Networking for Success in Cyberspace

Several key technologies are converging to create the emerging cyberspace. We characterize this convergence process as one of cumulative synthesis and suggest that the network mode of organization is the most appropriate for facilitating convergence.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

A novel alternative. Book groups, women, and workplace networking

Drawing on the results of a small qualitative research project involving four work-based book groups – three in the UK and one in the USA- this article examines the ways in which participation in workplace reading groups facilitates women’s networking within work organizations, in terms of both formal and informal as well as expressive and instrumental networking. It has long been recognized that women’s employment progression is hampered, in part, by their exclusion from male-dominated networks. Taking a gendered approach to the analysis of workplace networking, this study suggests that book groups can function as an alternative to traditional old boys’ networks, in some instances. Within the workplace the collective reading of literature, I suggest, can potentially function as a means to extend the social as well as the more career-focused opportunities of its participants

The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet

Cogitation described as calculation, the living being described as a machine, cognitive functions considered as algorithmic sequences and the ‘mechanization’ of the subjective were the theoretical elements that late heideggerian anti–humanism, especially in France was able to utilize[1], even more so, after the second cybernetics or post-cybernetics movement of the late ‘60s introduced the concepts of the autopoietic and the allopoietic automata[2]. Recently, neurologists pose claims on the traditional epistemological field of philosophy, proceeding from this ontological decision, the equation of human cognition to cybernetic systems. The emergence of the world-wide-web in the 1990s and the global expansion of the internet during the first decades of the 21st century indicate the fallacies of the cybernetics programme to mechanize the mind. We stand witnesses to a semantic colonization of the cybernetic system, a social imaginary creation and expansion within the digital ensemblistic – identitarian organization that cannot be described by mechanical or cybernetic terms. Paradoxically, cyberspace, as a new being, a form of alterity, seems to both exacerbate and capsize the polarization between the operational and the symbolic. The creation of the internet might be more than an epistemological revolution, to use the terminology of Thomas Kuhn. It might be an ontological revolution. I will try to demonstrate that the emergence of the Internet refutes any such claims, since its context and utility can only be described by means of a social epistemology based on the understanding of social significances as continuous creations of an anonymous social imaginary proposed by Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997). I will try to explore some social-semantic aspects of the cyberspace as a nexus of social representations of the individual identity that forms a new sphere of being, where the subjective and the objective merge in a virtual subjective objectivity with unique epistemological attributes and possibilities

Co-authorship in the age of cyberculture: Open Educational Resources at the Open University of the United Kingdom

Locating Open Educational Resources (OER) as a phenomenon of cyberculture, this paper presents a reflection on the possibilities of co-authorship that are entailed in OER initiatives of different natures and settings within a large organisation. A selection of OER-related projects and activities carried out at the Open University of United Kingdom (UKOU) are examined from the perspective of a comparative framework proposed by Okada (2010). The framework identifies key features and differences between ‘Closed’ and ‘Open’ Education, that is, respectively, formal education, which takes place within the constraints of institutional Virtual Learning Environments, and informal education, which is gradually taking place more widely in cyberspace. The paper is introduced with a succinct discussion of the connection between cyberculture and the emergence of OER, followed by a presentation of the comparative framework adopted. The UKOU´s structure and methods are then presented, and various projects are discussed. The article concludes by proposing a brief commentary on the creative potential that is being unleashed at the very boundaries between formal and informal educational spaces that cyberculture is challenging

Under Construction (Identities, Communities and Visual Overkill)

Most of modern identities emerge from mediated interactions in public and virtual spaces. There are no acknowledged authorities to watch over organizational identities and grant them legitimacy. These identities are renegotiated in real and virtual communities, often carry a permanent label 'under construction' and can be violently contested in public space. Garrulous behaviour stimulated by interactive media and by the forthcoming Evernet allows for a gradual build-up of individual and social response to the visual overkill in media-regulated societies. Voicing the images over, we mobilize for action, dismantle institutional structures and generally speaking mix gate-keeping with data-dating, thus contributing to the overall change of world's cultural climate - one of bricks, clicks and flicks. Benetton's Toscani campaign and Napster's ordeal are cases in point.corporate identity;cultural climate;flicks;virtual community;visual overkill

Empowering protest through social media

Advances in personal communications devices including smartphones, are enabling individuals to establish and form virtual communities in cyberspace. Such platforms now allow users to be in continuous contact, enabling them to receive information in real time, which allows them to act in support of other members of their network. This paper will discuss some of the capabilities afforded by social media to protest groups focused on civil disobedience. Direct action protests are now a common sight at gatherings of world leaders, most notably the meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Seattle in 1999, the G20 meetings in Melbourne in 2006 and Toronto in 2010. Facebook and Twitter are becoming recognised as key mediums from which to drive change, exert influence and strategically and tactically outmaneuver conventional police deployments at protests. Police charged with managing protest activity now need to operate in both the physical and cyber worlds simultaneously

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