William H. Dutton

Professor Manuel Castells and I will be teaching an online seminar this autumn, entitled ‘Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Network Society’. This is a doctoral research seminar available to doctoral students at the University of Oxford and Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, conducted on-line through the virtual campus of the Open University of Catalonia. The seminar will be [...]

The UK’s Cabinet Office has issued its final report on data handling procedures across government. There has been a great deal of press coverage of many instances of missing discs, laptops and personal data. While it is important not to excuse such lapses, it is equally important to recognize that the public sector has begun [...]

There is a new research fellowship opening that will be associated with the Oxford e-Social Science Project. The position will be based at the Said School of Business, in the James Martin Institute, and will involve the conduct of one or more longitudinal ethnographic studies of e-Research practices. See the Further Particulars: Further Particulars for [...]

In the 1970s, Jack Nilles pioneered research on the impact of telecommunications on transportation. He sought to design approaches to reducing travel through the created use of more decentralized work practices, enabled by telecommunications. (Nilles, J.M., et al (1977). The telecommunication transportation tradeoff. New York: John Wiley & Sons.) Most studies at the time, and [...]

The UK’s House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee has published its report on ‘A Surveillance Society? Fifth Report of Session 2007-08, Vol. I.’. It has generated a wide range of press reports, which have been aggregated at: news.google.com The full report by the committee is online and available at: publications.parliament.uk (pdf) May I also [...]

Stock Promotion and the Fifth Estate I have been writing about the Fifth Estate, discussing the ways in which networked individuals, enabled by the Internet, can hold other actors more accountable. Reacting to this work, a colleague spoke with me about the ways in which the Internet is providing a means for investors to network [...]

The text for my lecture, ‘Through the Networks (of Networks) — the Fifth Estate’ is now posted on SSRN. I hope this makes it more easily accessible. As always, comments are most welcome, as I am continuing to develop this concept. Dutton, William H., “Through the Network of Networks – The Fifth Estate” (October 15, [...]