The Other Sociologist: “69 Billion Friendships” on Facebook – How Sociology Can Make This Meaningful
Thursday, 1 December 2011, 17:23
“Facebook’s research tells us about the links between a large sub-group of humanity – but it doesn’t say anything about what these connections mean.”
Guardian: Reading the Riots study to examine causes and effects of August unrest
Monday, 5 September 2011, 15:17
"Reading the Riots is modelled on an acclaimed survey conducted in the aftermath of the Detroit riots in 1967. The findings of that study, the result of a groundbreaking collaboration between the Detroit Free Press newspaper and Michigan's In…
The super SEAL — and would-be reporter — who got Osama bin Laden – Battleland – TIME.com
Thursday, 5 May 2011, 09:10
"The man who commanded the SEAL team that hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden studied to be a reporter. … Vice Adm. William McRaven, himself a SEAL … study[ed] journalism at the University of Texas in Austin before graduating in 1977."
Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science: Upper-income people still don’t realize they’re upper-income
Thursday, 21 April 2011, 10:07
Poll data suggests many rich people can't place themselves accurately on the US income distribution: "30 percent of these upper-income people say that upper-income people pay too little [tax], but only 6 percent say that they personally pay t…
O’Reilly Radar: Got an iPhone or 3G iPad? Apple is recording your moves
Wednesday, 20 April 2011, 14:57
"Today at Where 2.0 Pete Warden and I will announce the discovery that your iPhone, and your 3G iPad, is regularly recording the position of your device into a hidden file. … All iPhones appear to log your location to a file called "consoli…
Advertising Age: The New Yorker Decides Facebook ‘Like’ Is Good Enough
Wednesday, 13 April 2011, 10:51
"If, for a limited time, you go to The New Yorker's Facebook page and "like" it, you will gain access to a new essay from [Jonathan] Franzen that is also available to paying print and iPad subscribers. … Facebook has become vital …
GigaOm: How Twitter Could Bring About World Peace
Wednesday, 13 April 2011, 10:31
Academic research on Twitter shows individual journalists' Twitter accounts may be more effective than brands': "People are more important than brands. Many of the biggest Twitter accounts are big media brands such as CNN and Time, but t…
New York Times: Cellphones Track Your Every Move, and You May Not Even Know
Wednesday, 13 April 2011, 09:59
Story on the Zeit Online data retention interactive: “This is really the most compelling visualization in a public forum I have ever seen,” said [Matthew Blaze, a professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania], add…
New York Times: On Twitter, Conservative (or Liberal) by Association
Tuesday, 22 March 2011, 15:31
"Much of the discussion about over-sharing on social networks has focused on users not being able to escape from something they have said online. But a person’s connections are also revealing, as this research found."
Forbes.com: Interactive: Billionaires’ Favorite Politicians
Monday, 1 November 2010, 18:43
"The billionaires on the Forbes 400 list have given more than $30 million to politicians and political action committees since 2006, along with millions more in soft money to politically active groups. Although Forbes 400 members give about 15% more money to Republicans than Democrats, they fund groups across the political spectrum."
New York Times: People Share News Online That Inspires Awe, Researchers Find
Tuesday, 9 February 2010, 21:11
"Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have intensively studied the New York Times list of most-e-mailed articles, checking it every 15 minutes for more than six months, analyzing the content of thousands of articles and controlling for factors like the placement in the paper or on the Web home page. … most of all, readers wanted to share articles that inspired awe, an emotion that the researchers investigated after noticing how many science articles made the list."
Wired: Game Changers: How Videogames Trained a Generation of Athletes
Sunday, 7 February 2010, 17:39
"For more than 30 years, sports videogames have been focused on simulating real-life athletics more and more perfectly. But over the past decade, games have moved beyond just imitating the action on the field. Now they’re changing it."
NYU Journalism “Primary Sources”: Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky
Sunday, 27 December 2009, 08:32
Interesting discussion from about the 7:16 mark, where Rosen discusses the "sociology of the newsroom" research of the 1970s and 1980s and its implications for a world where the production routines of the media are changing.
Channel 4: Who Knows Who
Thursday, 12 November 2009, 19:06
"Who Knows Who is Channel 4's new website which shows the connections between politicians, celebrities and business leaders, and where power really lies in the UK. We hope that it will reveal the surprising and often hidden stories behind the headlines. This is the first iteration of an ongoing process to develop this tool to be rich in content and functionality and over time build the biggest network of connections in the UK."
