I have been working on my literature review – this post is focused on Manuel Castells who is a Sociologist / Communications academic and a major commentator on the Information Society. You can find out more about him here. Lots of things interest me about Castells; the scope of his work is vast and he …
It is hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present low state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with other persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar (J.S. Mill) This is a proper essay I am afraid – I wanted …
I wrote this last weekend but didn’t get round to making it live – its is a proper research diary post – so look away if you are not in an academic frame of mind….. Main feature of the weekend has been Cass Sunsteins’ Republic 2.0 as well as some fairly recent journal papers from …
More work on the theoretical framework which will be dull for anyone who is not interested in trying to come up with a way of analysing behaviours with the hope of influencing them – this is very much an action research post for my purposes. Lovely Easter (and actually I mean it) reading various articles …
I just wanted to point out this interview with Danah Boyd – I like the fact that she makes it clear that so much of the behaviour we see online is actually normal teenage behaviour – its just happening online – which brings visability and longevity. She is very relaxed about this longevity point – …
I had a really interesting morning last week at the Policing Pledge conference which was aimed at best practice around the new policing pledge. I ran two workshops and I wanted to share the slides here: The groups where both very tolerant of both my crazed enthusiasm for the subject and also of my relative …
I’ve just finished reading “The Internet and Democratic Citizenship; Theory, Practice and Policy (by Stephen Coleman and Jay Blumler) so this my research note for my literature review so there are some observations and then a wrap up from me….this is a long one so you may just want the highlights: The analysis of the …
I am attempting to get my research proposal into shape which is proving a challenge as I can’t seem to get the literature review to work at all. Below is an attempt to try and give it an outline that I can then build on: The decline in democratic participation throughout the western world is …
I have been talking for some time about a split between formal and informal participation in democracy. I draw this distinction in order to show the difference which acts which are politically aware but not linked to a formal decision making process (ie informal participation) and formal acts which are in some way connected to …
Jurgen Habermas a pre-eminent social and political theorist whose ideas around the “Public Sphere” have influenced much of the contemporary thinking around the information or network society. Habermas describes the public sphere as a shared public conversation which encapsulates political, social and cultural debate. He argues that this public sphere is essential to the functioning …