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  • anonymity, velocity, extensity and traceability as characteristics of online action

    From pg 42 of Being Digital Citizens by Evelyn Ruppert and Engin Isin: The first concerns anonymity. Being anonymous in cyberspace has several complex meanings that are different from being anonymous or even making rights claims to being anonymous. It is not surprising that one of the most recognizable if troubling acts on the Internet…

  • The origin of the phrase “cloud computing”

    Very interesting snippet at the end of How Google Works, loc 3859: It’s called “cloud computing” because the old programs to draw network schematics surrounded the icons for servers with a circle. A cluster of servers in a network diagram had several overlapping circles, which resembled a cloud.

  • Critical Realism 2016 reminder

    Deadline 31 Jan 2016. Submission guidelines on: http://tinyurl.com/jrh3jdj We are also delighted to inform you about the following developments: 1. We are currently applying for funding to support PhD students. If you would like to be considered for a grant, please mention it on your abstract. 2. Our Yale colleagues (Margarita Mooney, Phil Gorski, Tim Rutzou) will be…

  • Geoblocking and Global Video Culture

    GEOBLOCKING AND GLOBAL VIDEO CULTURE Eds. Ramon Lobato and James Meese Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2016 How do global audiences use streaming platforms like YouTube, Netflix and iPlayer? How does the experience of digital video change according to location? What strategies do people use to access out-of-region content? What are the commercial and governmental…

  • Social Science History Association 2016 CFP

    SSHA CALL FOR PAPERS Macrohistorical Dynamics Network 41st Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association Chicago IL 17-20 November 2016 Submission Deadline: 20 February 2016 “Knowledge in an Interdisciplinary World” We invite you to take part in Macrohistorical Dynamics (MHD) panels of the 41th annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, November 17-20,…

  • Call for Applications: International Visiting Fellowships in Critical Digital & Social Media Research

    Call for Applications: International Visiting Fellowships in Critical Digital & Social Media Research The Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS) www.westminster.ac.uk/wias is a newly created academic space at the University of Westminster in London for independent critical thinking beyond borders. Its inaugural research theme is Critical Digital & Social Media Research. One of the WIAS’ key features…

  • No Surrender

    Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold We swore blood brothers against the wind I’m ready to grow young again And hear your sister’s voice calling us home across the open yards Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own With these drums and these guitars Blood brothers…

  • Love, Ire & Song

    Well, it was bad enough the feeling, and the first time it hit When you realised your parents had let the world all go to shit And that the values and ideals for which many had fought and died Had been killed off in the committees and left to die by the wayside But it…

  • the reality of ‘20% time’ at Google

    One of Google’s most famous perks is the ‘20% rule’, in which staff are allowed a portion of time to work on their own projects. However as Eric Schmidt and his co-author explain in How Google Works, this isn’t a matter of time as such. From loc 3210: This is the power of 20 percent…

  • on ‘disruption’ and ‘innovation’

    Even though I believe the concepts of ‘innovation’ and ‘disruption’ refer to sociologically significant phenomena, I cringe slightly whenever I hear someone use the terms. Particularly in the case of the latter, a whole theory of social change at the meso level is implicit within it: it’s deeply ideological and we need to unpack it, rather…

  • the intensification of demands upon managers 

    I read this description of Schmidt in How Google Works and it immediately prompted the question of how this behaviour percolates down the food chain. How does a Google exec who fails this test then act in relation to their own subordinates? Loc 2524: John Seely Brown, the former director of Xerox’s Palo Alto Research…

  • the traditional model of information flow within organisations

    From How Google Works loc 2454-2466: Here’s a way to think about corporate communications: Picture a twenty-story building. You are on a middle floor, say the tenth, standing on a balcony. The number of people on each floor decreases as you go up. The top floor is occupied by just one person, while the bottom…

  • the sociology of executive coaching

    As you may know, executive coaching is an increasingly common phenomenon, particularly in some sectors like tech. This is how Eric Schmidt and his co-author describe the necessity of it in How Google Works loc 2440: Whenever you watch a world-class athlete perform, you can be sure that there is a great coach behind her success.…

  • the ‘via’ link as a continuation of established social practices 

    I really like this point made by Finn Brunton on pg 221 of Spam: The “via” link has interesting parallels with other social practices: the cab driver who recommends a relative’s hotel and then adds, “Tell them I sent you,” or the advertising circular that specifies that the shopper mention where he or she saw…

  • UCU’s recent anti-casualisation work 

    I always find it irritating when people say UCU does nothing to fight against casualisation. Here’s a round up of recent activity which was sent to the anti-casualisation mailing list: A quick roundup on some of UCU’s recent work for staff on casual contracts… Latest local progress reported on our website: There are two new…

  • Interesting communications summer school for PhD students 

    Dear colleagues, Thanks to the great success of the UPEC Summer School’s 2015 edition, we are delighted to announce the launch of the Summer School 2016 and the 2nd second session of the “IMPACT program” during 3 weeks : from 4 to 22 July 2016. IMPACT program – International Media, Political Action & Communication Technologies,…

  • CfP: Manchester Social Movements conference

    SOCIAL MOVEMENTS CONFERENCE – FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS From 1995 to 2015, Manchester Metropolitan University hosted a series of very successful annual international conferences on ‘ALTERNATIVE FUTURES and POPULAR PROTEST’. We’re very happy to announce that the Twenty First AF&PP Conference will be held between Monday 21st and Wednesday 23rd March 2016. The Conference rubric will…

  • Wed, Jan 27, LSE: Emergencies of Peace: The Exceptional State of (Academic) Affairs in Contemporary Turkey

     PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELYEmergencies of Peace: The Exceptional State of (Academic) Affairs in Contemporary Turkey Wednesday, January 27, 2016 6:30 to 8:30 pm New Academic Building Room 206 LSE Dr Ayça Çubukçu, Assistant Professor in Human Rights, Centre for the Study of Human Rights / Department of Sociology, LSE (chair) Dr Esra Ozyurek, Chair of Contemporary…

  • Workshop: Multimodality in Social Media and Digital Environments

    BAAL Language and New Media SIG 2016 Workshop: Multimodality in Social Media and Digital Environments Queen Mary University of London, 15 April, 2016 CALL FOR PAPERS Gestures, positioning in space, and other forms of embodied communication are frequently recognised as bearing meaning-making potential in interpersonal interactions and print mediaalongside (or instead of) language. There is…

  • The politics and economics of Chinese new media industries

    I’d really love to know more about this topic. Apologies for the formatting: > *ICA 2016 Preconference: The politics and economics of Chinese new media > industries* > > *Call for Papers* > > *[Selected full papers will be included in a special issue for > International Communication Gazette, to be published in early-2018.]* >…

  • Collaborative Work and Social Media: Responding to the rapid spread of provocative content

    Collaborative Work and Social Media: Responding to the rapid spread of provocative content Special issue call for the Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative work  New extended deadline for submissions March 28th 2016! These call details are also available online at https://sites.google.com/site/digitalwildfireesrc/jcscw Special issue editors Marina Jirotka – University of Oxford William Housley – Cardiff University Rob…

  • Reflecting on Digital Wildfire

    Some really interesting videos from the Digital Wildfire project.

  • against a consensual theory of conventions

    In their Being Digital Citizens, Evelyn Ruppert and Engin Isin outline a theory of conventions on pg 25-26: We shall characterize conventions broadly as sociotechnical arrangements that embody norms, values, affects, laws, ideologies, and technologies. As sociotechnical arrangements, conventions involve agreement or even consent—either deliberate or often implicit—that constitutes the logic of any custom, institution,…

  • Rocky V + Rock II = Rocky VII, Adrian’s Revenge

    I’ve had this stuck in my head since seeing the (surprisingly excellent) Creed earlier this week. Glad to find it on YouTube:

  • the failed promise of ‘cyber politics’, the empowerment of defensive elites and the death of liberal democracy

    I’m enjoying Evelyn Ruppert’s new book, co-authored with Engin Isin. On page 7 of Being Digital Citizens they write: What is important to recognize is that although the Internet may not have changed politics radically in the fifteen years that separate these two studies, it has radically changed the meaning and function of being citizens…

  • flagging Facebook users showing signs of radicalisation 

    Hard to see how this could go wrong, right? During the national security meeting in San Jose, Silicon Valley executives in the room, including Sandberg and Apple’s Tim Cook, appeared open to the idea of helping Washington combat Isis online. The Guardian reported at the time that US officials asked Sandberg about Facebook’s technology that…

  • What does punk mean?

    http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/videoAndAudio/embed-player.aspx?id=3331 If the BrewDog founder is to be believed, in this podcast about his new book Business for Punks, it’s a matter of hostility towards incumbents. BrewDog were to commercial beer as Punks were to ‘pop’ (as the founder describes what punk was a reaction to). As he describes this ethos, “if we were going to…

  • CFP: Digital Media, Psychoanalysis and the Subject

    *CFP: Digital Media, Psychoanalysis and the Subject* Editors: Jacob Johanssen (University of East London / University of Westminster, UK) and Steffen Krüger (University of Oslo, Norway). Abstract: Revisiting psychoanalytic theory and practice as a potential for media and communication studies, this CfP for a special issue of CM: Communication and Media Journal, to be published…

  • the practical mastery of animals

  • Perhaps having deconstructed everything, we should be thinking about putting everything back together?

    TOO MANY TO CONVINCE TOO MANY TO HIRE AND NOTHING YOU EVER OWN THE WORLD’S A DEAD SORRY HOLE AND I’M COLD, AND I’M COLD AND IM COLD, AND I’M STUBBORN I’M SICK TO KEEP IT OPEN WIDE AND SPEAKING WORDS TO THE BLIND SPEAKING WORDS, TO THE BLIND SPEAKING WORDS, TO THE BLIND AND…

  • EPIC 2016 CfP

    Whether or not you plan to submit to EPIC2016, I hope you’ll take a look at this year’s paper tracks, where the program committee is pushing our field forward in several specific areas. Click on the links below for more substantial discussions about key topics and developments in these areas. Of course, we do hope you’ll…

  • why did something like Google not emerge earlier in the web’s history?

    A really interesting question from Finn Brunton’s Spam pg 218: An interesting question can be raised in relation to this innovative development: why is it innovative—or rather, why wasn’t such a system already normal? Citation analysis has been a common tool in social science since the Science Citation Index ® began in 1963 (with the…

  • the feudal characteristics of tech firms 

    From Peter Thiel’s Less Than Zero loc 1912: Apple’s value crucially depended on the singular vision of a particular person. This hints at the strange way in which the companies that create new technology often resemble feudal monarchies rather than organizations that are supposedly more “modern.” A unique founder can make authoritative decisions, inspire strong…

  • don’t give money to anyone wearing a suit!

    From Peter Thiel’s Less Than Zero loc 1662-1670. Does informality thrive in tech capitalism because entrepreneurs are terrified of pissing off VC’s who think like this? At Founders Fund, we saw this coming. The most obvious clue was sartorial: cleantech executives were running around wearing suits and ties. This was a huge red flag, because…

  • The obsessive homogeneity of digital elites 

    From Peter Thiel’s Less Than Zero loc 1279: Max Levchin, my co-founder at PayPal, says that startups should make their early staff as personally similar as possible. Startups have limited resources and small teams. They must work quickly and efficiently in order to survive, and that’s easier to do when everyone shares an understanding of…

  • The genesis of the PayPal Mafia

    Peter Thiel describing how the ‘PayPal Mafia’ came about in his Less Than Zero, loc 1238-1251: The first team that I built has become known in Silicon Valley as the “PayPal Mafia” because so many of my former colleagues have gone on to help each other start and invest in successful tech companies. We sold…

  • don’t let the fuckers get you down

    Don’t let the fuckers get you down Don’t let them take away this song Don’t let the fuckers get you down Don’t let them wonder why you frown Don’t let the fuckers get you down Or steal the thrill of feeling young And you can hide away the key Don’t let them take you away…

  • CfP: Citizen Science: Beyond the Laboratory

    Submission deadline: Feb 21, 2016 Submission link: http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easst/easst_4s2016/panels.php5?PanelID=4031 *Convenors* Gabriel Mugar (Syracuse University) gmugar@syr.edu<mailto:gmugar@syr.edu> Carsten Østerlund (Syracuse University) costerlu@syr.edu<mailto:costerlu@syr.edu> Andrea Wiggins (University of Maryland) wiggins@umd.edu<mailto:wiggins@umd.edu> *Abstract* Citizen science constitutes a rich and fast-evolving arena in the production of scientific knowledge, raising questions that speak to the core of STS scholarship. In its various forms, ranging from expert-driven crowdsourced…

  • The meritocratic elitism of Google 

    How Google Works is a fascinating book co-authored by Eric Schmidt in which he details, unsurprisingly, how Google works. In the section I just read, he describes how Google sets out to ensure that they only hire A’s, as detailed in loc 1413: A workforce of great people not only does great work, it attracts…

  • an interview with Christian Smith about the need for sociology to do ontology

  • the political economy of outsourcing

    Thanks to Murray Goulden for this great Guardian essay looking at the rise and fall of Serco, as well as the outsourcing industry more broadly. I hadn’t realised until reading this either that the industry employs a million people or quite how much it has grown in the UK from 2010 onwards. It seems evident that you can’t understand the…

  • life planning as navigational guide rather than existential blueprint

    This idea from Daniel Little really chimes with what I’m arguing in my chapter for the 5th CSO book. Life planning as blueprint is becoming ever less sustainable as the continuity of a subject’s context becomes ever less assured. This disrupts instrumental rationality because contextual assumptions about means become unreliable, while social and cultural change also throws up…

  • Gaming Metrics: Innovation & Surveillance in Academic Misconduct (via @claudiakincaid)

    UC Davis, February 4-5, 2016 The event is open to the public. Please register here. Follow on Twitter at #GamingMetrics. This conference explores a recent evolution of scholarly misconduct connected to the increasing reliance of metrics in the evaluation of individual faculty, departments, and universities.  Misconduct has traditionally been tied to the pressures of “publish or perish”…

  • “You will grow to be something dynamic and impressive; You are patient, you are gallant, you are festive”

    Uh, greasy grimy gopher guts Poolside, O for 1 and don’t forget spoons twice Lukewarm folgers; mold on his moonpie Rooms in his home that dissipate into fruit flies Suicide lane wide load ride looting in the wake of an amicable marooning My duty go from moving in packs to sharing food with a cat…

  • spammers as the avant-garde of digital capitalism 

    From Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet by Finn Brunton pg 197. The thesis of this impressive book is that what we call ‘spam’ is fundamentally a deliberate and disenguous violation of salience: it’s because of the vast array of new instances of salience being opened up, in which we search for and have…

  • the sociology of corporate perks

    The business press has always had a tendency to focus on the perks offered to staff in tech firms. I don’t think they’re manifestations of enlightened, almost non-hierarchical leadership, as some would suggest. But I don’t think they’re trivial either. But don’t take my word for it – here’s Eric Schmidt (and Jonathan Rosenberg) discussing…

  • Cf Papers & Panels: “Internet & Politics: from Local to Global Politics”

    Call for Papers and PanelsInternet and Politics: From Local to Global Politics Section at the ECPR General Conference | 7-10.September.16 | Prague Section Chairs Andrea Calderaro (Cardiff University) Alexandra Segerberg (Stockholm University) Abstract The Section aims to explore Internet and Politics across its multiple dimensions in a global and comparative perspective. While the research area…

  • CFP: Critical Data Studies track at 4S/EASST

    *For more information:*http://bids.berkeley.edu/news/call-proposals-critical-data-studies-track%E2%80%944seasst-conference-bcn-2106-science-technology-other *Submission link*: http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easst/easst_4s2016/panels.php5?PanelID=4041 *Description* Computational methods with large datasets are becoming more common across disciplines in academia (including social sciences) and analytic industries, but the sprawling and ambiguous boundaries of “big data” makes it difficult to research. In this track we investigate the relationship between theories, instruments, methods and practices in data…

  • the tinderization of everyday life

    I love this essay (HT Su Oman) – I recently presented a paper The Challenge of Flourishing Amidst Variety and it was a very different approach to precisely the same questions. Read it in full here. LIVING with a sense of overwhelming choice means exerting an insane amount of emotional energy in making the most banal decisions. What should…

  • Roberto Unger on Flaws in the Human Condition

    I really like this set of ideas, though I dislike the language of ‘flaws’. Much of my work since I was a student has been motivated, at one level, by a desire to incorporate this level of analysis into sociological research.

  • Call for Papers: Political Citizenship and Social Movements

    BSA Citizenship Study Group and the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Standing Group on Citizenship: Political Citizenship and Social Movements University of Portsmouth, 27-28 June 2016 Sponsored by University of Portsmouth’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Citizenship, ‘Race’ and Belonging Research Group and the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence Keynote Speakers: Prof Engin…

  • the ultimate Rocky training montage

  • Violent Abandonment: researching the Calais Refugee Camp – @SocioWarwick Seminar Wednesday 20 January

    Violent Abandonment: researching the Calais refugee camp Dr Thom Davies (Sociology, University of Warwick), Dr Arshad Isakjee and Dr Surindar Dhesi (Geography, University of Birmingham) Abstract: Surviving in informal refugee camps is fast becoming the lived reality for thousands of refugees and migrants who are entering Europe. Abandoned and neglected, these spaces have become the de facto solution to…

  • social theorising is more important than social theory

    I really like this idea – see the full post here. I was always quite taken with the method for social ontology which Dave Elder-Vass elaborated for what I think were quite similar reasons. There’s far too much attention paid to theory and far too little attention paid to theorising. Following this, Swedberg suggested that learning to theorise can…

  • Social Media in the Accelerated Academy, March 2nd @CIMethods @SocioWarwick

  • Are social media algorithms killing online activism?

    Via John Brissenden

  • Living by numbers: big data & society

  • Amongst Algorithms: Technical Fieldwork between Software Studies and Digital Methods

  • Call for Blog Posts: the Rise of the Superstar Professor

    In a recent blog post Peter Walsh argued that the phenomenon of academic celebrity has been unjustly neglected within sociology. While there has been a substantial growth in the study of celebrity more broadly, research on superstar professors and those aspiring to this status has been largely absent. Yet it could be argued that such figures are…

  • Work in the Digital Society

    I just came across this great collection on Social Europe Journal. I’d stopped following it for a while but it seems to have gone through some changes. I look forward to working my way through these: http://www.socialeurope.eu/focus/shaping-the-digital-society/ The Digital Revolution is set to dramatically change our lives in the coming years and policy- and decision-makers need to…

  • WBS Paytech 2016: Technologies of Exchange in a Digital Economy

    WBS Paytech 2016: Technologies of Exchange in a Digital EconomyThursday, 4th and Friday, 5th of February 2016 Warwick Business School at The Shard, London Organizers: Dr. Markos Zachariadis: @MarkosZach & Dr. Nathaniel Tkacz: @__nate__ URL: bit.ly/WBSpaytech #WBSpaytech @WarwickBSchool @warwickuni 

  • will capitalism die? or merely trundle on in an ever more authoritarian way?

    A great article by Robert Misik in Social Europe. You should definitely read it in full here, but this is the gist of it:  Can one therefore imagine that capitalism is a caputalism bearing the Cain’s mark of collapse? And how can we envisage this end? “The image I have of the end of capitalism — an…

  • The Ontology of Corporate Grievance

    There’s an interesting section of In The Plex which details quite how much Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer hated Google. From pg 282-283: Just how intensely Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, despised his competitor to the south became clear in depositions that would be filed in the Lee lawsuit. The year before, in November 2004, a top Microsoft…

  • CfP: Technology and Culture – Policing Crises Now

    The Cultural Studies Association’s Working Group on Technology and Culture invites submissions for the 14th Annual Meeting of the Cultural Studies Association (U.S.), to be held at Villanova University in Philadelphia, PA, June 2-5, 2016. The theme of this year’s conference is “Policing Crises Now.” We encourage submissions of panels or individual papers that are…

  • Call for Papers: Digital Methodologies – Beyond Big & Small Data

    Digital Methodologies: Beyond Big & Small Data 9th International Conference on Social Science Methodology (RC33) September 11th – 16th, 2016, University of Leicester (http://www.le.ac.uk/) Session Organizer Christian Bokhove, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, C.Bokhove@soton.ac.uk Mark Carrigan, University of Warwick, United Kingdom, mark@markcarrigan.net Sarah Lewthwaite, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, s.e.lewthwaite@southampton.ac.uk Richard Wiggins, Institute of Education, United Kingdom r.wiggins@ioe.ac.uk Session…

  • Digital Social Science Essay Competition

    The Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) and Big Data & Society (BD&S) intend to award a prize of CHF 1,000 for the best essay on the topic ‘Influence and Power’. This is a topic, not a title. Accordingly, authors are free to choose an essay title within this field. The winner will also be invited…

  • International Conference for Critical Realism 2016 in Cardiff: registration open

    Dear colleague, The International Conference for Critical Realism will be held in Cardiff on 20-22 July 2016. It will be preceded by an optional pre-conference workshop on 18-19 July. This year’s theme is de/humanisation. We welcome contributions from all areas of the humanities and the social sciences. A number of grants will be available for PhD students. Registration…

  • Moral Economies of the Digital

    I wish I could go to this: Mini-conference on *Moral Economies of the Digital* Call for papers for mini-conference at the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) 28th Annual Conference ‘Moral Economies, Economic Moralities.’ June 24-26, 2016,  University of California, Berkeley. Organizers: Dean Curran, Dave Elder-Vass, Elisa Oreglia, Nikos Sotirakopoulos, and Janaki Srinivasan DEADLINE FOR…

  • On Fire

  • songs from Brian Fallon’s new solo album

  • Google’s war against latency

    Acceleration theory can too easily slide into seeing speed as a function of technological innovation. The susprisingly excellent In The Plex offers a nice counterpoint to this, identifying the sheer amount of effort involved throughout an organisation in order to increase speed across a diverse range of products. From pg 186: In 2008, Google issued…

  • Page’s Law as a counter-point to acceleration theory

    From In The Plex pg 185: Sergey Brin even put a label on his cofounder’s frustration at the tendency of developers to load more and more features into programs, making them run way too slowly. Page’s Law , according to Brin, was the observation that every eighteen months, software becomes twice as slow. Google was…

  • Devil’s Medicine

  • Workshop: Conceptual Challenges in Interdisciplinary Social Media Research

    I’m very excited that the Digital Social Science Forum’s workshop has been accepted at Social Media & Society in London this year. Susan Halford, Les Carr, Emma Uprichard and Evelyn Ruppert will be speaking at the workshop & I will be facilitating. It will take place on Monday July 11th and you’ll have to register…

  • the rise of human centred data science at facebook

    An absolutely fascinating account of developments in the newsfeed algorith at Facebook since its introduction: Adam Mosseri, Facebook’s 32-year-old director of product for news feed, is Alison’s less technical counterpart—a “fuzzie” rather than a “techie,” in Silicon Valley parlance. He traffics in problems and generalities, where Alison deals in solutions and specifics. He’s the news…

  • the burden of chrono-reflexivity at work

    I was interested to learn that Netflix has a seemingly enlightened approach to the working and holiday patterns of their employees: Since 2004, Netflix employees have taken as many vacation days as they’ve wanted. They have the freedom to decide when to show up for work, when to take time off, and how much time it will…

  • the winner-takes-all dynamic of digital capitalism

    Great New Yorker article on the winner-takes-all dynamic that characterises innovative new tech-driven markets. Two escalatory dynamics drive this: the increasing competitive advantage of having better infrastructure and the increasing value of the platform as more users join. Add in the over-eagre venture capital seeking to back the eventual winner in the market and you have an…

  • the challenge of life planning in a digital age

    I just got back from the CSO workshop in Paris where I gave a paper on the challenge of flourishing amidst variety. My interest is in how social digitalisation ‘opens up’ the archive, albeit in a deeply uneven way, as well the implications this has for the process of shaping a life.  However the paper needed a bit of…

  • Google Anything, So Long as It’s Not Google

    I just came across this fascinating article, now 10 years old, detailing how former Google CEO Eric Schmidt cut off relations with CNET after a reporter  there had the temerity to detail the information she was able to find out about him via Google: Last month, Elinor Mills, a writer for CNET News, a technology…

  • the corporate housewife, eliminating the need for mundane reflexivity

    From In The Plex, by Steven Levy, pg 134: It’s sort of like the corporation as housewife,” wrote Googler Kim Malone in an unpublished novel. “Google cooks for you, picks up and delivers your dry cleaning, takes care of your lube jobs, washes your car, gives you massages, organizes your work-outs. In fact, between the…

  • the intellectual elitism of Silicon Valley

    From In The Plex, by Steven Levy, pg 138. I’m interested in the politics likely to emerge when this self-conception thrives, all the more so when so many of the early Googlers went on to become multi-millionaires. Google took its hiring very seriously. Page and Brin believed that the company’s accomplishments sprang from a brew…

  • “now listen you queer!”: the origins of contemporary political punditry

    I just watched Best of Enemies, a great film about the rivalry between William Buckley and Gore Vidal that was most famously captured in this scene: A subsequent exchange of words in high brow magazines then led to an exchange of lawsuits. I’ve been fascinated by this video since I first came across it. However…

  • one month left: the @bigdatasoc & @digitalsocsci essay competition

    The Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) and Big Data & Society (BD&S) intend to award a prize of CHF 1,000 for the best essay on the topic ‘Influence and Power’. This is a topic, not a title. Accordingly, authors are free to choose an essay title within this field. The winner will also be invited…

  • dear PhDs/ECRs: need funding to go to a conference? @thesocreview can help

    The Sociological Review has launched the next round of its support scheme for unfunded PhDs and ECRs. Find out more and apply here: We are pleased to announce our latest round of funding, supported by The Sociological Review Foundation. Funds of up to £1000 per applicant are be available for unfunded PhD students and postdocs (within 3 years of…

  • 2 weeks left to submit: digital methodologies, beyond big & small data

    Digital Methodologies: Beyond Big & Small Data 9th International Conference on Social Science Methodology (RC33) September 11th – 16th, 2016, University of Leicester (http://www.le.ac.uk/) Session Organizer Christian Bokhove, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, C.Bokhove@soton.ac.uk Mark Carrigan, University of Warwick, United Kingdom, mark@markcarrigan.net Sarah Lewthwaite, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, s.e.lewthwaite@southampton.ac.uk Richard Wiggins, Institute of Education, United Kingdom r.wiggins@ioe.ac.uk Session…

  • my plans for 2016

    My new year is starting with the two most challenging things I’ll do in the whole of 2016 within the first 18 days. I’ve got really clear plans for this year, much more so than at any point I can remember, which I thought I’d lay out now in a post before I get lost in…

  • grooming the next generation of the digital elite

    An interesting extract from Steven Levy’s In The Plex about Google’s Associate Product Managers, a select group being groomed as future leaders. From page 3: The APM program, I learned, was a highly valued initiative. To quote the pitch one of the participants made in 2006 to recent and upcoming college graduates: “We invest more…

  • the political psychology of the super rich

    A really insightful Paul Krugman article on a topic I’m getting increasingly fascinated by: Wealth can be bad for your soul. That’s not just a hoary piece of folk wisdom; it’s a conclusion from serious social science, confirmed by statistical analysis and experiment. The affluent are, on average, less likely to exhibit empathy, less likely…

  • the best description of Corbynism I’ve encountered 

    From John Harris in the Guardian: Whatever his suitability for the job, Corbyn is where he is for one reason above all others: the fact that Britain’s post-1979 journey into a new reality of a shrunken welfare state, marketised public services, rising inequality and an impossible job market had reached a watershed with the deepening…

  • enjoying it: candy crush and capitalism

    I was slightly disappointed by Enjoying It: Candy Crush and Capitalism but I’ve come away from it with one core concept stuck in my mind. The author distinguishes between what he calls ‘productive’ and ‘unproductive’ enjoyment: the former is that which ‘serves’ social and cultural structures, while the latter is pointless activity which serves no purpose.…

  • I’ve never had a contract with @VirginMedia, yet they’re sending me details of my ‘spending’

    I just wasted half an hour on the phone, only to be told that they can offer no explanation as to why I’ve received this letter:

  • Calling PhDs & ECRs: @thesocreview conference funding competition is now open!

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