Category Archives: Sociology

Guardian: Reading the Riots study to examine causes and effects of August unrest

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"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 Institute for Social Research, challenged prevailing assumptions about the cause of the unrest. Prof Phil Meyer, who co-ordinated the Detroit study more than four decades ago, will advise the research into the English riots."

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science: Upper-income people still don’t realize they’re upper-income

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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 too little. 38% say that upper-income people pay too much, but 67% say they personally pay too much."

Advertising Age: The New Yorker Decides Facebook ‘Like’ Is Good Enough

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"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 to publishers. For many, the social network is among the two or three biggest drivers of traffic, often eclipsing even Google searches and making Twitter look like a ghost town in comparison.... The New Yorker's stated goal of generating engagement on its page couldn't be more sensible, especially as the literary brand, which once seemed to regard its website as though it were a misplaced umlaut that made it into print, invests more and more in its digital operation through its iPad app, blogs and podcasts. "

New York Times: People Share News Online That Inspires Awe, Researchers Find

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"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."

Online Journalism Blog: How successful bloggers become bureaucratized too

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Paul Bradshaw reads an enthography of blogging: "just as the restricted space and time of mainstream media shape their output, so does the lack of restrictions shape the output of blogs: 'Whereas constraints necessitate routines, so does a lack of limits … bloggers have developed routine practices that narrow down possibilities.'"