic filters. Since it began, several Kazakh ...Askhat
- The signal of freedom, part 2: monopol-e-commerce 12 November 2009It's a simple rule of capitalist economics: the more customers there are, the better services become. Not so in Turkmenistan, reports neweurasia's Annasoltan. Market conditions may hamper the growth of mobile telephony in the country, and with it, the development of civil society.Annasoltan
- Bishkek uses water as a fuel 11 November 2009For several days two of southern micro-districts of Bishkek city were cut off from gas. Some may ask “so what?”, as such gas and electricity blackouts happen often in Kyrgyzstan. But I would not have ...Aravanski
- A forgotten dawn in Ashgabad 16 November 2009
