Computers & Society/Annotated Bibliography

B

Barrett, Cameron. “Anatomy of a Weblog.” Camworld. 26 Jan 1999. Link.

Blood, Rebecca. "The blogosphere: How blogging software reshapes the online community." Commun. ACM 47 (December 2004): 53-55. (Blood 2004). Weblogs are distinct from simple web pages because they allow commentary and often permit the audience to contribute ideas to the site. Blood discusses the importance of permalinks as a means of putting content into context. Finally, trackbacks allow weblogs to ping one another to place a reciprocal link and keep track of responses to comments. Software has enabled blogging with need of coding the entries.

Blood, Rebecca. The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog. Perseus Publications, 2002. (Blood 2002). As one of the first comprehensive looks at weblogs, Blood's contribution to the academic scholarship is a solid one. From a review of the history of blogging to explanations for the neophyte on how to set up their own site, Blood's dedication to her craft shines clear. As a frequently cited author, her new media research helped prepare bloggers to engage their audiences with proper 'netiquette' and an engaging message.

Bolter, David Jay and Richard Gursin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998.

Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” Atlantic Monthly 176.1 (July 1945). Link.

D

Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. New York : Oxford University Press, 1976.

Delong, Brad. “Google and Larry Page.” Brad Delong’s Webjournal. 14 Feb 2003. Link.

E

Eisenstein, Elizabeth. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Vol 1.

F

Farkas, Meredith G. Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication, and Community Online. Information Today, Inc., March 2007. This is a useful source for educators and librarians new to the Web 2.0 phenomena. It provides practical advice on how to use a variety of tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasting and gaming in academic settings. This book helps put the discussion of social software in proper perspective as way to encourage public collaboration and sharing of ideas. Farkas provides anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of these new technologies.

G

Gillmor, Dan. “Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time.” Silicon Valley. 15 Feb 2003. Link.

H

Herring, S. C., I. Kouper, J. C. Paolillo, L. A. Scheidt, M. Tyworth, P. Welsch, E. Wright, and Ning Yu. "Conversations in the Blogosphere: An Analysis "From the Bottom Up"." 2005, 107b-107b. Link. This research provides a cogent examination of blog communications research. While conversations occur frequently among a subset of users with common interests, the greater blogosphere expands and contracts as new works are added and others deleted. Popular blogs drive traffic to their sites while others selectively link to blogs who comment frequently on their pages.

Herring, Susan C., Lois A. Scheidt, Elijah Wright, and Sabrina Bonus. "Weblogs as a bridging genre." Information Technology & People 18 (February 2005): 142-171. Link. This study examines weblogs as an evolving genre of computer-mediated communications. The research points to blogger's role in constructing their interpretive community. The writer selects meaningful content and creates an online audience for their research. Thus, blogging plays both public as well as private roles in the new media.

L

Landow, George. Hypertext 2.0. The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. His second edition is a creative examination of the changes wrought by electronic authorship via hypertext. The audience of readers were at once capable of rewriting as well as remixing the text (fan fiction comes to mind). In cyberspace, writing was transformed into a participatory art form as the author's work was 'decentered' by a new consumptive aesthetic derived from popular culture.

M

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. As the groundbreaking scholarly work that helped redefine new media in the electronic age, McLuhan's explorations of 'hot" and "cool media" helped define emergent modes of communication. As human beings continue to grapple with tribal vs. collective interests, hypermedia provides a ground for cultural exchange within the 'global village'. McLuhan acknowledged the reciprocal relationship of people being shaped by the very tools they create. Social software provides further proof of this concept.

MLA Ad Hoc Committee on the Future of Scholarly Publication. “The Future of Scholarly Publication.” Profession 2002. 172-186. Murray, Janet Horowitz. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: Free Press, 1997.

N

Nardi, Bonnie et al. "Blogging as social activity, or, would you let 900 million people read your diary?" Proc. of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, Chicago. 6-10 November, 2004. 222-231. Link. Nardi's ethnographic research on blogging as an innovative epistemological genre which relates the individual with his social world through permalinks, comments and trackbacks. She shows how this network evolves depending on the depth and nature of the communicative interaction. Software which facilitates user accessibility affords greater opportunities for bloggers.

Nielsen, Jakob. "Interface Standards and Design Creativity." UseIT.com. 22 Aug 1999.Link.

T

Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. (Turkle 1995). This study examines weblogs as an evolving genre of computer-mediated communications. The research points to blogger's role in constructing their interpretive community. The writer selects meaningful content and creates an online audience for their research. Thus, blogging plays both public as well as private roles in the new media.

W

Walker, David. “How David Siegel Joined the Nielsen Camp.” Shorewalker. [1998?] Link.