Why Youth (heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life

Part of the Volume on Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Social network sites like MySpace and Facebook serve as "networked publics." As with unmediated publics like parks and malls, youth use networked publics to gather, socialize with their peers, and make sense of and help build the culture around them. This article examines American youth engagement in networked publics and considers how properties unique to such mediated environments (e.g., persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences) affect the ways in which youth interact with one another. Ethnographic data is used to analyze how youth recognize these structural properties and find innovative ways of making these systems serve their purposes. Issues like privacy and impression management are explored through the practices of teens and youth participation in social network sites is situated in a historical discussion of youth's freedom and mobility in the United States

Distinguishing between types of data and methods of collecting them

The author examines the role of different data collection methods--including the types of data they produce--in the analysis of social phenomena in developing countries. He points out that one confusing factor in the"quantitative-qualitative"debate is that a distinction is not clearly made between methods of data collection used and types of data generated. He maintains the divide between quantitative and qualitative types of data but analyzes methods according to their"contextuality": the degree to which they try to understand human behavior in the social, cultural, economic, and political environment of a given place. He emphasizes that it is most fruitful to think of both methods and data as lying on a continuum stretching from more to less contextual methodology and from more to less qualitative data output. Using characteristic information needs for health planning derived from data on the use of health services, he shows that each combination of method (more or less contextual) and data (more or less qualitative) is a unique primary source that can fulfill different information requirements. He concludes that: 1) Certain information about health utilization can be obtained only through contextual methods--in which case strict statistical representability must give way to inductive conclusions, assessments of internal validity, and replicability of results. 2) Often contextual methods are needed to design appropriate noncontextual data collection tools. 3) Even where noncontextual data collection methods are needed, contextual methods can play an important role in assessing the validity of the results at the local level. 4) In cases where different data collection methods can be used to probe general results, the methods can--and need to be--formally linked.Early Child and Children's Health,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Systems Development&Reform,Housing&Human Habitats,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Poverty Assessment,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Systems Development&Reform,Scientific Research&Science Parks

A Prize to Give for: An Experiment on Public Good Funding Mechanisms

This paper investigates fund-raising mechanisms based on a prize as a way to overcome free riding in the private provision of public goods, under the assumptions of income heterogeneity and incomplete information about income levels. We compare experimentally the performance of a lottery, an all-pay auction and a benchmark voluntary contribution mechanism. We find that prize-based mechanisms perform better than voluntary contribution in terms of public good provision after accounting for the cost of the prize. Comparing the prize-based mechanisms, total contributions are significantly higher in the lottery than in the all-pay auction. Focusing on individual income types, the lottery outperforms voluntary contributions and the all-pay auction throughout the income distribution.Auctions, Lotteries, Public Goods, Laboratory Experiments

Incorporated citizens: multinational high-tech companies and the BoP

In this article, I examine HP’s e-Inclusion program and its implementation in India to show how the high-tech industry’s efforts to alleviate poverty profitably are guided by C. K. Prahalad’s ideas about the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP), and are framed as digital corporate citizenship activities. While the BoP highlights the importance of new markets for high-tech companies, the discourse of digital corporate citizenship creates an enabling environment in which transnational high-tech companies can gain political access to new consumers at the BoP. The resulting digital corporate citizenship/BoP nexus leads to the extension of governments’ bureaucratic reach and the formation of electronic entrepreneurs

A Prize to Give for: An Experiment on Public Good Funding Mechanisms

This paper investigates fund-raising mechanisms based on a prize as a way to overcome free riding in the private provision of public goods, under the assumptions of income heterogeneity and incomplete information about income levels. We compare experimentally the performance of a lottery, an all-pay auction and a benchmark voluntary contribution mechanism. We find that prize-based mechanisms perform better than voluntary contribution in terms of public good provision after accounting for the cost of the prize. Comparing the prize-based mechanisms, total contributions are significantly higher in the lottery than in the all-pay auction. Focusing on individual income types, the lottery outperforms voluntary contributions and the all-pay auction throughout the income distribution.Auctions, Lotteries, Public Goods, Laboratory Experiments

Book reviews

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Any space left? Homeless resistance by place-type in Los Angeles County

This study develops a more nuanced concept of homeless resistance, incorporating a range of resistance behaviors (exit, adaptation, persistence, and voice) that bridge the gap between current frameworks that either romanticize or ignore it. We also consider the possibility that different kinds of space may theoretically allow for different kinds of resistance. To this end, we employ an ecological approach to homeless space by classifying Los Angeles County into three place-types (prime, transitional, and marginal). We empirically consider the issue of resistance within the hardening context among a group of 25 homeless informants, focusing on whether and how some of them have exercised their voices and sought to ameliorate one or more aspects of their situation, as well as how resistance may vary by place-type

Is Co-Production Possible? Tensions and Opportunities in the Relationship Between Public Sector Practitioners and Academic Providers

The paper explores some of the tensions and dilemmas in the relationship between public sector organisations and academic providers of training and consultancy. Developing the analysis offered by the authors at IRSPM XV, Dublin (Fenwick and McMillan, 2011) the paper considers critical factors in the relationship between client (public organisation) and contractor (higher education provider). This includes specific instances of collaboration, obtained from interviews with HE providers. These illuminate the crucial area of ‘co-production’ of knowledge and learning. It is our proposition that the rhetoric of co-production may bolster the aims of those in the organisation who seek to implement their own agendas for change, or the organisational need of academic providers to achieve their own internal goals, such as financial targets. The instrumental objectives of each party may be addressed through a language of co-production. We do not suggest that the public organisation-HEI relationship thus conceived necessarily generates negative outcomes. On the contrary, there is no doubt that tangible benefits (for both parties) may be produced by such collaborative programmes. But this is not our focus. Our aim is to illuminate the processes that are going on within this, that is, to deconstruct the meaning and practice of co-production and to identify its constituent elements and consequences at a time of unprecedented uncertainty for the public sector

What is Law?

You broke the law. There should be a law. Loi du 29 juillet 1881 sur la liberte de la presse. It is the law of God. It is the law of our ancestors. It is a law of nature. It is the second law of thermodynamics. It is the tax code. What is law? What common concept is expressed in the many uses of the word law and its synonyms? What single concept of law is encompassed in its encoding in scientific, judicial, and customary forms? Since understandings of law can be culture specific, what concept of law is common across social systems? This paper will develop a definition of law--and a way to measure the binding power of a law or legal system--that is applicable across forms and civilizations. In developing the definition, the paper will demonstrate that a QBist understanding of quantum mechanics can serve as a Rosetta Stone which allows us to reconcile Western and non-Western scientific systems.Comment: Minor corrections and updates. 16 page