Thursday, November 12, 2015

11/5/15 Class Rapporteur Notes

11/5/15

Second life field trip
  • Plush Nonprofit Commons
    • Tour, MagicChair
      • Multiple tours
      • Flying to catch tour?
      • Multiple people on a chair
    • Links to outside non profit sites, free stuff (off and online)
    • Solidity of walls and buildings versus being able to walk through other avatars
    • Looks of worldswhy ivy in the nonprofit commons? How does the appearance and ecology relate to the purpose of the island? Are they disjunct?  
    • Is SL abandoned or are there too many islands/sprawl?
    • Meeting with Tom’s graduate student
      • Started with voice, but turned off
      • Invite her back for class?
      • Seems like they're continuing research on SL, grant for work
  • Oahu Cinema Drive-In
    • Vacation for pay, rent hut
      • Allows for a private space, in a place where you can teleport anywhere
      • How to cultivate and enforce social rules?  
    • Relaxation vs more functional use of nonprofit commons
    • Is there a marker of language identity? Should we assume everyone speaks English
    • Politicized places: Chinese activists who made the SL Great Wall
  • National Shrine
    • Purpose: to experience the sacrament when you can’t be there
    • How to keep track of who visits?
      • Not automatic

Virtual communities project
  • How to establish/protect your own (researcher's) identity
    • Private message
    • Show description of project
    • Show course listing
  • Different collection methods
    • Ok to ask users to talk outside of the virtual world, if the platform is too hectic
    • Surveys are useful, but use other methods (interviews) too to figure out reasons behind answers
  • Limit scope, MINI-ethnography
    • Be as specific as possible while still interesting
  • Is just observation ok if the researcher doesn't want to intrude on the community?
    • What is private vs public information  
    • Ask the administrators or moderators of sites
    • Some questions (not too sensitive ones) may be ok to ask
  • Tinder/dating sites and deception
    • Researcher could reveal self as researcher
    • Meta research on how to do research on such platforms
    • Not necessarily disingenuous to make a profile because it’s an open space, anyone can make a profile
  • Ability to build rapport, especially in communities with set rules
    • Interviews are helpful
    • Online sociality, how do users interact and build rapport with each other?
    • Being a beginner can be useful because that's how we learn the norms of a culture, e.g. the reading on medical school students
    • How is membership is marked on profiles?

“Terms and Conditions May Apply” documentary
  • What’s the alternative to using this technology?
  • Interconnectedness of every site/profile with Facebook
  • Victim blaming: is it the users’ fault? Is the onus on individuals?  
    • We have relationships with other people and companies, individuals cannot control everything that's out there about themselves
    • Does reading the terms and conditions help?
    • Stanford Law article

  • Anonymity & the masses
    • Data is aggregated and anonymous until someone is targeted
    • Use of cookies
    • Lots of data but easy to find with Ctrl F
      • In China, misspelling words on purpose so as to not be so easily searchable
  • Cost-benefit analysis
    • Is the potential to prevent/stop crime great enough to invade everyone’s privacy?
    • The problem with preventioncan’t say it will ever happen
  • Is the terrorism/national security reasoning a cover?
    • How many terrorists are actually caught?
    • Don't we all have six degrees to a criminal?
    • Slippery slope to business and profit interests
  • China and US
    • In China, one expects surveillance, versus here in the "land of free"

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