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Anthropology 138: Social Relations in Cyberspace

This course will examine various modes of asynchronous and synchronous computer-mediated communication and the ways in which people interact when using them. It will also provide an opportunity to assess the applicability of various social science theories to computer-mediated communication.

Course requirements include preparation for and participation in class discussions, two short essays on assigned topics, a term paper proposal, a short oral presentation and a term paper. For further details, click here.

If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately.

Academic integrity is central to the mission of educational excellence at Brandeis University. Each student is expected to turn in work completed independently, except when assignments specifically authorize collaborative effort. It is not acceptable to use the words or ideas of another person—be it a world-class philosopher or your lab partner—without proper acknowledgement of that source. This means that you must use footnotes and quotation marks to indicate the source of any phrases, sentences, paragraphs or ideas found in published volumes, on the internet, or created by another student.

Violations of University policies on academic integrity, described in Section Three of Rights and Responsibilities, may result in failure in the course or on the assignment, or in suspension or dismissal from the University. If you are in doubt about the instructions for any assignment in this course, it is your responsibility to ask for clarification.

Reading assignments marked with an asterisk (*) are available on Latte.

Week 1 (8/28) Introduction

Week 2 (9/1) [No class Monday] Description and Analysis in Anthropological Inquiry

Clifford Geertz, "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture." In The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973, pp. 3-30*

Julian Pitt-Rivers, “Contextual Analysis and the Locus of the Model,” European Journal of Sociology, 1967, 8:15-34*

Recommended:

Andrew Monk, Bonnie Nardi, Nigel Gilbert, Marilyn Mantei, and John McCarthy, “Mixing Oil and Water? Ethnography Versus Experimental Psychology in the Study of Computer-Mediated Communication.” CHI 1993.*

Markus Schlecker and Eric Hirsch, “Incomplete Knowledge: Ethnography and the Crisis of Context in Studies of Media, Science, and Technology” History of the Human Sciences, 2001, 14:1:69-87.*

Week 3 (9/8) Contexts and Cues

David Jacobson, "Contexts and Cues in Cyberspace: The Pragmatics of Naming in Text-Based Virtual Realities," Journal of Anthropological Research, 1996, 52:4:461-479. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3630297?origin=JSTOR-pdf

Joseph B. Walther and Kyle P. D’Addario, “The Impacts of Emoticons on Message Interpretation in Computer-Mediated Communication.” Social Science Computer Review, 2001, 19:3:324-347*

Jeffrey T. Hancock, “Verbal Irony in Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communication,” Journal of Language and Psychology, 2004, 23:4:447-463.*

Recommended:

Rebecca Clift, “Irony in Conversation,” Language in Society, 1999, 28:523-553.

Zoe Williams, “The Final Irony.” The Guardian, June 28, 2003. http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,985375,00.html

Week 4 (9/15) Impression Formation

Samuel Gosling, Sam Gaddis, and Simine Vazire, “Personality Impressions Based on Facebook Profiles,” 2007, http://www.icwsm.org/papers/3--Gosling-Gaddis-Vazire.pdf

Joseph Walter et al., “The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?” Human Communication Research, 2008, 34:28-49.*

Stephanie Tom Tong, Brandon Van Der Heide, Lindsey Langwell, and Joseph Walter, “Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2008, 13:531-549. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119414155/HTMLSTART

Joan Morris DiMicco and David Millen, “Identity Management: Multiple Presentations of Self in Facebook,” Group ’07, 2007.*

Recommended:

David Jacobson, "Impression Formation in Cyberspace: Online Expectations and Offline Experiences in Text-based Virtual Communities," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 1999, 5:1. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol5/issue1/jacobson.html

Week 5 (9/22) Friendship (Essay 1, due 9/25)

Liz Spencer and Ray Pahl, Rethinking Friendship, 2006, Ch. 3 (pp. 57-86, 262-267)*

Danah boyd, “Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing Community into Being on Social Network Sites.” First Monday, 2006, 11:12, http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/index.html

D. Jacobson, “Fair-Weather Friend: Label and Context in Middle-Class Friendships,” Journal of Anthropological Research, 1975, 31:3:225-234. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3629941

Week 6 (9/29) Instant Messaging (No classes Monday and Wednesday)

J. Nastri, J. Pena, and J. Hancock, “The Construction of Away Messages: A Speech Act Analysis,” Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 2006, 11:4:7. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue4/nastri.html

David Jacobson, “Interpreting Instant Messaging: Context and Meaning in Computer-Mediated Communication.” Journal of Anthropological Research, 2007, 63: 359-381*

Shipra Kayan, Susan Fussell, and Leslie Setlock, “Cultural Differences in the Use of Instant Messaging in Asia and North America,” CSCW ’06, 2006.*

Week 7 (10/6) Public, Personal, Private (No Class on Thursday)

Irwin Altman, The Environment and Social Behavior, 1975, pp. 11-51.*

Tabreez Govani and Harriet Pashley, “Student Awareness of the Privacy Implications When Using Facebook,” 2007, http://lorrie.cranor.org/courses/fa05/tubzhlp.pdf

Catherine Dwyer, Starr Roxanne Hiltz, and Katia Passerini, “Trust and Privacy Concern Within Social Networking Sites: A Comparison of Facebook and MySpace,” 2007, Proceedings of the Thirteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, http://csis.pace.edu/~dwyer/research/DwyerAMCIS2007.pdf

Recommended:

Dahlia Withwick, “Is Anything Private Anymore?” Washington Post, July 30, 2006.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/28/AR2006072801483.html

Week 8 (10/13) Blogs and Blogging (Term Paper Proposals due 10/16)

L. Palen and P. Dourish, P. “Unpacking "privacy" for a networked world.” 2003, Proceedings of the ACM CHI. http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~palen/Papers/palen-dourish.pdf

Bonnie Nardi, Diance Schiano, and Michelle Gumbrecht. 2004. “Blogging as social activity, or, would you let 900 million people read your diary?” Proceedings of Computer Supported Cooperative Work 2004. http://home.comcast.net/~diane.schiano/CSCW04.Blog.pdf

Fernanda B. Viégas, “Bloggers' expectations of privacy and accountability: An initial survey.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2005, 10(3), article 12. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/viegas.html

Recommended:

Linton Weeks, “See Me, Click Me,” Washington Post, July 23, 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/22/AR2006072200946.html

Week 9 (10/20) Small Worlds and Social Networks

S. Milgram, "The Small World Problem," in The Individual in a Social World, 1977, Ch. 18, pp. 281-295.*

Judith Kleinfeld, “Could It Be a Big World After All? What the Milgram Papers in the Yale Archives Reveal About the Original Small World Study.”
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/sociology/watts/w3233/client_edit/big_world.html

David Jacobson, "Boundary Maintenance in Support Networks," Social Networks,
1985, 7:341-351.*

Week 10 (10/27) Facebook Issues I (Essay 2, due 10/30)

Judith Donath and danah boyd, “Public Displays of Connection,” 2004. BT Technology Journal, 22:4. http://smg.media.mit.edu/papers/Donath/PublicDisplays.pdf

Judith Donath, “Signals in Social Supernets,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007, 13:1. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/donath.html

Week 11 (11/3) Facebook Issues II

Cliff Lampe, Nicole Ellison, and Charles Steinfield, “A Face(book) in the Crowd: Social Searching vs. Social Browsing,” CSCW'06, 2006*

Cliff Lampe, Nicole Ellison, and Charles Steinfeld, "A Familiar Face(book): Profile Elements as Signals in an Online Social Network," 2007. CHI 2007, pp. 435-44.*

Nicole Ellison, Charles Steinfield, and Cliff Lampe, "The Benefits of Facebook ‘Friends’: Social Capital and College Students' Use of Online Social Network Sites." 2007. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12:4. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html

Week 12 (11/10) Online Dating

Anita Pandey, “Culture, Gender and Identity in Cross-Cultural Personals and Matrimonials,” World Englishes, 2004, 23:3:403-428*

Nicole Ellison, Rebecca Heino, and Jennifer Gibbs, “Managing Impressions Online: Self-Presentation Processes in the Online Dating Environment,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2006, 11:2. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue2/ellison.html

Monica Whitty, “Love Letters: The Development of Romantic Relationships Throughout the Ages,” in The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology (Eds., A. N. Joinson, K. Y.A. McKenna, T. Postmes, and U-D. Reips), 2007, Ch. 3, pp. 31-42.*

Week 13 (11/17) Class Presentations

Week 14 (11/24) Class Presentations (No Class on Thursday)

Week 15 (12/1) Class Presentations

Week 16 (12/8) Last Class

1. Preparation for and participation in class discussions. The reading assignments marked with an asterisk (*) are available via Latte. You should have read the assigned materials by the beginning of the class for which they have been assigned and you should be prepared to present your view of the materials. Participation implies attendance: you are expected to be present for class meetings; unexcused absences will affect your grade.

2. Essays. You are required to write two short essays (each 3-5 pages), which will be based on assigned questions/topics. The questions/topics will be posted to Latte. The due dates for the essays are Thursday, September 25th and Thursday, October 30th.

4. Oral Presentations. You are required to present a short oral report (about 15 minutes) on the topic of your term paper and your progress in analyzing the data you’ve collected. The class presentations will take place during the last three weeks of the course (beginning November 17th).

5. Term Paper. In consultation with Professor Jacobson, you should choose a term paper topic that examines some aspect of computer-mediated communication, focusing on an issue in online interaction. The paper may be either a library project or one based on fieldwork or some combination of both; it is to be approximately 12-15 pages, typed and double-spaced, not including bibliographic materials. The paper is due on or before the last class meeting of the semester, December 8th.