In a conversation format, seven anthropologists with extensive expertise in new digital technologies, intellectual property, and journal publishing discuss issues related to open access, the anthropology of information circulation, and the future of scholarly societies. Among the topics discussed are current anthropological research on open source and open access; the effects of open access on traditional anthropological topics; the creation of community archives and new networking tools; potentially transformative uses of field notes and materials in new digital ecologies; the American Anthropological Association’s recent history with these issues, from the development of AnthroSource to its new publishing arrangement with Wiley-Blackwell; and the political economies of knowledge circulation more generally.

This essay forum strives to build an integrative discussion for what is a fragmented interdisciplinary field of study on the public sphere. It is meant to accompany a mapping project we are calling the Public Sphere Guide and is co-sponsored by NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge. The forum provides a platform for discussions around current or emerging projects in this area and serves as a gateway to ongoing conversations around sub-themes that have resulted in other stand-alone forums or blogs at the SSRC.

The Four Rules of Big Ideas: techniques the masters use to make that keynote more stimulating, that essay more likely to catch fire, all without doing too much thinking.
1. Tell stories and think by analogy.
2. Make the point catchy, but make it ambiguous.
3. Simplify and exaggerate.
4. Cast the anecdotes and your overarching theme in a rebellious and revolutionary light.

"Creating a rumor on the Internet is a cost-free form of entertainment.  During the communication process, the truth is often beaten out by the lies.   Rumors often coincide intentionally or unintentionally with certain of emotions.  This is one way in which the bad currency eliminates the good currency on the Internet."

If American anger remains corralled on the Internet, into e-mail messages to Congress and in sporadic small-group protests, it is unlikely that the Obama administration will do much to assuage the anger of taxpayers.

A software framework for scalable cross-language services development. It combines a powerful software stack with a code generation engine to build services that work efficiently and seamlessly between C++, Java, Python, PHP, and Ruby.

This website attempts to walk you through the long and diverse history of a particular aspect of human endeavour: The translation of ideas, stories and concepts that are largely textual and/or word based into a visual format, i.e. visual communication.

The ultimate irony of Watts's research is that, if you really buy it, the most effective way to pitch your idea is ... mass marketing.

The telephone was designated the most fitting means of communication in relaying instructions to those entrusted with fabrication of the artists' projects or enactment of their ideas. Drawings, blueprints or written descriptions were avoided.

Fischer, Claude S. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

Chat with other users while you upload and mix your sounds, images and movies in real-time.

Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that can connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more.

Pheeder is a whole new way of using your cellphone: it lets you communicate with all of your friends simultaneously, with a single phone call.

Senior principal scientist in MITRE’s Center for Information Technology, looking at how to use narrative to present information effectively.

This course will focus on the analysis of CMC practices, the social structures that emerge when people use these applications, and the design and implementation issues associated with constructing CMC technologies.

Papers on scientific presentation and communication.

Research focuses on the ways in which communication and information technologies structure and extend human interaction, with particular emphases on processes of organizing and information evaluation and sharing.

Complete recordings of The Economics of Open Content Symposium held at MIT in January 2006.

Analyzes changes in news organizations and journalistic routines that have emerged as a result of making online news for people who access the news online during their work day and at their work places.

Information society; social and cultural aspects of communication/information technologies; scholarly communication; communication and knowledge.

A specialist in the areas of media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities.

Nintendo is deploying a free, nationwide Wi-Fi network, well before Google.

As a member you can easily post your travel stories and photos in your very own online travelogue, travel journal, travel blog or what ever you chose to call it.

Create your own travel website: plot your journey on maps, store & display your photos, stories and experiences, and exchange messages with friends and family.

The DE in Communication, Computation and Statistics enables specialized, multi-disciplinary training and research opportunities in various emerging areas of information technology.

This page contains links to papers and articles generated by the MIT Communications Forum, Comparative Media Studies conferences and the Media in Transition project.

Listening and looking are our most natural form of communication. As the internet becomes capable of running mainly on non-text forms like audio, video, and still pictures, text will be relegated to the same snooty ghetto online as it is offline.

By focusing on major media, technology and communications issues and emphasizing local stories, HearUsNow.org will help explain increasingly complex issues and the connections between these issues, underscore what's at stake, and offer ways to make improv

Much as the growing strength of digital technology was tied to the rise of geek chic, the growing visibility of otaku culture worldwide seems symbiotic with the ascendancy of visual culture and communication in the 21st century.

MYSQ (My Style So Qute) is an interactive "video booth" for shooting 30-second movies that can be viewed on mobile phones.

Socialight provides tools that let you place media you create - your stories - around the world.

Let's get together; I'm free any day except for the 21st.

Grafedia is hyperlinked text, written by hand onto physical surfaces and linking to rich media content - images, video, sound files, and so forth.

The cool thing about "Smart Mobs" is that it's really happening...

This is one of the rare works which seem to explain new realities in a way which no one else before has grasped...

According to Ong, who wrote this book in 1981 (pre-WWW), writing is a form of technology that, through the act itself, changes the brain...

This is the recapitulation of the gestation of McLuhan's thought, which culminates in the Laws of Media...

The virtual community is, in reality, at best a bunch of people disagreeing and regularly indulging in shark-like small group attacks...

This book provides a wonderful examination of how emerging communication technologies impact the society that spawned them...

This is a book that perfectly captures the convergence that is going on between technology, photography and communication...