Tobias Escher at the OII

More than 45 years ago James S. Coleman conducted a study of “The Social Life of the Teenager and its Impact on Education”, published in a much cited book called “The Adolescent Society”. In this study he was examining social status among kids in ten different schools, including a structural analysis of young people’s social [...]

18th May 2007, 8.30pm, the Oxford Union debates the following motion: “This House believes that the Internet is the greatest force for democratization in the World” (for some background on the event see my earlier post) supporting the motion: Alex Campbell (from Oxford) Jimbo Wales Ron Deibert Bo Aung Din opposing the motion: Andrew Goodman [...]

Ok, the whole thing is just about to start. However, no usable WiFi connection so this is going to be a quick post with the whole story to come once its over. Should be two hours!!!

Coming up tonight at 8.30pm GMT at the Oxford Union (from their own account apparently the world’s most prestigious debating society) is a debate about whether or not The Internet is the greatest force for democratisation in the World This event is organized in the context of the first conference on Internet filtering by the [...]

The “first public conference to discuss the current state of play of Internet filtering worldwide” is in full swing in St. Anne’s college in Oxford and there are already some online accounts of the main findings of the study (see their main website if indeed you are able to access it). (update:for a near live [...]

Given that the doctoral students at the OII (ie. Malte) have already organized the second OII Blogging Round Table (with our lovely visiting fellow Wendy Seltzer) it is about time to report on the first round table that took place in March already. The main purpose of these round tables is to bring together people [...]

Today I’ve been at one of these sessions that are intended to make social scientists fit for the world. A former journal editor mused about “How to get published”. Despite the rather grand title really tangible advice was scarce but nevertheless I share it here as it might give at least some interesting ideas. From [...]

In January I’ve been blogging about plans to close down about government 550 websites. By the time I could not find any information on which sites exactly are about to be closed. Therefore I emailed the official contact on the Cabinet Office website twice but never even got a reply. (I’m talking to you Ryan…) [...]

Danah Boyd mentions an interesting idea in order to help youngsters who are in trouble (in whatever way): A kind of digital street outreach, very much in the same way like we have outreach teams on the street today that look for kids that might need help. Why this sounds like a great idea, I [...]

If you’ve ever wondered what Internet Studies is all about and why one should actually care about, have a look at Deborah Wheeler’s list of important questions Internet researchers are concerned with (taken from “The Internet in the Middle East”): Will the Internet play any role in making us richer, happier, or more secure, politically, [...]