Sorin Adam Matei
Analysis, research, maps, and essays from Sorin Adam Matei.
This article is a companion material to the courses I teach at Purdue University as a University core class. The course teaches trade-off thinking as a fundamental method for understanding technological choice and innovation. All technologies are shaped by competing choices Any…
This is an introduction to a set of core concepts related to Internet communication for the Course COM 251 Information, Technology, Society which I teach at Purdue University. One of Aesop’s fables gives a clever answer to the question: “what is the…
This is a tutorial on a set of core concepts related to Internet communication for the courses I teach at Purdue University. In a previous post about the basic architecture of the Internet, I discussed the Internet’s intrinsic decentralization and its layered…
On the Super Tuesday (March 1, 2016) Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Bernard Sanders et al. will do the most important battle of the primary season. Two heavyweight communicators, one American (Alex Heffner) and the other French (Joseph Daniel), will discuss…
Open Source Software projects that grow strong and well are associated with strong core developer groups, active peripheral communication and high communication interactivity, and external testing groups. In effect, leaders and openness to outside world are the key to success. They are…
This is a learning module for the class Contemporary Social / Mass Media Theory taught at Purdue University by Sorin Adam Matei Media System Dependency Theory Core principles MSD proposes that media and its audiences co-exist in a state of ecological dependency. They establish relationships…
AwayFind announced it is offering a new 2.0 form of its service, which allows users to get away from the computer and not worry about missing an important e-mail or message. In its original, 1.0 service, users were given an AwayFind page…
Yesterday, a new site launched a beta version with the aim of helping users plan informal gatherings. Go Tribal allows users to sign up, identify what days they are free and what they might like to do with friends, and then create plans…
In a larger lecture classroom, it can be impossible to facilitate participation with even a few students – and infinitely more impossible to get an entire class of a couple hundred to chime in as well. And if you have students who may be…
Tired of having to stay logged into Facebook to utilize the chat function with your friends list on the site? Ever forgotten the need to be logged in to the site and signed out while you were chatting with someone? Well, Facebook…
Image via Wikipedia Lifehacker picks this little tid-bit of insight from Inc: You might think that involving a bunch of people in every company meeting and email keeps everyone on the same page. In reality, it's a productivity killer that hinders rather…
Simmel – Image via Wikipedia by Sorin Adam Matei Professor, Purdue University citation: Matei, S A (2019). Communication as social form. [Online]. Available at: https://matei.org/ithink/2009/12/13/communication-as-social-form-an-autoecological-perspective/. Introduction: What is communication for? What role does communication play in society? Although it is quite obvious…
Cover via Amazon Are we too connected? Is social networking online changing our behavior? The the worse? USA TODAY believes so…. The changes can be vexing, but there is precedent. The arrival of new and improved media almost always foments behavioral changes.…
The funniest communication technology related You Tube video clips. My favorite, when books were laptops. Hit the “>” button to see the next clip.
Web 3.0 technologies: A research Agenda Publish at Scribd or explore others: Internet & Technolog Research web social Is Web 3.0 here? If not, what will it look like, when it will arrive? Professor Sorin A. Matei, Purdue University, predicts in the…
Email is for people with thick skins, who in fact do not need email at all... Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy If in doubt, buy the book...
Will President Obama have a computer in the Oval Office? – By Nina Shen Rastogi – Slate Magazine Barack Obama completed his first full day as president on Wednesday. Pictures of the historic occasion showed Obama sitting at a gleaming Oval Office…
Despite the fact that diverse and equal participation of members is considered to be the essence of true online communities, no compelling index has been proposed to measure the degree of diversity in terms of contributions of content to online social environments.…
A perfectly random rump through the meadows of hyperspace lead me from this post on In Trade about volatility as a predictor of bias to this blog full of equations, to this note and then to this Chronicle article about mobbing in…
Adrants, snarky as usual, spins the Obama infomercial, this way and then that way. Hey, dude, now you can tell us, whose side are you on? MATEI.ORG :: Making the invisible, visible! Communication, GIS, spatial, wiki, mapping learning and discovery in real…
Submitted by "Adrienne Hall" on October 22, 2008 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2008, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog. Abstract This essay attempts to begin explaining how participation in online social interactions impacts…
Another step in the right direction. You might be able to overlay schematics over any real life building…. Technology Review: TR10: Augmented Reality
A swarm of partisan busybodies has roiled over the Palin email hacking incident. A student, scion of a local democrat politico from Tennessee, broke into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account hoping to rake the muck and to hang for all to see…
We’ve known for about half a decade, if not more, that the Internet allows deep and wide collaboration. We have tried to apply this new tool to academic research, open software development, creating business alliances, reinventing retail and, why not, sharing music…
University of Chicago and UC Berkley have initiated a planning process codenamed Bamboo for developing a platform for digital humanities. The Bamboo initiative is quite broad, its manifesto starting with this statement of purpose: Bamboo is an multi-institutional, interdisciplinary, and inter-organizational effort…
Technorati Tags: mobile,telecommunication,international,china The Economist wonders if China’s statist control of telecommunications can still deliver the kind of benefits free markets can: The reorganisation is the fourth since China first opened its telecoms industry to limited, state-orchestrated competition. Each time the government…
Following a story on the Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus Blog I’ve run into YouNoodle.com a social networking site for entrepreneurs and educators. Lots of mashups and some interesting applications. The site still needs some improvement and the communication tools improved,…
The Exponent – Purdues Student Newspaper Most people are frustrated they are not getting enough from their cell phones and they want more, according to Sorin Matei, associate professor of communications. Enter Android, an open-source operating system for mobile phones recently unveiled…
Submitted by Colleen E. Brown on November 26 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink) Introduction The need for group membership, social support, and information gathering are part…
Submitted on November 26, 2007, to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink) Abstract: The widespread expansion of communication technology over the past century has resulted in a marked…
Submitted by Pamela Morris on November 26, 2007 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink). “An (online) host is like a host at a party. You don’t automatically…
Submitted by Robert N. Yale on October 15, 2007 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink). Abstract This essay posits that virtual communities are successful to the degree…
Submitted by Colleen E. Brown on October 15, 2006 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink) The growth of computer mediated communication (CMC) has sparked much debate across…
Submitted by Pamela Morris on October 14, 2007 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink). Glimpses of Community on the Web The term “community” has been appropriated to…
One important innovation in information and communication technology developed over the past decade was organizational rather than merely technological. Open source production is remarkable because it converts a private commodity (typically software) into a public good. A number of studies examine the…
Expert: Wikipedia wont go away, so learn how to use it WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The popularity of Wikipedia makes it important that users learn to use the online collaborative encyclopedia as a starting point for their research rather than as the…
All 13 root servers, which act as the Internet’s ubergatekeeprs and traffic routing cops, have been attacked simultaneously yesterday. The news does not make any major newspaper frontpage today, at least not New York Times’, which regales us with a story about…
The report is one of the most comprehensive to date, including information about ranking over time… Abstract and link There is an immense information and communication technology (ICT) gap, a “digital divideâ€, between developed and developing countries. A person in a high-income…
A very good reference work on the social aspects of Information Technology. The Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies Danny Quah, Roger Silverstone, Robin Mansell and Chrisanthi Avgerou ISBN13: 9780199266234 ISBN10: 0199266239 Hardback, 752 pages Apr 2007, Not Yet Published due…
Front Porches and Public Spaces: Planned Communities Online Susan Huelsing Sarapin Comm. 632: Online Interaction Professor: Dr. Sorin Matei November 19, 2006 Introduction Where else today but in the cost-effective frontier of cyberspace can the average person construct a community?1 With widespread…
Powazek (2002) stated three key issues in his book Design for Community that should be initially considered when building a community; audience, content, and community. Likewise, Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder (2002) in their book entitled Cultivating Communities of Practice spoke of a…
By Susan Huelsing Sarapin Submitted on October 22, 2006 to the On-Line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2006, Purdue University Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink) Introduction Today, people all over the world are connected, or “tethered†(Turkle,…
Web logs, or rather blogs, are all over the internet as a means of doing something that was once thought lost; ordinary people publicly discussing various topics. A site called Change This was created in 2004 that supports open communication among regular…
Is the Internet, as we’ve seen it described in our readings, and perhaps also as we’ve experienced it, a liminal state itself? Namely is the Internet a component or vehicle by which the process of liminality is being accomplished. As Turner (1995)…
[posted by Lorraine] Joe Walther’s visit to Purdue University introduced us to a wide variety of theoretical approaches to relationships in online environments. The focus of his lectures was how people relate in online environments, or “how does communication behavior affect how…
New media and emerging technologies continue to change not only our communication (Gunn, 2006; Jones, 2006), but also our relationships, our work, and our communities (Contractor, 2006; Walther, 2006). At the same time, our societies and organizations – i.e. the bodies within…
Submitted by: Scott Sanders to the Online Interaction Seminar, COM 632Y, Spring 2006, Dr. Sorin A. Matei, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907. Summary: Social categorization, which is at the heart of SIDE theory, may often prove to be an incredibly powerful…
Nosh Contractor gave an interview to PRI’s To the Point on the virtues (and fallings) of online communication. The interview starts 24 min 30 sec into the show. Details about the topic.
SPCM 529, NC, “Communication Networks” Professor Noshir Contractor University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign & Professor Peter Monge Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California Available via Access Grid and Polycom Videoconference 3 – 6 pm Tuesday, Central (4 – 7 pm…
The metaphor of organization-as-networks directs attention to the dynamic nature of the process of organization as an emergent, evolving, and dynamic. At a global level, theorists have engaged with different forms of interdependencies, whether social, political or economic, as exemplified by Castells’…
Lorraine Kisselburgh This week, Noshir Contractor introduces a rich array of information in discussing communication networks, new grid infrastructures, and social networking tools that can be leveraged to strengthen our communities – whether social, work, virtual, or even “exoticâ€. What follows are…
After interacting with Noshir Contractor this week and going through the readings on communication networks and new forms of organizing, if you’re interested in more on this subject, you might want to look at the (interdisciplinary) workshop he is presenting in Bloomington…
The social shaping of knowledge through collaborative authoring tools I grew up in a household with a set of encyclopedias prominently displayed in the family room and frequently used as a resource– for our education, to consult during family discussions about issues,…