Environmental Activism, Social Networks and the Internet

Social networks and the internet both have a substantial individual effect on environmental activism in China. In this article, we speculate that social linking patterns between environmental actors, which often facilitate activism on the ground, may also exist in cyberspace in the form of an online network. The article addresses the following empirical questions. Does such an online network exist? If so, who are the constituent actors? Are these the same actors observed on the ground? In addressing these questions the article aims to contribute to the growing debate on the implications of the internet for the potential emergence of social movements in China

Broadcasting to the masses or building communities: Polish political parties’ online performance during 2011 elections in international perspective

This paper analyses within the context of election contests the extent to which parties use the range of Web 2.0 tools, in particular social networking sites, weblogs and microblogs, in order to build communities online; we contrast this with the more traditional political use of the online environment for broadcasting. Using the 2011 Polish general election as a case study, we analyse the use of the online environment by all political parties, categorising features as offering a range of functions to serve visitors, from informing to allowing interaction. We also assess how different groups of visitors are targeted through different features or platforms. The data from the content analysis thus provides a rich picture of the online strategy of each party and the extent to which the Internet was used in the campaign. These data are supplemented by web cartography analysis which identifies the interlinkages between the websites of political parties, official information sources and the media. The cartography allows us to analyse the direction of traffic flow within the electoral websphere, the extent to which parties create open platforms with high levels of linkage to one another or if they maintain enclosed communities linking only to supportive sites. Overall our paper will provide an understanding of party election strategies during elections allowing discussion regarding the impact this might have on parties, media actors and voters. In particular we demonstrate how parties can use the range of web features to build communities of specific groups of visitors, in particular those with issue specific interests, those leaning towards supporting a party, and existing partisan campaigners. The use of these tools, we argue, can increase loyalty and lead to the conversion of supporters to activists. The paper leads into a discussion of how social networking tools have the potential to enhance the link between parties, members and supporters but that this depends on how the party utilises the online environment. Finally we aim to fit the Polish case study within a larger picture of political parties’ online performance during elections. Here we will compare our data on Poland with similar data which analysed the performance of parties in German 2009 general elections, parliamentary elections in Great Britain 2010 and French parliamentary election in 2012

Technology Policy, Gender, and Cyberspace

Event based sampling occurs when the time instants are measured everytime the amplitude passes certain pre-defined levels. This is in contrast with classical signal processing where the amplitude is measured at regular time intervals. The signal processing problem is to separate the signal component from noise in both amplitude and time domains. Event based sampling occurs in a variety of applications. The purpose here is to explain the new types of signal processing problems that occur, and identify the need for processing in both the time and event domains. We focus on rotating axles, where amplitude disturbances are caused by vibrations and time disturbances from measurement equipment. As one application, we examine tire pressure monitoring in cars where suppression of time disturbance is of utmost importance

The Facebook Project - The Missing Box: The Racial Politics Behind the Facebook Interface

There is no race, ethnicity or nationality category available the default Facebook profile. This, combined with the fact that Facebook is a visually-driven website, suggests that Facebook serves to inadvertently or covertly perpetuate two racist or discriminatory norms: the colorblind mentality and racialized visual classification of others. This paper quickly traverses through a basic theory of identity that dictates that persons incur an on-going dialectic between individual and social identity, both on and offline. It contends that Facebook is an advantageous place to perform and portray one???s social identity and is largely visually-driven, therefore the interface is of paramount importance. Racial, ethnic, or national identity is of significance to many individuals and the lack of a place to express this is a form of discrimination. Such a category should be added to Facebook???s set of basic identity options. Guidelines for a successful implementation are provided.unpublishedis peer reviewe