(2001). Culture in the Communication Age. London, Routledge.
This book is a collection of different contributors mainly in the Communication domain. Starting from framing the Information/Communication Age, it focuses "on processes of human interaction and on their constitutive signifying practices rather than simply on the hardware or content of information transmission and exchange", keeping the human considerations in the forefront of the analysis where they belong. By considering the "informational capitalism" and the digital divide issues, it includes essays that reconsider "The foundation of culture" (part I), it offers various crucial ways of "Making sense of culture" and it features incisive perspectives on four analytical domains in "Contemporary cultural forms", including "virtual cultures" and "Internetworking". (Annotated by Irene Sigismondi)

(2000). Generation-e: The Internet and What it Means to You. New Statesman. 129: i-xxx.
A special section on the Internet. Topics discussed include the new consumer culture that has emerged and how Internet firms are scrambling for customers' attention; the work of government adviser and "e-envoy" Alex Allan in transforming Britain into the e-commerce capital of the world and in making the government more efficient by the use of new technology; the best official and nonofficial government websites; the ins and outs of the Internet new economy; those dot-com firms groomed for success and those that bombed spectacularly in the new economy; regulating the Internet; how much the Internet has influenced the lives of eight selected people in the public eye; how technology will make life more complex; some visions of the world of the future; the Internet's development across the world; personal accounts of how the Internet has changed lives for the better; the role of human error in computer failings; the dangers inherent in unleashing the power of the Internet; and prejudice against women in the technology industry. (Social Sciences Abstracts)

(2000). "The Coming Backlash in Privacy: Services to Allow Consumers to Buy Goods Anonymously." The Economist. 357: 4-5.
Part of a special section on technological innovation. Privacy services allow customers to purchase goods anonymously online, but this could force web-based retailers to change the way they conduct business. Some e-commerce ventures operate on the premise that retailers, manufacturers, and advertisers are prepared to pay to gain marketing data collected by online services that entice users with free offers. With growing consumer concern about the threats to privacy online, new technology is being developed to protect consumers. Privacy services are being adopted by financial institutions due to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act, passed in November 1999, which requires financial institutions to detail who sees customer's private details. Consumers may lose out as online firms, due to loss of data collection profits, treat online customers more like offline buyers. (Social Sciences Abstracts)

(2000). Define and Sell: Types of E-Commerce and General Web Economics. The Economist. 354: 6, 11-12, 15.
Part of a special section on e-commerce. The writer offers a definition of e-commerce and considers the areas in which online commerce is most and least successful. He defines e-commerce as the trade that actually occurs over the Internet, usually through a buyer visiting a seller's website and making a transaction there. He notes that among the main actors in e-commerce--businesses and consumers--the largest volume of trade by far at present is business-to-business. He is more concerned, however, with the remaining three segments of e-commerce: business-to-consumer, consumer-to-business, and consumer-to-consumer. He considers what the Internet, or more specifically the World Wide Web, has to offer in all these areas. In addition, he discusses what kinds of goods and services sell well electronically, pointing out how technological change is constantly increasing the possibilities of what works well in e-commerce. Furthermore, he considers the powerful economic gains and costs of commerce on the web and outlines the web's effects on the retail industry. (Social Sciences Abstracts)

(2000). Feeling Insecure: Making Online Payments More Secure. The Economist. 357: 73.
Any company hoping to profit from consumer e-commerce becoming big business is aware that the most serious barrier to its success is the extreme reluctance of customers to release their financial details into cyberspace. To gain their trust, credit-card and other charge-card providers are willing to let them off payments they deny having incurred. Although a better solution to the problem would be to ensure that card details are truly secure, so far, this has proven more difficult than anticipated. Fighting between some of the businesses seeking to tighten up online payments has made matters worse. Details are provided of current planned initiatives to increase online consumer security. (Social Sciences Abstracts)

Discusses online shopping security issues. How credit card companies will cancel a charge if it involves an online shopping complaint; Attempts of Visa and MasterCard to prevent Internet credit card fraud; Thought that Internet fraud is far more common than fraud in the physical world; Internet security systems. (From EBSCO host)

(2000). The Fright After Christmas: Shoppers are Dissatisfied with Online Retailers. The Economist. 354: 61-2.
U.S. Internet retailers were left with very little to be cheerful about following the 1999 holiday season. Most of them spent a fortune on advertising, and, consequently, few of them stood out in terms of attracting customers. They spent large amounts of money in the hope of building enough sales to persuade investors to back their next round of funding. However, their problems were exacerbated by the fact that, in the fight for market share, many of them neglected fulfillment and customer service. (Social Sciences Abstracts)

(2000). "Internet Economics." Economist 355: 64-6.
Although the markets may have overhyped the Internet, it will make most businesses more efficient, and the Internet's impact on economic growth could be just as dramatic. Economists are divided on the effects of the Internet: some predict that it will greatly boost global growth and kill inflation; others contend that inflation is solely determined by the money supply and that Internet share prices are overvalued. The Internet may push down inflation in the short run and boost growth in the longer term, but this assumes that the Internet affects only aggregate supply. In reality, it could also boost demand, because if equity investors expect faster growth in output and profits and push up share prices, this will boost households' wealth and encourage more spending. Investment may also be boosted by higher share prices, and therefore a cheaper cost of capital. The fact that potential cost savings and productivity gains from the Internet should be much bigger in the European Union and Japan than the U.S., as they are trying to catch up with the U.S., is discussed. (Social Sciences Abstract)

(2000). "The First Amendment." Media Studies Journal 14:iv-x: 1-114.
Constitutional law issues; freedoms of speech, the press, religion, and assembly and petition; US; 18 articles. Campaign finance reform, the media, "illegal thoughts", copyright infringement, children and the Internet, Internet access, the American flag, news, privacy, the public interest, religious broadcasters, lobbying, and censorship.

(2000). Theories of the New Media. A Historical Perspective. London, Athlone Press.
This book offers an interesting overview and analysis of the different impact of electronic media and information technology on every-day life
through "a series of influential statements and positions that problematize the critical-scholastic penchant for conceptual complication and technical reductivism, and the very different industrial penchant for technical determinism and marketing as natural law". The sections feature: "Theorizing Technohistory: Old Media/ New Media", "Producing Technoculture", "Consuming Technoculture" and "Boundaries, Identities, Practice". (Annotated by Irene Sigismondi)

(1999). Media Shrugs Off Reported Consumer Headaches., The Standard.
Internet consumers are disgruntled, according to two surveys released this week. Either the U.S. media was cynical about the surveys' not-so-groundbreaking results, or reporters blew off the stories to attend Labor Day cookouts (lead paragraph, The Industry Standard website.)

(1998). "Special Issue of Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication on Virtual Organizations, A Joint Issue with Organizational Science." JMCM 3(4).
This paper explores the challenges of creating and maintaining trust in a global virtual team whose members transcend time, space, and culture. The challenges are highlighted by integrating recent literature on work teams, computer-mediated communication groups, cross-cultural communication, and interpersonal and organizational trust. To explore these challenges empirically, we report on a series of descriptive case studies on global virtual teams whose members were separated by location and culture, were challenged by a common collaborative project, and for whom the only economically and practically viable communication medium was asynchronous and synchronous computer-mediated communication. The results suggest that global virtual teams may experience a form of 'swift' trust but such trust appears to be very fragile and temporal. The study raises a number of issues to be explored and debated by future research. Pragmatically, the study describes communication behaviors that might facilitate trust in global virtual teams. (Annotated by Ryan C. Sperry)

(1997). Coordinating the Internet, MIT Press.
For years, the world saw the Internet as a creature of the U.S. Department of Defense. Now some claim that the Internet is a self-governing
organism controlled by no one and needing no oversight. Although the National Science Foundation and other government agencies continue to
support and oversee critical administrative and coordinating functions, the Internet is remarkably decentralized and uninstitutionalized. As it grows in scope, bandwidth, and functionality, the Internet will require greater coordination, but it is not yet clear what kind of coordinating mechanisms will evolve.

The essays in this volume clarify these issues and suggest possible models for governing the Internet. The topics addressed range from settlements and statistics collection to the sprawling problem of domain names, which affects the commercial interests of millions of companies around the world. One recurrent theme is the inseparability of technical and policy issues in any discussion involving the Internet. (From the Publisher)

President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC).
The President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) was chartered by Congress under the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 (P. L. 102-194) and the Next Generation Internet Act of 1998 (P. L. 105-305). The Committee provides the President, Congress, and the Federal agencies involved in information technology research and development (IT R&D) with expert, independent advice on maintaining America's preeminence in advanced information technologies, including such critical elements of the national infrastructure as high performance computing, large-scale networking, and high assurance software and systems design. As part of this assessment, the PITAC reviews the Federal Networking and IT R&D Program. Comprising leading IT experts from industry and academia, the Committee helps guide the Administration's efforts to accelerate the development and adoption of information technologies vital for American prosperity in the 21st century. PITAC is formally renewed through Presidential Executive Orders. The current Executive Order is due to expire June 1, 2003. (National Coordination Office for Information Technology Research and Development website, updated May 2002.)

Abbate, J. (2000). Inventing the Internet, MIT Press.
Abbate (history, Univ. of Maryland) provides what may be the finest extended work on Internet history and development to date. With an
eye for the social constructs that shaped the Internet, she explores the Cold War genesis of ARPANET, created by the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency, and its technological successors. Abbate makes much of the military origins of the earliest computer networks and of issues surrounding packet-switching technology. She considers major players--not just institutions but people like Paul Baran, Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Lawrence Roberts, and Donald Davies--and pays special attention to the astonishing way in which ARPANET eventually metamorphosed into an egalitarian paradigm of commercial and civilian interaction by the 1990s. Though the constant use of parenthetical notation is distracting, and a much-needed glossary is sadly omitted, this book is useful for anyone studying information technology. Recommended for all public and academic libraries.--Dayne Sherman, Southeastern Louisiana Univ., Hammond Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information. (From Library Journal, Barnes&Noble Reviews)

Abbott, A. F. and G. L. Brady. (2000). "Internet Governance: A Rent-Seeking Analysis." Journal of Private Enterprise 16: 47-67.

Abels, E. G., P. Liebscher, et al. (1996). "Factors that Influence the Use of Electronic Networks by Science and Engineering Faculty at Small Institutions." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 47(2): 146-158.
Adoption of an NSF net connection at an institutional level is a costly undertaking. The decision to connect requires a hierarchy of subordinate decisions relating to the network connection. If any group of faculty resist adopting and using the network, the potential benefits of the network and its services will not be realized for the institution as a whole.
A study was undertaken to explore factors that influence the adoption and use of electronic networks and network services by science and engineering faculty in small universities and colleges. Adoption was measured by the dichotomous variable of use and non-use for the network end for five individual services. Intensity of use was selected as a measure of use. In general, factors found to influence the adoption of the network are different from those that influence the intensity of use and the number of services used. For this reason, different actions are necessary to enhance adoption and increase use. Physical access to a networked workstation seems to be the biggest determinant to adoption of the network. Expanding training programs to include a broader audience and a broader scope will increase use. (annotated by Ricardo B. Duque)

Adamic, L. A. The Small World Web. 3rd European Conference on Digital Libraries.
In a graph with a "small world" topology, nodes are highly clustered yet the path length between them is small. In this paper Adammic shows that the World Wide Web is a small world graph, and demonstrates the applications for search engine strategies. (Annotated by Webshop 2002 Participant)

Agre, P. E. (1999). "The Architecture of Identity: Embedding Privacy in Market Institutions." Information Communication & Society 2: 1-25.
As an increasingly commercial Internet has been employed to capture personal identifiable information, privacy concerns have intensified. To analyze these matters more systematically, ideas about human identities that have been implicit in the development of economics & computer science are considered here. The two fields have evolved along parallel tracks, starting with an assumption of perfect transparency & moving toward a more sophisticated appreciation of individuals' private informational states. Progress in the analysis & resolution of privacy problems will require that this evolution be taken seriously & continued. 95 References. (Adapted from the source document)

Agre, P. E. and M. Rotenberg. (1997). Technology and privacy. The new landscape. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
This series of 10 scholarly essays lays a foundation for understanding the current state of technology-based privacy issues. The diverse group of contributors encompasses the fields of communications, human-computer interaction, law, political science, and sociology. Each contributor provides a capsule view of a privacy concern from a standpoint of where things now stand and what bodes for the future. The book's most prevalent theme focuses on how advances in cybertechnology have led to greater threats to personal privacy, but have also led to greater promise for privacy protection. For example, editor Philip E. Agre's opening essay looks at the concept of a "Mirror World," where computer technology mirrors everything important happening in the real world. Another contributor, Victoria Bellotti, examines multimedia environments, where work environments are wired for video and audio communication, and how individuals within them can be protected from unwelcome eyes and ears. Colin Bennett looks at how much of the world may be moving towards similar privacy protection standards. Other issues include varieties of privacy-enhancing technologies, the challenge of controlling surveillance, the effectiveness of privacy laws, and cryptography. The final chapter, "Interactivity as Though Privacy Matters," belongs to Rohan Samarajiva, who looks at the prospects for limited consensual surveillance between vendors and customers. (Amazon.com)

Agre, P. E. and D. Schuler, Eds. (1997). Reinventing Technology, Rediscovering Community: Critical Explorations of Computing as a Social Practice., Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated.
Editors Philip Agre and Douglas Schuler have collected 16 essays that examine the interaction between technology and society, with particular emphasis on the question of how individuals involved with computer technology can best promote social responsibility. Overall, the essayists seem undaunted by the prospect of trying to make predictions based on rapidly changing technology. As Agre points out, long-term predictions are often unnecessary, and as long as their general goals, and policies leading to those goals, we can adjust along the way. As one example shows, Lee Felenstein greatly influenced the development of personal computing and networking through his work with bulletin board systems for social activists, accomplishing social goals without the ability to predict what the PC and cyberspace would be today.

The essays in this book break down into two groups, which the editors categorize as critical and constructive. The "critical" essays analyze the present state of computing and society while the "constructive" essays report on efforts to create alternate approaches. Essays include Hank Bromley's skeptical look at computers in the schools and how their mismanagement could push towards a future of the information rich and information poor. You'll also read Rob King's review of how genre conventions shape nonfiction social analysis, and Chris Hables Gray's analysis of the U.S. Navy's controversial Aegis system and the difficulties of artificial intelligence-assisted warfare. Not to be missed is John Coate's essay that pursues an inn-keeping metaphor for online community building. Coate is a former manager of the Well, one of the older and more famous online communities in existence, and currently runs the Gate for the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle. Given his extensive experience, when Coate serves up advice about online community, it rings true. (BarnesandNoble.com)

Ahuja, M. K. and K. M. Carley (1998). "Network Structure in Virtual Organisations." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 3(4): ?
Virtual organizations that use email to communicate and coordinate their work toward a common goal are becoming ubiquitous. However, little is known about how these organizations work. Much prior research suggests that virtual organizations, for the most part because they use information technology to communicate, will be decentralized and non-hierarchical. This paper examines the behavior of one such organization. The analysis is based on a case study of the communication structure and content of communications among members of a virtual organization during a four-month period. We empirically measure the structure of a virtual organization and find evidence of hierarchy. The findings imply that the communication structure of a virtual organization may exhibit different properties on different dimensions of structure. We also examine the relationship among task routineness, organizational structure, and performance. Results indicate that the fit between structure and task routineness affects the perception of performance, but may not affect the actual performance of the organization. Thus, this virtual organization is similar to traditional organizations in some ways and dissimilar in other ways. It was similar to traditional organizations in so far as task-structure fit predicted perceived performance. However, it was dissimilar to traditional organizations in so far as fit did not predict objective performance. To the extent that the virtual organizations may be similar to traditional organizations, existing theories can be expanded to study the structure and perceived performance of virtual organizations. New theories may need to be developed to explain objective performance in virtual organizations. (Annotated by Ryan C. Sperry)

Aikens, G. S. (1996). A History of Minnesota Electronic Democracy. First Monday. 1: 5.
The Internet has often been labeled a most democratic form of communication. In the past four years in the United States, increased use of the Internet in political campaigns has tested this claim. In Minnesota, an effort was initiated in 1994 to use the Internet as medium for discussion and debate for national and state political posts. Minnesota E-Democracy emerged as a thoughtful and open platform for members of all parties to discuss issues with other candidates and constituents. The success of Minnesota E-Democracy has led to its further use and evolution in the 1996 United States and Minnesota elections. (author's abstract)

Alderman, E. and C. Kennedy (2001). "The Internet, Consumers and Privacy." iMP: The Magazine on Information Impacts April.
In just the last five years, there has been an explosive growth in the use of the Internet to conduct research, communicate with one another and purchase goods and services. Recent figures suggest that between 75 and 90 million Americans now use the Internet on a regular basis. Information is the currency of this new medium. We do not pay a fee for many Internet services; instead we offer up information about ourselves as we go, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes without even knowing it, and that information is compiled, bought and sold. Much of the data collected and bartered online is information we consider personal: financial and medical data, and information about our personal habits, preferences and interests.

Thus, public alarm about online privacy is growing nearly as fast as the Internet. In the past few months alone, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued two major reports regarding online security and privacy, several major national publications have featured cover stories on the topic, at least twenty states have announced they are considering legislation, and more than a dozen different bills have been introduced in Congress (authors' lead paragraphs)

Allen, A. (1997). Genetic privacy: Emerging concepts and values. Genetic secrets: Protecting privacy and confidentiality in the genetic era. M. Rothstein. New Haven, Yale University Press: 31-59.
Genetic Secrets is a comprehensive account of the legal issues and options raised by privacy and confidentiality related to recent developments in genetics and electronic record keeping in the context of the organization of health care delivery in the United States. Following from a Department of Energy sponsored workshop on Medical Information and the Right to Privacy in 1994, the volume is a collection of essays that are largely independent of each other. This independence is reflected in points discussed as being controversial in one essay while being assumed in others. For instance, Tom Murray's challenge to the notion that genetic information should be treated as different from all other medical information seems not to be considered except in Mark Rothstein's final chapter, which serves as a summary and conclusion for the entire collection, complete with recommendations for American legislation. In fact, the concluding chapter might be a good starting point for some readers. Owing to the independent nature of the essays, the style and amount of detail vary considerably among chapters. For instance, the introductory chapter (Hood and Rowen) explains genetics with a degree of detail unnecessary to understanding any of the legal or ethical issues discussed in later chapters. Further, the authors state a controversial view that is clearly not shared by all of the subsequent authors: "If preventive or therapeutic measures were available to circumvent the deleterious effects of disease-predisposing genes (readily available to all), then the question of privacy of genetic information would not be compelling." The chapters on genetic testing and the schools and the chapter on forensic applications do not supply the careful analysis characteristic of many of the other chapters. A review of international legal developments provides a degree of detail that obscures the relevance of the essay to US law. Perhaps the most important contribution to the volume is Rothstein's five-point summary of the "more basic questions of the nature and structure of legislation." He suggests that the critical questions for optimal legislation are whether new initiatives should be (1) comprehensive or incremental, (2) national or state, (3) genetic or generic, and whether they should regulate (4) access to information or to use of information, and (5) unauthorized or authorized disclosures. Discussion of these issues is of critical importance to the development of careful law, in the United States and elsewhere. Some of the detail that appears irrelevant to US law becomes interesting when other, eg, international, legal perspectives are the context of deliberation. For instance, non-US readers might find of particular usefulness the chapters on international law (Knoppers and Le Bris), the limitation of the law in determining familial obligations (Andrews), the relevance of the availability of a universal health care system to legal alternatives (Kass), the careful parsing of different dimensions of genetic privacy (Allen), and whether genetic information ought to be managed differently from other medical information (Murray). Overall, Genetic Secrets is an excellent resource for anyone interested in legal concerns related to genetic privacy. A selective reading of essays and of Rothstein's concluding chapter provides a detailed overview of the issues for US law. Genetic Secrets is concerned about genetic privacy in terms of legal responses, and there is little reference to the related social, scientific, feminist, or ethical literature. Nevertheless, ethical and social research can be directed and its legal relevance discerned through the descriptions of legal concerns in this volume. Rothstein's practical and theoretically nuanced approach to US law encourages broader exploration of the critical assumptions behind legal proposals while attempting to limit law to its proper jurisdiction. (Reviewed by Michael M. Burgess, PhD, JAMA Vol. 280:1998)

Amit, R. and C. Zott (2001). "Value Creation in E-Business." Strategic Management Journal 22: 493-520.
We explore the theoretical foundations of value creation in e-business by examining how 59 American and European e-businesses that have recently become publicly traded corporations create value. We observe that in e-business new value can be created by the ways in which transactions are enabled. Grounded in the rich data obtained from case study analyses and in the received theory in entrepreneurship and strategic management, we develop a model of the sources of value creation. The model suggests that the value creation potential of e-businesses hinges on four interdependent dimensions, namely: efficiency, complementarities, lock-in, and novelty. Our findings suggest that no single entrepreneurship or strategic management theory can fully explain the value creation potential of e-business. Rather, an integration of the received theoretical perspectives on value creation is needed. To enable such an integration, we offer the business model construct as a unit of analysis for future research on value creation in e-business. A business model depicts the design of transaction content, structure, and governance so as to create value through the exploitation of business opportunities. We propose that a firm's business model is an important locus of innovation and a crucial source of value creation for the firm and its suppliers, partners, and customers. (Annotated by Richard N. Hayes)

Amman, H. M. (1999). "Netnomics--A New Branch in Economics." Netnomics 1: 1-5.

Anandarajan, M., C. Simmers, et al. (2000). "An Exploratory Investigation of the Antecedents and Impact of Internet Usage: An Individual Perspective." Behaviour and Information Technology 19: 69-85.
Internet usage in the US workplace is increasing at a phenomenal rate. This exploratory study examines factors influencing employee internet usage and individual perceptions of the consequences of such usage. Using the Theory of Reasoned Behaviour, a questionnaire was designed and circulated to part time MBA students in north-east United States. This preliminary study suggests that the personal factors of web skills and playfulness are associated with perceived internet usefulness, the degree of internet usage, and have both positive (enhanced job characteristics, job satisfaction) and negative (increased inefficiency) impacts. Neither the personal variables of age and gender nor any of the organizational variables are important antecedent variables. To those who perceive the internet as intimidating, there was, understandably, less internet usage. Perceived usefulness was positively related to increased time of use and internet impacts. In general, the findings indicate that extending the research on microcomputers to internet usage is a promising research focus. On the basis of this study, the leadership challenge is to harness the tremendous potential of the internet, working to control and improve inefficiencies while not discouraging internet usage. (From http://www.catchword.com )

Anderson, R. H., T. K. Bikson, et al. (1995). Universal Access to E-Mail: Feasibility and Societal Implications. Santa Monica, CA, The Rand Corporation.
A study looking at the societal implications of e-mail technology and the diverging trends in access, based on income and education, that are widening the gap between an information elite and those at a disadvantage. Details the social benefits of on-line communities and implications for global democratization, and addresses the technical and economic aspects of putting a US national policy for universal access into operation. Includes an appendix of notes on interviews of key participants at five civic network sites. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or. (Book News, Inc. , March 1, 1996).

Andresen, T. (1999). "Consumer Power via the Internet." First Monday 4: 1.
Recently, there has been plenty of upbeat reporting on new opportunities provided by the Internet to business in marketing and sales and in financial services, to name a few. Most of these developments may be said to increase "firm-power". This paper describes a proposal to strongly enhance "consumer-power" to the ultimate benefit of both businesses and consumers. (Author's abstract)

Antonio, R. J. (1985). "Nietzsche's Antisociology: Subjectified Culture and the End of History." American Journal of Sociology 101: 1-4.
Although a very important figure in interdisciplinary social theory, Nietzsche is absent from sociological theory, especially in the United States. Equating rationalization with cultural homogenization and liquidation of particularity, Nietzsche saw "decadence" where modern social theorists saw progress. He held that sociology drapes cultural domination, regimentation, and exhaustion with the appearance of legitimacy. This essay explores his views about the depletion of social resources stressed in modern theory. It elaborates his "antisociology" and then traces the impact of this framework on three divergent currents of social theory. Nietzsche is read against the backdrop of modern theory in order to explore his continuing challenge to this tradition and his relevance to sociology. (Author's abstract)

Applebee, A. C., P. Clayton, et al. (1997). "Australian Academic Use of the Internet." Internet Research-Electronic Networking Applications and Policy 7(2): 85-?
It is widely assumed - and frequently asserted - that university communication practices are being radically transformed by the introduction of electronic communication. Explores the introduction of Internet access in a single university, the University of Canberra, located in the capital city of Australia. The prime objective was to identify the frequency and type of use that academic staff were making of the Internet during 1995, with supplementary objectives being to record perceptions of users toward the Internet, and barriers to its effective use. The principal finding is not unexpected: academics were making very varied use of the Internet. Some staff were utilizing some facilities on a daily basis; others were yet to begin exploring this new communication medium. A particular surprise was that at the time of this survey the Internet was being used very little for teaching. (Annotated by Ricardo B. Duque)

Aronowitz, S. and W. DiFazio. (1994). The Jobless Future: Sci-Tech and the Dogma of Work. Minneapolis, Univ. of Minnesota Press.
Aronowitz and DiFazio argue that contemporary economic growth, centered in the spread of cybernetic knowledge, computerization, and worldwide corporate reorganization, is troublesome because it does not guarantee sufficient job growth and because it privatizes knowledge, centralizing it to the detriment of the vast majority of American workers. The jobs that are being generated by and large are not organized on terms that are favorable to labor: they are not paid enough, nor do they offer the security, skill, and meaning that ostensibly contribute to the foundations of democratic, participative citizenship. Aronowitz and DiFazio argue that two trends – corporate restructuring and high- technology innovation – are converging, fuelling corporate growth and profitability yet eroding what was once a robust occupational structure. Restructuring (including downsizing, centralization, plant closings, and layoffs) has both caused and been caused by the spread of computer-mediated work and organizational technologies. (Adapted from Smith, Vicki. Jan 1996. American Journal of Sociology 10(4): 1118-1120 Book Reviews)

Aronson, S. H. (1971). "The Sociology of the Telephone." International Journal of Comparative Sociology 12: 154-166.

Arrow, K. J. (1979). The Economics of Information. The Computer Age: A Twenty-Year View. M. L. Dertouzos and J. Moses. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

Atkin, D. J., L. W. Jeffres, et al. (1998). "Understanding Internet Adoption as Telecommunications Behavior." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 42: 475-490.
The present study profiles Internet adopters in terms of social locators, media use habits, and their orientation toward adopting new technologies. Findings, in terms of demographics and technology uses, offer some support for the early adopter profiles derived from diffusion theory. Although results fail to confirm our expectation that attitudinal variables of those served by online technology are more explanatory than demographics, we were able to identify technology and media use orientations that differentiate those with and without Internet access. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. (Social Sciences Abstract)

Ayers, M. D. (2000). "New Collective Identities: The Internet's Role in Shaping a Social-Psychological Process." Southern Sociological Society.
The focus of this research is the concept of collective identity & how a new form of technology & media, the Internet, constructs or deconstructs this concept. Specifically, the research question that is addressed is: Is there variation in collective identity between two different groups: a defined group in an online environment vs a defined group in an offline, physical world environment. This research is the first examination of collective identity outside of traditional, face-to-face group settings. The data that will be reported will stem from a qualitative analysis of social movement participants who are active in online social movement participation & simultaneously active in physical world social movement participation, specific to the participant's local community. (Sociological Abstracts)

Ayres, J. M. (1999). "From the Streets to the Internet: The Cyber-Diffusion of Contention." Annals, AAPSS 566: 132-143.
The Internet has been widely credited with sparking a revolution in everything from consumer shopping habits and the management of stock portfolios to the practice of popular democracy. It is also leaving its mark on the dynamics of popular contention. Political protest traditionally relied heavily on claims makers’ gathering in the streets to contest power holders. The Internet is altering this dynamic by electronically promoting the diffusion of protest ideas and tactics efficiently and quickly across the globe. Less concerned with such constraints as time and geographic space, it has caught policymakers off guard with its ease of public accessibility and immediacy of impact. This cyber-diffusion, however, has a cautionary side: while significantly enhancing the potential for disparate individuals and groups to collectively pool resources and strategy, the Internet also holds the power to turn unreliable and unverifiable information into a global electronic riot. (author's abstract)

Baake, P. and T. Wichmann. (1999). "netnomics." Netnomics 1: 89-105.
We discuss economic rationales behind peering decisions in the Internet. In the first part of the paper we analyze the decision about a bilateral peering agreement between two commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) who are in Cournot competition. In the second part we discuss multilateral peering between commercial ISPs and an academic research network (ARN). The latter is organized as a club of academic institutions who share the cost of their network. It is discussed whether peering threatens the existence of the ARN and under what circumstances a commercial ISP would want to use strategic pricing to win all ARN-members as customers. (authors' abstract)

Baecker, R. M., J. Grudin, et al. (1995). Readings in Human-Computer Interaction: Toward the Year 2000. CA, Morgan-Kauffman Publishers.
The effectiveness of the user-computer interface has become increasingly important as computer systems have become useful tools for persons not trained in computer science. In fact, the interface is often the most important factor in the success or failure of any computer system. Dealing with the numerous subtly interrelated issues and technical, behavioral, and aesthetic considerations consumes a large and increasing share of development time and a corresponding percentage of the total code for any given application. A revision of one of the most successful books on human-computer interaction, this compilation gives students, researchers, and practitioners an overview of the significant concepts and results in the field and a comprehensive guide to the research literature.

Focuses on: - Human computer interaction--historical, intellectual, and social - Developing interactive systems, including design, evaluation methods, and development tools - The interaction experience, through a variety of sensory modalities including vision, touch, gesture, audition, speech, and language - Theories of information processing and issues of human-computer fit and adaptation

Like the first edition, this book combines reprints of key research papers and case studies with synthesizing survey material and analysis by the editors. It is significantly reorganized, updated, and enhanced; over 90% of the papers are new.

An invaluable resource for systems designers, cognitive scientists, computer scientists, managers, and anyone concerned with the effectiveness of user-computer interfaces, it is also designed for use as a primary or supplementary text for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in human-computer interaction and interface design. (amazon.com)

Baier, A. (1990). Trust and antitrust. Feminism and Political Theory. C. Sunstein. Chicago, University of Chicago Press: 279-308.

Bailey, J. P. (1998). Internet Price Discrimination: Self-Regulation, Public Policy, and Global Electronic Commerce., The Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland.
The Internet as a medium for commerce is only in the beginning stages of development. Already there are a proliferation of entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies alike trying to gain market share and brand name recognition while Internet commerce is still in its infancy. This early stage of Internet commerce involves experimentation of strategy and pricing to determine how to best position oneself for future profits. It is too early to tell whether Internet commerce today is representative of a market anomaly or is indicative of the future. Regardless, there are some unique aspects about the Internet which make it an excellent marketplace to test economic theory.

Internet commerce may reduce market friction. While it is difficult to formulate such a hypothesis in a testable form, this paper uses transaction cost economics, game theory, and menu costs to describe how a reduction in market friction may impact commerce on the Internet. The paper outlines four testable hypotheses and presents the results from an exploratory data set of over 30,000 observations to show that there may be more friction in Internet commerce than anticipated. Specifically, no data was found to support the hypotheses of pure price competition. However, there was data to support the hypothesis that reduced menu costs allow for more frequent price changes. Specifically, menu costs may be reduced to the point where prices can be rendered and changed dynamically. The ability to change prices dynamically for price discrimination purposes is the focus of this paper.

The paper describes why price discrimination is attractive to Internet retailers and how they can implement such a system. The paper then describes market features in the absence of regulation which may ensure protection of consumer surplus. Finally, the paper explores ways in which regulation can prevent Internet retailers from price discriminating both from self-regulation and government regulation perspectives. The paper concludes with a discussion of the drawbacks of federal or global policies at this time and recommends self-regulation of the industry along with market forces to keep price discrimination practices at bay. (Author's abstract)

Bailey, J. P. (1998). "Electronic Commerce: Prices and Consumer Issues for Three Products: Books, Compact Discs, and Software." Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, OCDE/GD 98: 4.
Rapid technological advances in information and communication technologies and their widespread diffusion have led some to speculate about "frictionless" economies where transaction costs are nearly zero, barriers to entry and contestability disappear and markets clear instantly. This environment will give consumers new power as they search for the lowest price for a product from suppliers across the world and will generate downward pressure on prices that some believe will lead to general price deflation. This paper attempts to begin an analysis of these claims by looking at prices and their movement for three of the most popular products being purchased in the business-to-consumer segment of electronic commerce: books, music compact discs (CDs) and software. It does so by examining nearly 24 000 data points during February and March 1997 for firms that rely exclusively on the Internet for sales and a matched set of firms selling identical products who primarily use conventional channels. (Author's abstract)

Bailey, J. P. (1997). The Economics of Internet Interconnection Agreements. Internet Economics. L. W. McKnight and J. P. Bailey. Cambridge and London, MIT Press: 155-68.
We explore the economic factors associated with multiple Internet interconnection architectures, which have enabled the Internet to grow with the number of applications, number of users, and amount of network traffic. There are three Internet interconnection architectures identified by the paper: bilateral agreement, cooperative agreement, and third party administrator. While all are technically feasible, there are economic reasons for some companies to prefer one architecture over another. We argue this based on incomplete contract theory coupled with the ability of resale for interconnection. The paper concludes that bilateral agreements may be best for large Internet network providers while cooperative agreements may work best for smaller network providers. Third party administrators may exist, but the ability for the connected networks to resell their service, along with the ability for the administrator to act opportunistically, will deter this type of interconnection agreement (author's abstract presented at MIT March 1995.)

Bainbridge, W., E. E. Sims, et al. (1994). "Artificial Social Intelligence." Annual Review of Sociology 20: 407-436.
Sociologists have begun to explore the gains for theory and research that might be achieved by artificial intelligence technology: symbolic processors, expert systems, neural networks, genetic algorithms, and classifier systems. The first major accomplishments of artificial social intelligence (ASI) have been in the realm of theory, where these techniques have inspired new theories as well as helping to render existing theories more rigorous. Two application areas for which ASI holds great promise are the sociological analysis of written texts and data retrieval from the forthcoming Global Information Infrastructure. ASI has already been applied to some kinds of statistical analysis, but how competitive it will be with more conventional techniques remains unclear. To take advantage of the opportunities offered by ASI, sociologists will have to become more computer literate and will have to reconsider the place of programming and computer science in the sociological curriculum. ASI may be a revolutionary approach with the potential to rescue sociology from the doldrums into which some observers believe it has fallen. (Authors' abstract)

Bainbridge, W. S. (1999). "Cyberspace: Sociology's Natural Domain." Contemporary Sociology-A Journal of Reviews 28: 664-667.
Addresses the important role of cyberspace & the Internet in sociological research, contending that digital libraries will provide tremendous access to research information, & the Internet will revolutionize research surveys & questionnaires. The success of James Witte's Survey 2000, a Web-based questionnaire, illustrates the potential of Internet surveys despite problems of statistical reliability & effective sampling. The author's own Web-based Question Factory (QF) is another example. The QF acts as a pilot to produce continually refined questions of high statistical reliability for survey purposes. These examples illustrate how cyberspace can be employed to produce cheaper & more effective research. (Sociological Abstracts)

Bairoch, P. (1991). The City and Technological Innovation. Favorites of Fortune. P. Higonnet, D. S. Landes and H. Rosovsky. Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press.
The essays range from a detailed empirical discussion of improvements in nutrition and health which brought increases in the ability to work harder, longer and more efficiently to several that are far more theoretical, emphasizing economic theory and model building or psychological, religious or cultural models. Some are detailed examinations of changes in a particular industry in a single country; others stress more general long-term comparative developments, including comparisons to contemporary third world countries; and still others consider the role of the public sector, the effects of managerial decision-making, the relationship between urbanization and innovation, and discrimination against women (from Harold Woodman's review in Journal of Interdisciplinary History Spring 1993:766-767.)

Bakos, Y. (1998). "The emerging role of electronic marketplaces on the Internet." Communications of the ACM 41: 35-42.
Internet-based electronic marketplaces leverage information technology to match buyers and sellers with increased effectiveness and lower transaction costs, leading to more efficient,"friction-free" markets (author's abstract)

Balas, J. (1998). "Debating Public Access to the Internet." Computers in Libraries 18: 42-45.
Discusses the debate surrounding public access to the Internet in libraries as of March 1998. ( EBSCO Host 5/2/01)

Bar, F., S. Cohen, et al. (2000). "Access and Innovation Policy for the Third-Generation Internet." Telecommunications Policy 24: 489-518.
The success of the internet in the US fundamentally rests on 30 years of consistent FCC policy which sought to maintain network openness by making key network components available to all, on cost-effective terms, so as to foster competition and innovation. The internet today enters a third phase of its history, when a critical mass of users are about to experience "always-on" high-speed access to the internet from their home. At this crucial time? the FCC may abandon its successful policy and allow owners of the broadband infrastructure to foreclose access to the infrastructure they own. This is, we show, precisely the wrong time for such a reversal. While the current debate is forced by AT&T's acquisition of TCI, its proposed acquisition of MediaOne, and the companies' ties to Excite@Home, this particular matter simply forces us to address the more general issue. What should be the terms of access to emerging network infrastructures when competition exists, but reflects "collective dominance" of a few players? We argue that policy inaction places network innovation in jeopardy and threatens the continuation of successful infrastructure re-invention. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd, All rights reserved.

Barak, A. and M. Wander-Schwartz (2000). "Empirical Evaluation of Brief Group Therapy Conducted in an Internet Chat Room." The Journal of Virtual Environments 5.
The purpose of this study was to examine group therapy procedures in an anonymous, password-protected Internet chat room. Participants were college students from several Israeli universities and community who elected to join either an Internet chat-room therapy group (n=6) or a standard face-to-face group (n=9). Both groups met for seven consecutive weekly sessions of ninety minutes each. These groups were compared to a no-treatment control group, made up of seven individuals who were referred to group therapy but who were unable to participate. Comparisons of the groups showed that both therapeutic groups had a small, statistically insignificant positive improvement in participants self-image, social relations, and well-being, with a trend in favor of the virtual group. Participants in the no-treatment control group generally remained unchanged. In addition, several group processes were found to be similar between the two therapy groups: cohesiveness, personal exposure, expression of feelings, independence, and order and organization. The Internet group, however, reported higher levels of aggression, action orientation, and therapist support and control than the face-to- face group. Participants in both therapy groups expressed general satisfaction with their respective group therapies. (Author's abstract)

Barbatsis, G. and M. Fegan (1999). "The performance of Cyberspace: An Exploration Into Computer-Mediated Reality." Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 5(1).
This phenomenological enquiry into cyberspace examines the concept of space and metaphor, explaining 'cyber'space as a figurative term and a figurative space, as something projected as a shared mental concept. Reception theory is used to theorize this figurative space as an ideational object constituted by a 'text-reader' relationship. The performance of 'cyber'space is described as a self-reflexive ideation about meaning making itself, and examined as discursive, liminal, and transformative. Examination includes examples from e-mail, chat, and 3D conference systems. (Authors' Abstract)

Bargh, J. A., K. Y. A. McKenna, et al. (2002). "Can you see the real me? Activation and expression of the "true self" on the Internet." Journal of Social Issues 58(1): 33-48.
Those who feel better able to express their "true selves" in Internet rather than face-to-face interaction settings are more likely to form close relationships with people met on the Internet (McKenna, Green, & Gleason, 2002). Building on these correlational findings from survey data, the authors conducted three laboratory experiments to directly test the hypothesized causal role of differential self- expression in Internet relationship formation. Experiments 1 and 2, using a reaction time task, found that for university undergraduates, the true-self concept is more accessible in memory during Internet interactions, and the actual self more accessible during face-to-face interactions. Experiment 3 confirmed that people randomly assigned to interact over the Internet (vs. face to face) were better able to express their true-self qualities to their partners. (from author's abstract)

Bar-Ilan, J. (2001). "Data Collection Methods on the Web for Informetric Purposes - A Review and Analysis." Scientometrics 50: 7-32.
We present different methods of data collection from the Web for informetric purposes. For each method, some studies utilizing it are reviewed, and advantages and shortcomings of each technique are discussed. The paper emphasizes that data collection must be carried out with great care. Since the Web changes constantly, the findings of any study are valid only in the time frame in which it was carried out, and are dependent on the quality of the data collection tools, which are usually not under the control of the researcher. At the current time, the quality and the reliability of most of the available search tools are not satisfactory, thus informetric analyses of the Web mainly serve as demonstrations of the applicability of informetric methods to this medium, and not as a means for obtaining definite conclusions. A possible solution is for the scientific world to develop its own search and data collection tools. (Authors' Abstract)

Barnes, S. B. (2000). "Bridging the differences between social theory and technological invention in human-computer interface design." New Media & Society 2: 353-372.
A number of different theories have been proposed to explain the relationship between technological development and social change, including: technological determinism, symptomatic development and social constructionism. A popular and influential theory describing this relationship is technological determinism. An examination of the history of the computer's graphical user interface reveals that the original inventors of this technology were influenced by theorists associated with the determinist perspective. However, when creating their actual interfaces, early designers Douglas Engelbart and Alan Kay utilized methods that support a social constructionist view of technology development. Moreover, as new social interfaces emerge that incorporate software agents into the process of computer interaction, these new designs continue to support a constructionist approach. This article will describe the relationship between theories of technological determinism and the development of graphical user interfaces to argue that a social constructionist approach bridges the gap between theory and invention. (Author's abstract)

Barnett, G. A., B. S. Chon, et al. (2001). "The Structure of the Internet flows in cyberspace." Networks and Communication Studies 15(1-2): 61-80.
This paper describes the structure of international Internet traffic based on data obtained from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development for July, 1998. It also describes the relationship between the structure of the Internet and international telecommunications, as well as telephone rates, language, physical location, trade blocs, international migration, student flows and science and structural asynchrony. The results indicate that the structure of the Internet is significantly related to the structure of the international telecommunications, trade, science and
student flow networks, as well language and asynchrony. In combination, only telecommunications, trade, science and asynchrony were significant, accounting for 49.7% of the variance in the structure of the Internet. (from Authors' Abstract)

Barnett, G. A., H. W. Park, et al. (2002). A network analysis among the Canadian provinces.
This paper reports the results of a network analysis among the Canadian provinces. Available data on the migration, trade, air traffic, student
exchanges and Internet flows among the 10 provinces and two (three) territories were analyzed to describe the relational structure of Canada.
The results indicate that all five indicators of the flows among the provinces are similar. Ontario is at the center of Canadian life and the
territories are at the periphery. In between are loosely connected dyads of the Western provinces (British Columbia and Alberta, the Prairie
Provinces (Saskatchewan and Manitoba), and the Maritime provinces (Hew Foundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick). Quebec is strongly connected to Ontario and somewhat less closely tied to the Maritimes.

Based upon these findings, further research is proposed to re-examine the relations among the Canadian provinces and territories using the most currently available data. Recent data will also allow for the examination of how the inter-provincial relations have changed over time. (from authors' abstract)

Barry, C. A. (1997). "The Research Activity Timeline: A Qualitative Tool for Information Research." Library & Information Science Research 19: 153-179.
Outlines the seven stages of the Research Activity Timeline (RAT) data collection/analysis technique which structures the research interview around a discussion of participants' current specific work projects. Illustrates the use of RAT through results of the Information Access Project, which examined the use of information technology-assisted information systems among academics. (ERIC EBSCO)

Basalla, G. (1988). The Evolution of Technology. Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press.
Three emerging themes challenge the popular notion that technology advances through the efforts of a few who produce a series of revolutionary inventions that owe little or nothing to the technological past. (Amazon.com Review)

Bates, B. (1989). Evolving Into an Information Society. The Information Society. J. L. Salvaggio. Corpus Christi, TX, Whataburger, Inc.

Bates, D. W. and A. A. Gawande. (2000). "The Impact of The Internet on Quality Measurement." Health Affairs 19: 104-115.
Examines the impact of Internet on quality measurement in the health care sector. Consumers' interest on information about health; Requirements for appropriately measuring quality in medicine; Availability of quality information; Internet's provision of a low-cost, standard platform; Barriers on public access' to quality information on the Internet; Problems neglected by the Internet (Abstract found on EBSCO Host 5/2/01).

Baym, N. K. (1995). The Emergence of Community in Computer-Mediated Communication. Cybersociety: Computer-mediated Communication and Community. S. G. Jones. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage: 138-163.
Assists readers in becoming aware of the hype and hopes pinned on computer-mediated communication technologies and of the cultures that are emerging among Internet users. Highlights specific cyber societies and how computer-mediated communication affects the notion of self and its relation to community, and examines issues of community, conduct, fixing identity, and the exercise of power in social relations. (Book News, Inc.(r), Portland, OR)

Beamish, A. (1995). "Communities Online: Community-Based Computer Networks." Working Paper.
Beamish argues that community networks are primitive, rather crude, and barely begin to address the ambitious goals that they have set out for themselves. "They are underfunded good intentions that will lose. They will collapse from the exhaustion of their volunteers and staff struggling with a lack of revenue, donated equipment, escalating demands of their users, and ambition that can't be satisfied with their resources." But this crudeness can also be seen as indication of youth. "Community networks may now [1995] be at the stage of barely being able to walk but there is every expection that they will learn to run."

The key to their future success will be the same as what it took to get them to the stage in the first place: their ability to spark and tap an extraordinary amount of energy and enthusiasm in their communities. The author suspects that community networks' role as providers of information and communication may be secondary to their role as animators for creating a stronger sense of place and community. (Author's abstract)

Bechar-Israeli, H. (1999). "From <Bonehead> to <cLoNehEAd>: nicknames, play, and identity on Internet Relay Chat <1>." Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 1(2).
This article examines nicknames of IRC users. On IRC, a person's physical existence and identity must be condensed textually into a single line which states his or her nickname, the electronic address, and a slogan or the person's real name. IRC users attempt to make these representational elements as prominent as possible, by choosing an original nick which will tempt other participants to strike up a conversation. In this paper I demonstrate that although people play many kinds of games with their nicknames, the nicks they choose are very important to them. They are an inherent part of their Net- identity, and even of their "real-life" identity. Two hundred sixty nicknames were collected from IRC logs, and were analyzed and classified. Only rarely did the IRCers in this study use their real names. The largest category was that of nicks related to the self in some way, referring to character traits, physical appearance, the physiological or psychological state of the self, or the person's profession or hobbies. The list of nicknames and the relative frequency of the different categories illustrate prominent features of electronic culture, a culture in which the individual is placed at the center. Participants in this culture have a high awareness of technology and technological change. They value linguistic virtuosity, yet they show contempt for the rules of the language. Although there is freedom to engage in constantly changing identity games through the manipulation of nicks, most people tend to keep to one nick for a long period of time. (JCMC Abstract)

Becker, H. J. (2000). "Who's Wired and Who's Not: Children's Access to and Use of Computer Technology." Future of Children 10: 44-75.
Analyzes national survey data on children's differential access to computers at home and school, noting varying conditions that affect how children experience computers. In 1998, over 75 percent of children had access to computers at school, though computer experiences differed by socioeconomic status. Poorer students had significantly less access to home computers than did wealthier students. (ERIC)

Bekavac, B. (1996). "Searching the World Wide Web." Nachructeb Fur Dokumentation 47: 195-213.
The World Wide Web allows access to a large and fast-growing amount of information. The search for relevant WWW-documents on a given topic more and more becomes a major task within the Web. This paper describes different techniques for the local and global Web-search. Client-based search-tools with automated navigation, implemented at few Web-browsers, allow a search initiated by a given site. But much more used are the server-based search-techniques which allow both local search on a given WWW-server and the world-wide search by WWW-directories or robot-based search engines. This paper studies and compares the current directory- and robot-based search-services of the Web in view of functionality. There are also some examples of alternative search engines as well as advanced search-services searching additionally beyond the internet.

Bell, D. (1989). Communication Technology: For Better or For Worse? The Information Society. J. L. Salvaggio. Corpus Christi, TX, Whataburger, Inc: 89-104.

Bell, D. (1979). The Social Framework of the Information Society. The Computer Age: A Twenty-Year View,. M. L. Dertouzos and J. Moses. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

Benedikt, M. (1991). Introduction. Cyberspace: First Steps. M. Benedikt. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press: 1-25.
As the introduction to the first book-length treatment of cyberspace, Benedikt's spiraling, esoteric essay is a must read. The author, a professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, begins by waxing poetic about the term cyberspace, revealing it as, at once, an empty signifier and a seed for brave new worlds. Next, he situates cyberspace within four separate contexts: language, the history of media technologies, the history of architecture, and the history of mathematics. Impressionistic and flighty, the essay encapsulates the excitement found in early theorizing of the Net. Energetic and daring, it also reflects the boldness of the anthology's subtitle: First Steps. (David Silver)

Beniger, J. R. (1986). The Control Revolution: Technology and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge, MA, Harvard Univ. Press.
I was going to say that this is undoubtedly the best work ever done by a professor of communications, but that would be praising it with faint damns, and it deserves better. This is not a speculation or a vague schema but a very detailed history of the rise of technologies and techniques of communication and information-processing, and their use for controlling social and economic processes, prefaced by a general discussion of these subjects and their importance for history. His thesis is that modern information technologies, and with them the ``information society,'' began to take shape in the 1830s with the introduction of railroads, and really took off after 1880 with full industrialization. Because machine industry involves huge, fast flows of goods, it cannot be managed without a high level of information technology (in which Beniger includes things like product standardization, bureaucracy and advertising, as well as the usual mechanical devices): and if it isn't managed it simply cannot work. The first part of the economy to move at industrial speed were the railroads, and the accompanying jump in the size of the information sector is dramatic. So industrial production is a good reason to improve your information technology; and conversely, improved control technology makes new industrial developments possible.
Beniger puts the modern synthesis (not his phrase) of industry and information in the period 1880-1920. By the latter date, the technology of control had been so perfected that the economies of all the warring powers in the Great War could be managed by central planning --- those of the Allies, by combined planning. (Since this performance was repeated during the Second War, I'm tempted to say that market forces are simply too inefficient to be trusted with anything important, but this is not the place for those rants.) Since then, he says, we have been in essentially the same industrial-economic-technological phase. The advent of computers was obviously very important, but they didn't usher in the information society, because we already were one (which, I suspect, is why they were able to spread so quickly --- Beniger does not, alas, discuss computerization in detail).

I can find only four-and-a-half flaws with this book. One, he says very little about the influence of the military on this process, which is strange, since it lives by command-and-control, and mechanized warfare was invented in this country in the 1860s, well within the period he covers. Two, it is almost entirely confined to American history; but the book would have had to have been immensely expanded to cover even Western Europe in similar detail, to say nothing of Japan, or Eastern Europe, or South America.

Three, the period Beniger focuses on was also one of incredible ferment in art, literature, philosophy and general culture, and it would be fascinating to know if there were any connections between this and the control revolution (perhaps even more fascinating to learn there were none); but again, this amounts to demanding a new book, if not a new scholar.

Four, the first chapters of the book, where Beniger discusses such notions as control, communication, programming and information, gives something of their history and argues for their importance in the study of society, is long-winded, excessively detailed (do we really need mini-articles on Principia Mathematica, Gödel, Talcott Parsons, the origin of molecular biology in physics, Structuralism, and even an ``addendum'' on the nature of life?) and not as well-grounded as the remaining, historical parts of the book; but perhaps this is demanded but Beniger's audience, historians and social scientists who are unfamiliar with these matters.

Four-and-a-half, Beniger's style is far from brilliant, and especially in the introductory chapters he is tempted to lapse into sociologese. This too may be demanded by the audience, but it is not a demand which should be met. (The Bactra Review: Occasional and eclectic book reviews by Cosma Shalizi)

Bentley, K. a. P. Y. (2000). "Knowledge work and telework: an exploratory study." Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy 10: 346-356.
Describes a case research study into how knowledge workers adopt telework as an alternative work arrangement. It reports how knowledge workers in two New Zealand organisations organise their workload to take advantage of the information and Internet technology available to them in their work and home environments. The findings of the study indicate that knowledge workers are inclined to use home-based teleworking as an adjunct to the work done during normal business hours. Their preference is still to work at the office for most of their work time. Discusses the implications of the findings for practice and research (from the source document).

Berland, J. (2000). Cultural Technologies and the "Evaluation" of Technological Cultures. The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory. A. Herman and T. Swiss. New York, Routledge: 235-258.
The World Wide Web is the most well-known, celebrated, and promoted contemporary manifestation of "cyberspace." To date, however, most of the public discourse on the Web falls into the category of explanatory journalism -- the Web has remained largely unmapped in terms of contemporary cultural research. This book, however, begins that mapping by bringing together more than a dozen well-known scholars across the humanities and social sciences to explore the Web as a cultural technology characterized by a nexus of economic, political, social, and aesthetic forces. Engaging the thematic issues of the Web as a space where magic, metaphor, and power converge, the chapters cover such subjects as The Web and Corporate Media Systems, Conspiracy Theories and the Web; The Economy of Cyberpromotion, The Bias of the Web, The Web and Issues of Gender,and so on. (editor's book description)

Berners-Lee, T., J. Hendler, et al. (2001). "Semantic Web." Scientific American 284(5): 34-43.
"Today's World Wide Web will soon evolve into the Semantic
Web. The Semantic Web will be an extension of the current web in which
information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and
people to work in cooperation. Every concept will be named simply by a
Universal Resource Identifier, a facility that defines or specifies an
entity, and, as a result, anyone will have the ability to express with
minimal effort new concepts that they invent. The Semantic Web's unifying
logical language, eXtensible Markup Language, will enable these concepts to
be progressively linked into a universal web. The structure of which will
open up the knowledge and workings of humankind to analysis by software
agents, which will roam from page to page readily carrying out sophisticated
tasks for users." (from Applied Science & Technology Abstracts)

Bernstein, J. (1964). The Analytical Engine: Computers – Past, Present and Future. New York, Random House.

Besser, H. (1995). "From Internet to Information Superhighway." Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information. J. Brook and I. A. Boal. San Francisco, CA, City Lights: 59-70.
A visiting professor at University of California at Berkeley's School of Information Management & Sciences, Besser demonstrates the need to get beyond the rhetoric and into the reality of cyberculture by deconstructing two extremely different concepts: the "Internet" and the "Information Superhighway." By analyzing the two entities in terms of content, access, privacy, and technological infrastructure, Besser makes an excellent case for replacing hyperbolic predictions with pragmatic assessments. Among the essay's many thought-provoking sound bites is Besser's not-so-rosy depiction of the Information Superhighway: "a ten-lane highway coming into the home, with only a tiny path leading back out -- just wide enough to take a credit card number or to answer multiple-choice questions" (63). (David Silver)

Biggs, S. (2000). "'Charlotte's Web': How One Woman Weaves Positive Relationships on the Net." Cyberpsychology & Behavior 3: 655-663.
This case study will explore one woman's experience of the Internet as a positive transformational medium through relationship. In order to protect the anonymity of the participant and in honor of the original female on the web, she has been referred to throughout the paper as Charlotte. This case study explores her online experience as a divorced woman in her early thirties, who soon after her discovery of the Internet began an online relationship. This resulted in, among other things, the end of her marriage. On the surface, Charlotte's story reads like that of many others. However, while that initial online relationship did not work out, she continued to use the Internet as a means of finding and developing other relationships, both platonic and romantic. She can also be distinguished from the stereotyped "online junkie," as she has maintained a strong face-to-face social life along side her Internet relationships. In her own words, "The Internet has been a positive and transformational medium in my life." As well, she has kept a detailed journal of her experience since her first foray onto the Net 18 months ago, making her an ideal candidate for a case study. Material for the case study was gathered over the course of a number of 1-hour interviews carried out online via ICQ(R) chat software. Charlotte was encouraged to reflect upon her journal before each interview, and ambiguities in the interview were resolved by E-mail follow-up. A qualitative analysis was carried out on the material through a hermeneutic frame, exploring themes of self-perception and self in relation to others.

Bijker, W., T. P. Hughes, et al. (1987). Social Construction of Technological System. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

Bijker, W. E. (1995). Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
This book crystallizes and extends the important work Wiebe Bijker has done in the last decade to found a full-scale theory of sociotechnical change that describes where technologies come from and how societies deal with them. Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs integrates detailed case studies with theoretical generalizations and political analyses to offer a fully rounded treatment both of the relations between technology and society and of the issues involved in sociotechnical change. The stories of the the safety bicycle, the first truly synthetic plastic, and the fluorescent light bulb - each a fascinating case study in itself - reflect a cross section of time periods, engineering and scientific disciplines, and economic, social, and political cultures. The bicycle story explores such issues as the role of changing gender relationships in shaping a technology; the Bakelite story examines the ways in which social factors intrude even in cases of seemingly pure chemistry and entrepreneurship; and the fluorescent bulb story offers insights into the ways in which political and economic relationships can affect the form of a technology. Bijker's method is to use these case studies to suggest theoretical concepts that serve as building blocks in a more and more inclusive theory, which is then tested against further case studies. His main concern is to create a basis for science, technology, and social change that uncovers the social roots of technology, making it amenable to democratic politics. (Amazon.com Review)

Bikson, K. L. and T. L. Bikson. (2001). The Impact of Internet Use Over Time on Older Adults: A Field Experiment. Communication, Technology and Aging: Opportunities and Challenges for the Future. N. Charness and D. C. Parks. New York, Springer Publishing: 127-149.
Common stereotypes of the older adult as avoidant of new technology have not been substantiated. We revisit the field experiment conducted in the late 1980s by T. K. Bikson et al (1991). How different are older Ss who choose to use computers and participate in a computer behavior study from the general population at large? The field experiment of Bikson et al allowed for random assignment of group members to computer-based versus traditional support in the completion of identical activities. Such random assignment produced two quite similar work groups. Prior computer experience was also much the same across conditions. An open-ended item at the end of the initial interview asked Ss why they had agreed to participate in the project. In both conditions a similar pattern emerged: retirees were interested in giving information and employees were interested in getting information about the transition to retirement; the task force topic itself was a strong incentive. Besides wanting to understand how access to a networked computer system might influence group structures and interactions, the field study also sought to learn what effects it might have on S perceptions and evaluate a number of outcome measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2000 APA, all rights reserved

Bimber, B. (2000). "Measuring the Gender Gap on the Internet." Social Science Quarterly 81: 868-876.
This paper evaluates differences in men's & women's presence on the Internet, testing for the presence of gender-specific causes for different rates of Internet use. Methods. The paper presents new survey data collected by the author in 1996, 1998, & 1999 showing trends in Internet use, & presents regression models of Internet access & use. Results. Two statistically significant gender gaps exist on the Internet: in access & in use. The access gap is not the product of gender-specific factors, but is explained by socioeconomic & other differences between men & women. The use gap is the result of both socioeconomics & some combination of underlying gender-specific phenomena. Conclusions. Around one-half of the "digital divide" between men & women on the Internet is fundamentally gender related. Several possible causes may explain this phenomenon. 1 Table, 27 References. (Adapted from the source document)

Bimber, B. (1999). "The Internet and Citizen Communication With Government: Does the Medium Matter?" Political Communication 16: 409-428.
The Internet offers a new means by which citizens may contact government to express their views or concerns, and it raises interesting empirical and theoretical questions about whether citizen contacts are affected by communication media. This article uses survey data to explore hypotheses about whether means of communication shape contacting activity. It compares Internet-based contacts with traditional contacts, showing statistically significant but for the most part substantively small differences. Effects of technology are of two kinds, those affecting only the likelihood of citizens being active in communicating with government and those affecting the frequency or intensity of communication among those who are active. The article discusses these findings in terms of transitional effects of technology, which arise from uneven distribution of the technology in society, and in terms of inherent effects, which attend to the technology itself. The most important inherent effects involve gender and political connectedness: The gender gap in contacting is larger on the Internet than in traditional forms of communication, and political connectedness has a weaker association with communication through the Internet. (author's abstract).

Bimber, B. (1998). "The Internet and Political Transformation: Populism, Community, and Accelerated Pluralism." Polity XXXI(1): 133-160.
The article's date of publication does not compromise its usefulness in reviewing discursive themes on the Internet's impacts (both observed and anticipated) on political participation. The author identifies two optimistic themes in the literature. Populist discourse, according to Bimber, claims the Internet will lead to a decline in group-oriented political participation, in favor of more direct interaction between citizens and governments. He argues against this likelihood, discrediting the underlying assumption that improved access to political information will results in increased political engagement. The second discursive theme, according to Bimber, is the Internet's transformation of citizen-to-citizen relations, shaping group-oriented activism. He questions the ability of these on-line relations to produce the "thick" communities required to mobilize. Bimber offers a third option, which is the prediction that the Internet will lead to more issue-oriented political organization. This new conception, called accelerated pluralism, embraces components of both the populism and the community-oriented discourse. While this prediction seems to be an original thought in Internet literature, the transformation described is not new to the larger body of social science literature. This observation is well-documented in the post-modern thinking. This work would benefit from establishing this connection, as it reaffirms Bimber's own philosophy around the Internet: the Internet should not be viewed as deterministic, but rather as, transforming and/or complementing existing behavioral patterns. [Annotated by Shelley Boulianne]

Bimber, B. (1996). Three Faces of Technological Determinism. Does Technology Drive History? M. R. Smith and L. Marx. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press: 79-100.
These thirteen essays explore a crucial historical question that has been notoriously hard to pin down: To what extent, and by what means, does a society's technology determine its political, social, economic, and cultural forms?

Karl Marx launched the modern debate on determinism with his provocative remark that "the hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist," and a classic article by Robert Heilbroner (reprinted here) renewed the debate within the context of the history of technology. This book clarifies the debate and carries it forward.

Marx's position has become embedded in our culture, in the form of constant reminders as to how our fast-changing technologies will alter our lives. Yet historians who have looked closely at where technologies really come from generally support the proposition that technologies are not autonomous but are social products, susceptible to democratic controls. The issue is crucial for democratic theory. These essays tackle it head-on, offering a deep look at all the shadings of determinism and assessing determinist models in a wide variety of historical contexts.
(MIT Press)

Birnbaum, M. H. (1999). "Testing Critical Properties of Decision Making on the Internet." Psychological Science 10: 399-407.
This article reviews recent findings that violate a broad class of descriptive theories of decision making. A new study compared 1,224 participants tested via the Internet and 124 undergraduates tested in the laboratory Both samples confirmed systematic violations of stochastic dominance and cumulative independence; new tests also found violations of coalescing. The Internet sample was older; more highly educated, more likely male, and also more demographically diverse than the lab sample. Internet participants were more likely than undergraduates to choose the gamble with higher expected value, but no one conformed exactly to expected value. Violations of stochastic dominance decreased as education increased but violations of stochastic dominance and coalescing were still substantial in persons with doctoral degrees who had read a scientific work on decision making. in their implications, Internet research and lab findings agree: Descriptive decision theories cannot assume that identical consequences can be coalesced. (Author's Abstract)

Blanchard, A. and T. Horan (1998). "Virtual Communities and Social Capital." Social Science Computer Review 16: 293-307.
R. D. Putnam (1993) has developed a theory of social capital to explain the effect of decreasing community participation & civic engagement on declining institutional performance. Subsequently, there has been much speculation as to whether emerging virtual communities can counteract this trend. Here, findings on computer-mediated communication & virtual communities are applied to the networks, norms, & trust of social capital, & the possible effects of virtual communities on the privatization of leisure time are considered. Preliminary data on a physically based community in CA that is going on-line lead to the conclusion that social capital & civic engagement will increase when virtual communities develop around such communities & help foster additional communities of interest, including education, exchange of general community information, & opportunities for government & political participation. 3 Tables, 34 References. (Adapted from the source document)

Blumenthal, M. S. (1996). "Architecture and Economic Policy." Telecommunications Policy 20: 161-167.
The Internet is a passion for network technologists and a puzzle for economists. Each discipline needs to understand more of the thinking of the other to advance, but achieving that goal has been slow and difficult. Four papers were developed to further interdisciplinary analysis in the context of the 1995 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference. As explained below, it is hoped that this set of papers will advance telecommunications policy analysis by clarifying the nature of the Internet-in particular, the nature and implications of its architecture-and by framing economic questions based on that characterization, providing a foundation for further research. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Boal, I. A. (1995). "A Flow of Monsters: Luddism and Virtual Technologies." Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information. J. Brook and I. A. Boal. San Francisco, CA, City Lights: 3-15.
As the introduction to an interesting yet sporadic anthology, Boal's essay challenges the traditional celebratory response to digital technologies by situating them within a larger historical context. Boal is especially concerned with what he perceives to be "virtual experience" and its effects on society. This questioning is largely informed by a particular brand of neo-Luddism, a concept Boal unfortunately traces all-too-briefly. Although the author offers a critical, grounded analysis of the potential perils of cyberculture, his argument strays and veers, resulting in a somewhat disparate and oftentimes desperate call to "just log off." (David Silver)

Boehlefeld, S. P. (1996). "Doing the right thing: ethical cyberspace research." Information Society 12: 141-52.
Advocates developing ethical guidelines for the design, conduct, and publication of research using electronic media; applicability of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) guidelines. Argues that a research project must be designed to meet a socially responsible objective, anticipate and defuse harmful results, and protect the privacy of research subjects and those accessing information.

Boling, P. (1990). The personal is political. The closet, identity politics, and outing. Privacy and the politics of intimate life. Ithaca, Cornell University Press: 132-156.

Bolt, D. and R. Crawford. (2000). The Digital Divide: computers and Our Children's Future. New York, TV Books.
From The Industry Standard. Every new technology brings with it a host of social and ethical challenges. One of the more recent of those challenges to join the fray is the digital divide, a statistical rift by gender, race and income in the use of new-economy tools like e-mail and the Web. This gap, many argue, will result in some excelling in the workplace and others getting left out in the cold, locking in forever an age-old divide between haves and have-nots. It also has become the cause du jour at the White House, with Bill Clinton and Al Gore promising to mend the rift through means traditionally favored by both the government and the Internet community: a massive infusion of cash, here in the form of computers for public schools and libraries.

In Digital Divide: Computers and Our Children's Future, David Bolt and Ray Crawford are quick to point out that a presidential promise to wire every school does little to address the real issue. Mere access is not enough. If you're going to give schools computers, you also need to provide them with ongoing technical support, upgrades and - the toughest part - training for teachers, not only in how to use the computers, but also in how to usefully integrate the technology into a meaningful curriculum. Digital Divide was written as a partner to a television series that Bolt created and produced for PBS in 1997. The book is at its strongest in documenting the reality of the divide with clear statistics and compelling stories. The poorer school districts, where minorities are usually the majority, don't have the access to technology that the wealthier districts have. Nor, for a host of reasons, is in-home technology as readily available. And in coed classrooms at all socioeconomic levels, girls are deferring to boys in seeking out and exploring new technology.

The authors offer theories as to the origins of these phenomena, but where specific solutions are craved, few are given. A fundamental discussion focuses around how to use the promised onslaught of computers in the schools. Will there be one computer per school? Class? Student? Do we integrate the computers with the current curricula so they become an enhancement of the pencil and paper and an annex to the library, or do we use them to train students in the tools of the technology trade, foregoing traditional education in the humanities? Both of these approaches require immense resources and an overhaul of the American education system, and neither the resources nor the overhaul appears to be in the picture for many years to come.

Bolt and Crawford provide a glimmer of hope by highlighting organizations (mostly nonprofit) that are aggressively addressing the divide. For poor neighborhoods, there are organizations like Plugged In, an East Palo Alto, Calif., computer resource center that offers an after-school program, as well as computer access and training for older students and adults - if they agree to use their new skills to give back to the community. And in an attempt to close the technogender gap, there's SmartGrrls, which provides educational content for girls in math and science and introduces female role models in technology. Along with detailed statistics about the people on both sides of the gap, Digital Divide concludes by providing a list of resources, including organizations and a small group of experts devoted to researching and bridging the divide. While the list is in no way comprehensive, it's a useful starting point for anyone interested in learning more about the divide and how some organizations address the issue. It also underscores the authors' case that truly bridging the digital divide is an extensive long-term project dependent on the dedication of people on every side of it. (Amazon.com Editorial Review)

Bouch, A., A. Kuchinsky, et al. (2000). Quality is in the Eye of the Beholder: Meeting Users' Requirements for Internet Quality of Service User Experience in E-Commerce. Proceedings of ACM CHI 2000 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
Growing usage and diversity of applications on the Internet makes Quality of Service (QoS) increasingly critical [15]. To date, the majority of research on QoS is systems oriented, focusing on traffic analysis, scheduling, and routing. Relatively minor attention has been paid to user-level QoS issues. It is not yet known how objective system quality relates to users' subjective perceptions of quality. This paper presents the results of quantitative experiments that establish a mapping between objective and perceived QoS in the context of Internet commerce. We also conducted focus groups to determine how contextual factors influence users' perceptions of QoS. We show that, while users' perceptions of World Wide Web QoS are influenced by a number of contextual factors, it is possible to correlate objective measures of QoS with subjective judgements made by users, and therefore influence system design. We argue that only by integrating users' requirements for QoS into system design can the utility of the future Internet be maximized (http://www.hcibib.org/gs.cgi).

Boukhari, S. (1998). "High Stakes Over Virtual Access." UNESCO Sources 106: 21-23.
Reports that the United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization is helping put in place guidelines to monitor public access to information on the Internet. Sponsorship of gathering to discuss the legal and social aspects of the Internet; Establishment of a legal framework concerning databases. (EBSCO Host 5/2/01)

Braman, S. (1995). "Policy for the Net and the Internet." Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 30: 5-75.

Bremer, J. and P. K. Rauch. (1998). "Children and Computers: Risks and Benefits." Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 37(5): 559-560.
Suggests that the boom in Internet use has raised complex legal and ethical issues around access vs censorship, with particular attention to the needs of children. Advantages and disadvantages of children's access to computers and the Internet are discussed. Disadvantages include the risk of online child predators, exposure to inappropriate material, and the possibility of computer play becoming an avoidance strategy. Benefits include the opportunity for children to practice social interactions online and to gain access to information to aid in completing school assignments. The risks and benefits of chat rooms are also discussed. The role of parents and child psychiatrists in providing appropriate supervision in the use of computers and the Internet is reviewed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2000 APA, all rights reserved)

Brent, E., A. Thompson, et al. (2000). "Sociology: A Computational Approach to Sociological Explanations." Social Science Computer Review 18: 223- 236.
The capacity to explain important elements of social life is central both to the development of sociological theory and to teaching sociology. This research seeks to expand our understanding of sociological explanation through a computational approach. Explanations commonly encountered in introductory sociology texts are used to develop a typology of explanatory forms. A computational strategy that represents sociological knowledge using a combination of frames, semantic networks, and procedural rules is described. It is then demonstrated that this approach can generate the full range of these explanations for all logical combinations of conditions and for the full scope of sociological knowledge. This approach is also shown to be capable of identifying appropriate explanations, assessing the quality of explanations, and generating new insights. (Authors' abstract)

Bresnahan, T. and J. Richards. (1999). "Local and Global Competition in Information Technology." Journal of the Japanese & International Economies 13: 336-71.
We examine the implications of changing competitive dynamics in global information and communications technology (ICT) markets for government demand-steering policies whose goal is local rents. Both computing and telephony are undergoing changes in global industry structure and changes in the nature of competition. The convergence of computing and telephony and the rapid technological change (and accompanying technological uncertainty) driving this convergence reinforce trends toward vertical competition. The emergence of global ICT markets lowers entry barriers, likely encouraging government-supported local entrants into global ICT markets. There are, however, strongly offsetting disadvantages. The underlying economics of ICT markets under vertical competition will work to reinforce the dominant position of U.S.-based incumbents in many segments. The prospects for exports, command of rent-related standards, and large rents from exports are not very bright. We expect to see far more demand- steering attempts than successes. (c.1999 Academic Press)

Brewer, L. C. (2000). "The Politics and Practice of Doing Online Surveys: A Case Study of Higher Education Students in Web-Based Courses." American Sociological Association.
Many survey researchers assume that the use of computer technology will result in cost & time savings, as well as improve data quality. While these benefits may be possible, methodological problems emerged during our efforts to conduct an online survey of students in Internet courses. Areas of methodological concern addressed in this study are (1) instrument development & data collection, & (2) contacting the population & calculating a response rate. As I review these issues, I describe specific technical & organizational problems that surfaced & how they were dealt with in the context of this case. I also briefly outline changes that were made to improve a second attempt to administer our online survey. While the discussion here is limited to this particular case, many features should be applicable to online surveys in other settings.

Breznyak, M. (1999). "Presenting Psychology Research on the Internet: Obstacles and Opportunities." Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers 31: 281-286.

Brown, J. R. and A. v. Dam (1999). "Human-centered Computing, Online Communities, and Virtual Environments." IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications 19: 70-75.
Presents the results of the first European Commission/National Science Foundation (EC/NSF) joint advanced research workshop on information technology. Objectives of the workshop; Consistency of cognition models; Design and evaluation of online communities; Challenges in virtual environment technology and interfaces (Author's abstract from EBSCO Host 5/3/01).

Brown, J. S. and P. Duguid (2000). The Social Life of Information. New York, NY, Harper Collins.
How many times has your PC crashed today? While Gordon Moore's now famous law projecting the doubling of computer power every 18 months has more than borne itself out, it's too bad that a similar trajectory projecting the reliability and usefulness of all that power didn't come to pass, as well. Advances in information technology are most often measured in the cool numbers of megahertz, throughput, and bandwidth--but, for many us, the experience of these advances may be better measured in hours of frustration.

The gap between the hype of the Information Age and its reality is often wide and deep, and it's into this gap that John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid plunge. Not that these guys are Luddites--far from it. Brown, the chief scientist at Xerox and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and Duguid, a historian and social theorist who also works with PARC measure how information technology interacts and meshes with the social fabric. They write, "Technology design often takes aim at the surface of life. There it undoubtedly scores lots of worthwhile hits. But such successes can make designers blind to the difficulty of more serious challenges--primarily the resourcefulness that helps embed certain ways of doing things deep in our lives."

The authors cast their gaze on the many trends and ideas proffered by infoenthusiasts over the years, such as software agents, "still a long way from the predicted insertion into the woof and warp of ordinary life"; the electronic cottage that Alvin Toffler wrote about 20 years ago and has yet to be fully realized; and the rise of knowledge management and the challenges it faces trying to manage how people actually work and learn in the workplace. Their aim is not to pass judgment but to help remedy the tunnel vision that prevents technologists from seeing larger the social context that their ideas must ultimately inhabit. The Social Life of Information is a thoughtful and challenging read that belongs on the bookshelf of anyone trying to invent or make sense of the new world of information. (Book review by Harry C. Edwards)

Brown, J. S. and P. Duguid (1991). Organizational learning and communities of practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation.
In this article, Brown and Duguid (1991) discuss the need for organizations to foster working, learning, and innovating by supporting noncanonical communities and practices within organizations. The authors state that working, learning, and innovating is often misunderstood, and thus processes and practices are implemented in organizations that actually threaten instead of foster working, learning, and innovating (Brown & Duguid, 1991). These canonical processes and practices are embedded in formal job descriptions, rules and directives that are used to hold employees accountable, which prohibit synergistic collaboration. Synergistic collaboration is found in informal, noncanonical communities of practice, which leads to new insights and ideas to solve problems and address issues, thus promoting working, learning, and innovating. The authors state the gap between canonical and noncanonical practices must be closed in order for working, learning, and innovating to occur. Organizations that value employee innovation and foster noncanonical communities of practice will be successful. (Annotated by G. Leah Davis)

Brown, M. M. and J. L. Brudney (1999). Knowledge Workers in the Public Sector? A Study of Police Officers Employing Information Technology to Advance Knowledge.
This article questions whether the public sector employees can benefit
from information and technology to become genuine knowledge workers by
scrutinizing the underlying assumptions of the knowledge worker philosophy
in the setting of law enforcement agencies.

The authors first point out that harnessing information and technology to
increase the effectiveness and adaptability of the public sector
organizations is a part of the reinventing government reform efforts.
These efforts assume that public organizations can be learning
organizations, and consequently public servants can be transformed to be
knowledge workers, who will strategically use information and technology
to reduce uncertainty, improve organizational control and facilitate
rational decision-making. However, the authors point out that asymmetric
decision parameters, ill-structured problem domains and limited cognitive
capacities of the public servants threaten the utility of information and
technology for public organizations.

The authors conducted a survey to 320 street-level law enforcement
officers, performed case studies at ten law enforcement departments and
performed elite interviews with the respected scholars of the law
enforcement area in order to understand whether information and technology
applications help police officers to do their work better in an
increasingly turbulent environment. Police departments are deliberately
selected because of their long-term commitment to the learning
organization paradigm, their proximity to the citizens, which allows them
to experience the realization of any outcome benefits first-hand, their
complex work environment and the fields heavy investment on information
and technology.

The researchers found out that information and technology, instead of
increasing the flexibility of the organizations and help the
organizational members in making better decisions, promoted rigidity, not
adaptability. The quality of the data, the political nature of
decision-making and the inability to establish clear causal linkages all
contributed to this negative outcome. However, they also found out that
information and technology is more useful when there are highly structured
problem contexts (when the problem is easily defined and solutions are
well-known) as opposed to ill-structured contexts.

The authors, who are awarded by Public Administration Review for the best
written article for 1999 for another work of theirs, make many unnecessary
reiterations in the text. They write the same thing again and again, which
negatively affects the readers attention. However, their statistical
analysis and conclusion is concise and to the point.

The most interesting take-away from the article is that one can not expect
street-level workers to collect information and master the technology
unless the information and technology create fast and obvious benefits for
them.

Secondly, organizational leaders should find the delicate balance between
over and under-collection of information; so that the right amount of
information is collected without using too much of the scarce resources.
The authors point out that organizational decision-makers perform
satisficing and favor addressing the short-term essential needs by the
help of information and technology, rather than planning for the potential
uses in the long run.

Third, it becomes obvious after reading the article that the end-users of
the technology should be given extensive training to teach them how to use
information and technology as a strategic asset (accessing the right data
in the right format at the right time).

Fourth, the fact that many organizations collect information and
technology for symbolic purposes, to create an illusion of rationality
needs further attention. This issue may be quite relevant to some of the
public organizations that go online for symboling transparency, efficiency
or being up-to-date.

<Based on the critical reading of the article by Mete Yildiz>

Browning, J. (1996). "Teleconomics." Scientific American 274: 30-1.
Companies that market information on the Internet are focusing on content rather than access. If, as seems likely, the Internet model triumphs, all companies will increasingly come to depend for survival on their ability to gain the attention of consumers who are glutted with information. Gaining attention will require businesspeople to develop a deeper understanding of both the economics of information networks and the nature of information itself. The obvious way to direct the focus of customers' attention is to provide answers to the questions that consumers are already curious about. While it is hard to keep a competitive grip on content in the interlinked world of computer networks, a company can try to manipulate the questions customers ask and the context in which answers are offered in such a way as to put the competition in the shade. Alternatively, the company could try to engage their customers with the same kinds of questions the company itself is asking.

Bruckman, A. (1996). "Finding One's Own Space in Cyberspace." Technology Review 99: 48-54.
In this fascinating essay, Bruckman challenges notions of Internet violence (cyberporn, sexism, flames, to name a few forms), by putting forth a number of ways to create new and diverse virtual communities. The author, a doctoral student in the M.I.T. Media Lab and founder of two virtual communities (MediaMOO and MOOSE Crossing), uses her experience as both a critic and constructor of virtual communities in order to discuss a variety of sites, including MediaMOO and the New York-based ECHO (East Cost Hang Out) bulletin board system. Drawing from her case studies, Bruckman suggests a number of elements which can help foster a communal atmosphere: user identification, active participation, and admissions policies. (David Silver)

Bryce, J. (2001). "The Technological Transformation of Leisure." Social Science Computer Review 19: 7-16.
There is a large body of literature examining the role of communication technologies in the shaping of contemporary society. One area that has not been sufficiently considered in the literature is the influence of technology on the organization and experience of leisure. Historically, there has always been a relationship between technology and leisure, but the increasing use of the Internet and computer gaming technology during leisure time is facilitating a transformation in contemporary leisure activity and has relevance for themes in both leisure and Internet research. This article presents a brief examination of the historical relationship between technology and leisure, before examining the implications of technological change for themes in leisure and Internet research. Examined with reference to computer technology and the use of the Internet are (a) activity, place, and meaning; (b) leisure freedom and constraint; (c) deviant leisure; and (d) leisure and health.

Brynjolfsson, E. and B. Kahin (2000). Understanding the Digital Economy: Data, Tools, and Research. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
The rapid growth of electronic commerce, along with changes in information, computing, and communications, is having a profound effect on the United States economy. President Clinton recently directed the National Economic Council, in consultation with executive branch agencies, to analyze the economic implications of the Internet and electronic commerce domestically and internationally, and to consider new types of data collection and research that could be undertaken by public and private organizations.

This book contains work presented at a conference held by executive branch agencies in May 1999 at the Department of Commerce. The goals of the conference were to assess current research on the digital economy, to engage the private sector in developing the research that informs investment and policy decisions, and to promote better understanding of the growth and socioeconomic implications of information technology and electronic commerce. Aspects of the digital economy addressed include macroeconomic assessment, organizational change, small business, access, market structure and competition, and employment and the workforce. (Authors' abstract)

Buchanan, R. A. (1979). History and Industrial Civilization. London, Macmillan.

Buchanan, T. (2000). Potential of the Internet for Personality Research. Psychological Experiments on the Internet. M. H. Birnbaum. San Diego, CA, Academic Press: 121-265.

Buchanan, T. (2000). "Internet Research: Self-Monitoring and Judgments of Attractiveness." Behavior Research Methods Instruments & Computers 32: 521-527.
Two studies examined the relationship between self-monitoring and factors influencing romantic attraction to others. In Study I, participants completed an Internet-mediated version of the Self-Monitoring Scale (Gangestad & Snyder, 1985) and indicated which of two people (one physically attractive, one with a more desirable personality) they found most attractive. Results matched previous findings (Snyder, Berscheid, & Glick, 1985), but the effect was smaller. Study 2, a paper-and-pencil replication of Study 1, examined whether the weaker effect was due to Internet mediation and found no differences in the choices made by high and low self-monitors. Results suggested that while determinants of attraction may vary for different populations, Internet research methods can tap the same phenomena as traditional laboratory studies. (Author's abstract)

Buchanan, T. and J. L. Smith (1999). "Research on the Internet: Validation of the World-Wide Web Mediated Personality Scale." Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers 31: 565-571.

Buchanan, T. and J. L. Smith (1999). "Using the Internet for Psychological Research: Personality Testing on the World Wide Web." British Journal of Psychology 90: 125-144.

Bucur, A., C. I. Renold, et al. (1999). "How do older netcitizens compare with their younger counterparts?" Cyberpsychology & Behavior 2(6): 505-513.
Compared senior citizen's use of the Internet compared to the general
population. Data from 2 surveys were analyzed: (1) a web-based
longitudinal survey, the Georgia Tech University WWW User Survey and (2)
the Current Population Survey (US Bureau of Census, March 1997). Results
show several age-based differences in how the Internet is used. All Ss
used email and read news but Ss aged 65+ years were less likely to search
the Internet, shop online, or buy tickets online. However, once older Ss
became more experienced with the Internet, their online skills and
activities were similar to those of younger Ss. Of experienced Internet
users, Ss aged 65+ years were more likely to have placed orders, completed
major purchases, bought books, and used directories, whereas younger Ss
were more likely to have created and customized web pages or taken
seminars online. Findings suggest that older citizens are becoming more
involved in Internet use. (author's abstract)

Bucy, E. P. (2000). "Social Access to the Internet." Harvard International Journal of Press-Politics 5: 50-61.
The relative costs and expertise associated with using the Internet, labeled technological and social access, have led to a concern about the rise of a "digital divide" between information haves and have-nots. To address whether and to what extent the Internet has become a medium of the masses and to identify the factors associated with social access to the Internet, I examine Internet use data from two statewide surveys, the Carolina Poll and the Indiana Poll, conducted during spring 1998. Multivariate analysis reveals that income, education, age, and family structure are important social determinants of on-line access and that Internet use is lowest among single mothers, members of lower socioeconomic groups, and older respondents. Although the online population is beginning to diversify, the Internet cannot yet claim a committed, nonelite mass audience. It is argued that the disparities in Internet use portend a looming information gap between those with access and those without.

Bulliet, R. (1994). Determinism and Pre-Industrial Technology. Does Technology Drive History? M. R. Smith and L. Marx. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press: 201-216.
These thirteen essays explore a crucial historical question that has been notoriously hard to pin down: To what extent, and by what means, does a society's technology determine its political, social, economic, and cultural forms?

Karl Marx launched the modern debate on determinism with his provocative remark that "the hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist," and a classic article by Robert Heilbroner (reprinted here) renewed the debate within the context of the history of technology. This book clarifies the debate and carries it forward.

Marx's position has become embedded in our culture, in the form of constant reminders as to how our fast-changing technologies will alter our lives. Yet historians who have looked closely at where technologies really come from generally support the proposition that technologies are not autonomous but are social products, susceptible to democratic controls. The issue is crucial for democratic theory. These essays tackle it head-on, offering a deep look at all the shadings of determinism and assessing determinist models in a wide variety of historical contexts.
(MIT Press)

Burgoon, J. K., J. A. Bonito, et al. (2000). "Interactivity in Human-Computer Interaction: A Study of Credibility, Understanding, and Influence." Computers in Human Behavior 16: 553-574.
Advancements in computer technology have allowed the development of human-appearing and -behaving virtual agents. This study examined if increased richness and anthropomorphism in interface design lead to computers being more influential during a decision-making task with a human partner. In addition, user experiences of the communication format, communication process, and the task partner were evaluated for their association with various features of virtual agents. Study participants completed the Desert Survival Problem (DSP) and were then randomly assigned to one of five different computer partners or to a human partner (who was a study confederate). Participants discussed each of the items in the DSP with their partners and were then asked to complete the DSP again. Results showed that computers were more influential than human partners but that the latter were rated more positively on social dimensions of communication than the former. Exploratory analysis of user assessments revealed that some features of human-computer interaction (e.g. utility and feeling understood) were associated with increases in anthropomorphic features of the interface. Discussion focuses on the relation between user perceptions, design features, and task outcomes. (Authors' abstract)

Burke, J. (1999). The Knowledge Web: From Electronic Agents to Stonehenge and Back – and Other Journeys Through Knowledge. NY, Simon and Schuster.

Burke, J. and R. Ornstein (1995). The Axemakers Gift: A Double-Edged History of Human Culture. New York, G. P. Putnams's Sons.
Who better to trace over millennia the political, economic, psychological, and moral consequences of our species' technological breakthroughs than these two lively thinkers: Burke, host of the award-winning PBS and BBC series Connections and The Day the Universe Changed, and Ornstein, a Stanford and University of California medical center professor who has written more than 20 books, including The Evolution of Consciousness (1991) and The Roots of the Self (1993). Their argument is that the technological geniuses among us, "axemakers," improved our lives but also "redefined the way we thought, the values by which we lived, and the truths for which we died." We were given the world "in exchange for our minds." How? By valuing over all other human capacities the precise, sequential thought processes required to "cut- and-control" nature, each axemaker gift--from prehistoric times to the postmodern global economy--has, at least on some levels, reinforced caste distinctions between people permitted by nature and/or nurture to be "axemakers" and all other human beings. After sketching generation upon generation of the axemakers' short-term technological solutions and their unintended consequences, the authors paradoxically see hope in a new axemaker gift: information available in a "webbed" (rather than sequential) format on decentralized computer networks could empower non-axemakers to find more holistic, long-term approaches to our species'--and the planet's--problems. An eclectic, demanding analysis that will appeal to thoughtful readers. (Amazon.com Review by Mary Carroll)

Burke, S. K. (2000). "In Search of Lesbian Community in an Electronic World." Cyberpsychology & Behavior 3: 591-604.
Abstract: Studies have shown that friendship groups and a sense of community are important in the creation of positive lesbian identities. Sometimes it is difficult, however, for lesbians to meet other lesbians. The Internet has become an important source for many lesbians to connect with each other to find potential partners and create community ties. Giddens' idea of the creation of self-identity through continually revised self-narratives and choices among lifestyle options are used to suggest that lesbian personals ads are not just inventories of personal attributes for sale or exchange, but deliberate creations of self-definitions. As such, writing personals ads illustrates "reflexively organized life-planning." In this study of lesbian Internet personals ads, both qualitative and quantitative analyses were done. Qualitatively, the ads were placed in a conceptual hierarchy of types of interactions sought by the advertisers. The analyses reveal that two-thirds of advertisers were looking for types of meaningful relationships ranging from friendships to life-partnerships. The remainder of the advertisers were seeking non-meaningful interactions, from information to tour guides to casual sexual encounters. Many advertisers wanted to connect with lesbian communities in their own geographic regions or in places where they were planning to relocate or visit. Quantitative analysis was then done to compare contents of online ads to previously studied print ads. Results suggest that online ads are generally longer and more narrative than print ads as a result of fewer space restrictions and other factors.

Burris, B. H. (1998). "Computerization of the Workplace." Annual Reviews Sociology 24: 141-157.
Divergent conceptualizations of the recent changes in work organization that have accompanied computerization include neo-Bravermanian analyses, postindustrial analyses, and contingency analyses. To make sense of these differing views, the paper surveys sociological research on computerization and its impact on three analytically separate dimensions of the workplace: organizational restructuring, changes in worker skill, and power and authority relationships. The review reveals that computerized work organizations typically have fewer hierarchical levels, a bifurcated workforce, frequently with race and sex segregation, a less formal structure, and diminished use of internal labor markets and reliance instead on external credentialing. Variable patterns of centralization and decentralization occur, and workplace power relationships interact with technological change to produce variable political outcomes. With regard to worker skills, recent evidence suggests aggregate upskilling with some deskilling and skill bifurcation. Future research should more closely analyze the process of technological design and implementation (from author’s abstract).

Burt, R. S. (1995). Structural Holes : The Social Structure of Competition. Chicago, IL, Belknap Press.

Burton, M. C. and J. B. Walther (2001). "The Value of web log data in use-based design and testing." JCMC 6(3).
Web-based logs contain potentially useful empirical data with which World
Wide Web (Web) designers and design theorists can assess usability and
effectiveness of design choices. Most Web design guidelines from artistic
or usability principles feature no empirical validation, while empirical
studies of Web use typically rely on observer ratings. Web server logs and