danah boyd: the biases of links
I'm really going to work today (not read blogs and post) so this is a quick pointer to a thoughtful article by danah boyd. It's something which I hope is the basis of more thoughtful conversation. First, it brings up the issue that technology and science is not neutral. This is important, particularly for those of us who evangelize the application of technology (like online interaction!)
Second, it shines a slightly different light on this "A-list" thing and the impact of rankings on blogs. I really have no idea where I fall on this issue of A listers, etc. I know I care about MY network and use the tools to help me visualize that network. But politically (small p) this is an interesting topic as it helps us think about how we do perpetuate our own patterns, for whatever reason or outcome. It helps us see what we build into technology that reflects where we are coming from and perhaps be more aware of that impact on those who use what we build. Take a peek.
Many-to-Many: the biases of links. danah writes:
Now ya gotta go read it!
I have a hard time respecting anyone who believes that science or technology is neutral. Unfortunately, even when people consciously know that they are not, they give credence to the biased outputs without questioning the underlying assumptions. This is why i’m an academic - nothing gives me greater joy than to think about what biases go into the creation of a particular system.
After reminding folks at Blogher that there are gender differences in networking habits, i decided to do some investigation into the network structures of blogs. Kevin Marks of Technorati kindly gave me a random sample of 500 blogs to play with. I began coding them based on gender (which is surprisingly easy to do given the amount of personal information people put about themselves) and looking for patterns in links and blogrolls.
I decided to do the same for non-group blogs in the Technorati Top 100. I hadn’t looked at the Top 100 in a while and was floored to realize that most of those blogs are group blogs and/or professional blogs (with “editors” and clear financial backing). Most are covered in advertisements and other things meant to make them money. It’s very clear that their creators have worked hard to reach many eyes (for fame, power or money?).
Here are some of the patterns that i saw*:"
posted by Nancy White at 8:00 AM
4 Comments:
You just had to begin that post with "I really am going to work today", didn't you? Rainy Monday malaise has me reading blogs (and I suppose posting)and flipping back to really work. The Danah Boyd post is part of the reason. It keeps bouncing around waiting for me to spend time with it. But, you have guilted me back into work...so not quite time yet.
I've linked it, I've read it, and I'm going to re-read it! :) There's a related piece at napsterization as well, but I haven't had the time to read that one yet...
The thing I found funny is that Shelley at Burningbird wrote something (I can't seem to find it at the moment, but I will!) like "technology is neutral"; she shows up at danah's post and leaves a comment that cracks me up. (I read it as having a wry tone - I may be off, there.)
Work done for the day and a bit of a ramble of mine linked to it.
Hi Nancy,
Just from talking to folks, my anecdotal finding came out a similar way... (I'm woefully bad with html, so please excuse the big link
http://spap-oop.blogspot.com/2005/08/subverting-linkistocracy-or-do-they.html
I think it just goes to show that people will often be quite open about explaining their linking habits and that meeting other bloggers can be very revealing.
Tish
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