Week 15 (April 24) – Social Inequality

By Keith Hampton on April 17, 2008 8:49 AM | | TrackBacks (14)

Fernandez, Roberto and David Harris. (1992). Social Isolation and the Underclass. Pp. 257-293 in Drugs, Crime, and Social Isolation, edited by Adele Harrell and George Peterson: The Urban Institute.

Marsden, Peter, and Jeanne Hurlbert. (1988). Social Resources and Mobility Outcomes. Social Forces 66:1038-1059.

Week 14 (April 17) - Health

By Keith Hampton on April 10, 2008 10:00 AM | | TrackBacks (13)

Cohen, S., Brissette, I., Doyle, W. J., & Skoner, D. P.  (2000). Social Integration and Health:  The Case of the Common Cold.  Journal of Social Structure 1(3).

Dickens, C.M., L. McGowen, C. Percival, J. Douglas, B. Tomensen, L. Cotter, A Heagerty, and F.H. Creed. (2004). Lack of Close Confidant, but not Depression, Predicts Further Cardiac Events After Myocardial Infraction. Heart 90(5): 518-522.

Christakis, N.A. & Fowler, J.H. (2007). The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years. The New England Journal of Medicine, 357: 370-379.

Bearman, P. S., Moody, J., & Stovel, K. (2004). Chains of Affection: The Structure of Adolescent Romantic and Sexual Networks. American Journal of Sociology, 110(1), 44-91.

Week 13 (April 10) – Search Process and Information Flow

By Keith Hampton on April 3, 2008 12:27 PM | | TrackBacks (18)

Tepperman, Lorne. (1975). Deviance as a Search Process. Canadian Journal of Sociology 1 (3): 277-294.

Rogers, Everett. (2003). Diffusion Networks. Pp. 300-364 in Diffusion of Innovations. New York: The Free Press.

Markus, Lynne (1987). Toward a ‘Critical Mass’ Theory of Interactive Media: Universal Access, Interdependences and Diffusion. Communication Research 14(5): 491-511.

Metcalf, Bob (2006, August 18). Guest Blogger Bob Metcalf’s Law Recurses Down the Long Tail of Social Networks. VCMike’s Blog. Retrieved on January 1, 2007: http://vcmike.wordpress.com/2006/08/18/metcalfe-social-networks/

Assignment #4 : Network Measures.

By Keith Hampton on March 27, 2008 10:01 AM | | TrackBacks (21)

Administer the survey in the assignment handout to a minimum of 20 people. The survey consists of a small number of demographic questions, a position generator, and a name generator. Half of your interviews must be with people between the age of 18 and 22, the other half must be over the age of 35. Within each age group half of your interviews must be with men, the other half with women.

After completing your surveys analyze and discuss your findings in relation to the course readings. At a minimum, your findings should include a discussion of the following course themes and topics: social support, network size, network density, community, privatization, network diversity, strong ties, weak ties, homophily, the role of new media (i.e. the Internet, mobile phones, and related technologies), and issues of measurement as they pertain to this survey. Some of these topics may be overlapping, you may address them point-by-point or you may integrate them into a more holistic or focused analysis.  You may find it helpful to conduct your analysis as a comparison between different types of survey participants. For example, comparing men and women, young and old, big networks vs. small networks, those with diverse networks vs. those who are less diverse, etc. (there are many possibilities for comparison).

You must provide evidence and references from the course readings to substantiate your findings / conclusions.

Submit your findings in the form of a blog post of 1250-1750 words. Print your full name and your blog username on the top of each survey, staple them together and hand in to the course instructor at the end of class.

Note that the occupations listed in the position generator included in this survey are ranked in order of occupational prestige, highest at the top, lowest at the bottom.

Week 12 (April 3) – Computer Networks as Social Networks II.

By Keith Hampton on March 27, 2008 10:00 AM | | TrackBacks (18)

Marks, Paul (2006, June 9). Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites. New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025556.200

Hodgkinson, Tom (2008, January 14). With friends like these... . The Gardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

Ellison, N., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The Benefits of Facebook ‘Friends:’ Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html

Miyata, Kakuko, Boase, Jeffrey., & Wellman, Barry (2008). The Social Effects of Keitai and Personal Computer E-mail in Japan. In Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies, edited by James Katz. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hampton, Keith, et al (forthcoming). WiFi and Public Space, a Poor Interface? An Empirical Study of Wireless Internet Use and Sociability.

Wellman, Barry (2001). Physical Place and Cyber Place: The Rise of Personalized Networking. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 25(2), 227-252.

Week 11 (March 27) – Small World Assignment Part II and III

By Keith Hampton on March 20, 2008 10:00 AM | | TrackBacks (19)
NOTE: If you cannot attend class, it is your responsibility to have a classmate collect your small university findings for the in class portion of this assignment. Your small university and group material will be available after class from reception in the main ASC office.

Part II (In class)
Complete the group worksheet. Your group only needs to complete one copy of the worksheet; the completed worksheet will be photocopied and distributed to all members of the class for use during Part III of this assignment.

Each group will make a short presentation for 2% of your final grade

UPDATE: Results of class assignment; group worksheets for targets Jack and Kimberly


Part III
Make sure you have a copy of the completed Part II group worksheet for both targets, and that you have your own returned postcards / folder and a copy of the Part III assignment handout.

Read the following article:
Stevenson, William B., Barbara Davidson, Ivan Manev and Kate Walsh. 1997. The Small World of the University: A Classroom Exercise in the Study of Networks. Connections 20(2): 23-33.

Taking into account your own experience with this experiment and the aggregate results for both targets, discuss the findings of the “Small University Experiment” in a blog post of 1250-2000 words. Make sure to explicitly address relevant class readings (including the above article by Stevenson et al.), as well your own questions and hypotheses posted in response to the Part 1 Handout. Consider possible causes for the relative success or failure of folder delivery to the two targets based on the aggregate results, as well as possible reasons for your own folder being delivered or not. In addition, try to identify relevant points accounting for the similarities and differences between the class results and that conducted by Stevenson et al.

At the start of your blog post for this assignment, include a link to your blog post for Part I.

Part III is worth 10% of your final grade.


Week 9 (March 13) – Spring Break (NO CLASS!)

By Keith Hampton on March 6, 2008 10:00 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

Week 10 (March 20) -- Computer Networks as Social Networks I.

By Keith Hampton on March 5, 2008 10:05 AM | | TrackBacks (18)

Kronholz , June (2003, February 13). After the Science Fair: Dear World, Please Stop Writing Me: A Girl's E-Mail Experiment Clogs In-Box for Weeks. The Wall Street Journal: A1.

Wellman, Barry and Milena Gulia. 1999. Net-Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities. Pp. 331-366 in Networks in the Global Village, edited by Barry Wellman. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Hampton, Keith & Barry Wellman (2003). Neighboring in Netville: How the Internet Supports Community and Social Capital in a Wired Suburb. City and Community 2(4), 277-311.

Baym, N., Zhang, Y. B., & Lin, M.-C. (2004). Social Interactions Across Media: Interpersonal Communication on the Internet, Telephone and Face-to-Face. New Media & Society, 6(3), 299-318.

Mesch, Gustavo, & Talmud, Ilan. (2007). Similarity and the Quality of Online and Offline Social Relationships Among Adolescents in Israel. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 17(2), 455-466.

Assignment 3 : New Media Communication Diary

By Keith Hampton on February 28, 2008 1:30 PM | | TrackBacks (22)

Your assignment is to keep a diary of all interactions you have with people using “new media” (i.e. mobile phones and the Internet). You must record every interaction that you have with another person using new media over a full 7 day period. Record your interactions in the diary provided in the assignment handout. Record your interactions shortly after they happen, do not wait and complete the diary retrospectively at the end of the day or week.

For each interaction, record the date and time, the first name and last initial of the person, the type of support exchanged (indicate gave and/or received), the medium of communication used, your location at the time of the interaction, your best guess at how far away the person is (miles), your relationship to the person, the person’s sex and age, how long you have known the person, and your tie strength. See the attached legend for a coding scheme that you can use to record “type of support,” “medium,” location,” “relationship,” and “tie strength”.

After you have recorded your interactions for the full 7 days, analyze your diary and write a blog post answering the questions in the handout. Your blog post should be 1250-1750 words, not including your answer to question 1. For question 2 and 3, be sure to discuss your answer with reference to the course readings. For example, are your observations consistent or inconsistent with the readings? Do they provide new evidence for or against existing hypotheses? Based on your observations can you formulate new hypotheses, theories, or conclusions that build or contrast with the literature you have read?

IMPORTANT NOTES:

  1. You must complete your diary before spring break begins (or your diary will not represent a typical week).
  2. This assignment is worth 15% of your final grade, not the 10% original printed on the course outline.

Week 8 (March 6) – Measurement

By Keith Hampton on February 28, 2008 10:00 AM | | TrackBacks (14)

Zwijze-Koning, K., & Jong, M. D. T. d. (2005). Auditing Information Structures in Organizations. Organizational Research methods, 8(4), 429-453.

Marin, Alexandra & Keith Hampton (2007). Simplifying the Personal Network Name Generator: Alternatives to Traditional Multiple and Single Name Generators. Field Methods 19(2), 163-193.

Lin, Nan, Yang-chih Fu, & Ray-May Hsung. (2001). The Position Generator: Measurement Techniques for Investigations of Social Capital. Pp. 57-84 in Social Capital: Theory and Research, edited by Nan Lin, Karen Cook, and Ronald Burt. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.

van der Gaag, Martin and Tom .A.B. Snijders. (2005). The Resource Generator: Social Capital Quantification with Concrete Items. Social Networks 27(1): 1-29.
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