CISP Reading Groups
Article
Pondering the Relevance of Cooley's theory of communication in theorizing web-based visualizations
Organised by Visiting CISP Fellow Anders Koed Madsen (Copenhagen Business School)
May 3rd, 16:00-17:30, WT1204
This reading group examined the relevance of the early-20th century American Sociologist Charles Cooley for theorizing online forms of social inquiry. With an Introduction by Anders Koed Madsen.
Visualizations based on digital traces are increasingly used as research tools in the social sciences and some of the most interesting attempts at establishing a theoretical framework around them have found inspiration in the sociology of the early 20th century. On the basis of the writings of John Dewey and Walter Lippmann it has been proposed to interpret them as images of issue-networks and on the basis of the sociology of Gabriel Tarde is has been suggested to look at them as images of monads or as new value-meters. I am currently pondering the idea of using the communicative sociology of Charles Herbert Cooley and its subsequent development in the work of Harold Innis to conceptualize such visualizations as ´web-visions´ that demarcate the experience of their users in specific ways depending on the way they are assembled.
Of specific interest to this project is the way Cooley and Innis highlight the role that concrete selection mechanisms of communication play in creating environments of experience that influence processes of valuation and social organization. If web-based visualizations are seen as devices that give rise to environments of experience on the part of their users it seems that their work suggests taking the mechanisms that go into constructing these visualizations into the heart of their conceptualization. Such mechanisms are, for instance, the interfaces where people leave digital traces and the settings of the crawler that is programmed to collect them. The idea of this CISP reading group was to look at two writings of Cooley as well as a piece on Innis in order to ponder the extent to which the communication theories of the early 20th century can contribute to establishing a framework around web-based visualizations.
Readings:
Carey, J. (1989), Space, time and communications – A tribute to Harold Innis, In J.Carey, Communication as Culture (pp. 109-133), revised edition, Routledge.
Cooley, C.H. (1897), The process of social change, In J. D. Peters, & P. Simonson, Mass Communication and American Social Thought Key Texts 1919-1968 (pp. 21-25). Rowman & Littlefield.
Cooley, C.H. (1912), Valuation as a social process, The Psychological Bulletin, Vol. ix. No 12
Readings available upon request.
Email: akm.ioa@cbs.dk
Numbers Reading Group 2011
The 'Numbers' reading group started again last autumn term, with two sessions planned between then and the winter vacation. The first session was at 5:30-7pm on Thursday, 3rd November in WT1204, and focused on two texts that re-examined Garbriel Tarde's work, in particular his theories of quantification and contagiontology. The second session was at 5:30-7pm on Thursday, 8th December in WT1204, and examined recent debates on metrics and metrification within two different spaces, academia and social media platforms. The focus was on metrics and rankings and we explored their use in different spaces and in relation to concepts of ordinal numbers.
All postgraduate and PhD students and staff were welcome to join us. If you have any questions about this reading group, please get in touch with Liam or Carolin
Best wishes
Liam & Carolin
PIRGHI 2009-12
Postgraduate Interdisciplinary Reading Group on HIV and Innovation (PIRGHI) met approximately every six weeks, at Goldsmiths between 3 - 4.30 pm on a Tuesday afternoon to discusses texts proposed by members of the group and/or individual members work in progress. Students currently undertaking a PhD on the topic of HIV were welcome to participate.
For more information please contact Ulla McKnight u.mcknight@gold.ac.uk
Membership:
Name: Sara Paparini. PhD title: HIV and Discrimination: an intersectional approach. Affiliation: School for Policy Studies, Faculty of Social Science and Law, University of Bristol; Terrence Higgins Trust
Name: Chrysanthi Papoutsi. PhD title: Integration of Electronic Patient Records and Information Privacy in HIV Clinics . Affiliation: University of Oxford
Name: Dr Shema Tariq. PhD title: Experience and outcome of pregnancy among women living with HIV in the UK: impact of ethnicity and African region of origin. Affiliation: MRC Research Fellow, Department of Public Health, City University London
Name: Patricia Kingori. PhD Title: Fieldworkers, 'ethics' and the medical research process in Western Kenya. Affiliation: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Name: Agata Pacho . Masters title: Lost in translation: HIV treatment and prevention in Polish context. Affiliation: Goldsmiths College.
Name: Ulla McKnight. PhD title: Messiness in Practice: Pregnancy and HIV within the clinic. Affiliation: Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths University of London, Sociology Department
Name: Fadhila Mazanderani . PhD title: Information as care: reconnecting internet use, HIV and health Affiliation: University of Oxford
Name: Annette-Carina van der Zaag. PhD Working Title: The Promise of Vaginal Microbicides: towards a feminist imagination embodied. Affiliation Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths University of London
Name: Richard Boulton. PhD title: Children Living With HIV. Affliliation: Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths University of London
Name: Sarah Burgess. Affiliation: Birkbeck University of London
Name: Lucy Stackpool-Moore. PhD Title: NARRATIVES OF HUMAN RIGHTS:Universal Concepts Brought into Focus Through Lenses of Life Stories' . Affiliation: SOAS and Birkbeck University of London
Name: Andy Guise. Affiliation: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Faculty of Public Health and Policy.
