Narrative and Institutional Memory

Dr. Charlotte Linde
Socio-Rocket Scientist, NASA Ames Research Center
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
12:00 - 2:00pm
119 Moses Hall (Harris Room)

This talk discusses the work that narratives perform within institutions. It is a cliché in discussions of information technology that culture comprises 80% of relevant knowledge and information. However, much more is known about knowledge management technology than about how cultures promote or suppress memory. This talk examines the cultural aspects of memory, showing how stories work within institutions, helping to comprise not only the institution's memory, but also that of its individual members. It will also discuss silences and forgetting, showing how stories not told also convey their version of the past.

The talk is based on an ethnographic study of how narratives are used in a large insurance company to construct both collective and individual identity and memory. It shows the ways in which a particular institution works its past, deliberately invoking and re-presenting the past to explain the present and shape the future.

Political Mobilization through Information and Communication in a Digital Age

Professor Jaeho Cho
Department of Communication, University of California at Davis
Monday, March 5, 2009
12:00 - 2:00pm
119 Moses Hall (Harris Room)

Political communication researchers have devoted a great deal of attention to the role of political advertising, the Internet and political discussion in civic and political life. In this presentation, we integrate and extend this research by developing a Campaign Communication Mediation Model of civic and campaign participation.

Two datasets are merged for this inquiry:
(1) content-coded ad-buy data on the placement of campaign messages on a market-by-market and program-by-program basis, and
(2) a national panel study concerning patterns of traditional and digital media consumption and levels of civic and campaign participation.

Exposure to televised campaign advertising is estimated by developing an algorithm based on the market and program placement of specific ads and geo-coded survey respondents' viewing of certain categories of television content in which these ads were concentrated. Structural equation models reveal that advertising exposure drives online news use in ways that complement conventional news influences on political discussion and political messaging. However, campaign exposure emphasizing "attack" messages appears to diminish information seeking motivations via broadcast and print media, yet only indirectly and weakly suppresses participation in civic and political life. Further, alternative specifications reveal that our original model produces the best fit, empirically and theoretically.

Using Online Tools to Encourage Offline Participation

Assistant Professor David Silver
Media Studies, University of San Francisco
Monday, April 6, 2009
12:00 - 2:00pm
119 Moses Hall (Harris Room)

The September Project is a grassroots effort to encourage events about freedom and democracy in all libraries in all countries throughout the month of September. September Project events take many forms including book displays, community book readings, youth art projects, film screenings, poetry readings, theatrical performances, civic deliberations, voter registrations, community murals, panel discussions, and much more. September Project events are free and organized locally. To date, over 1400 public, academic, school, government, and special libraries from over 35 countries have collaborated with their communities to organize and host September Project events.

In this talk, David Silver will discuss some of the information technologies they used and use to help sustain the September Project. The technologies include bookmarks, email, listservs, blogs, maps, and libraries.

Developing a Taste for the Necessary: A Bourdieuian Approach to Digital Inequality Among American High School Students

Assistant Professor Laura Robinson
Sociology, Santa Clara University
Thursday, April 23, 2009
12:00 - 2:00pm
119 Moses Hall (Harris Room)

While American teenagers are often presumed to be uniformly "wired," in reality, segments of the youth population lack high quality, high autonomy internet access. Taking a uniquely holistic approach that situates new media use within respondents' larger lifeworlds, this study examines the effects of digital inequality on economically disadvantaged American youth in a California high school. Analyzing primary survey and interview data, findings reveal the roles played by spatial-temporal constraints in fostering disparities in both usage and skills among differently situated respondents. A close examination of the interview material discloses a dramatic divergence in the informational orientation or habitus internalized by respondents with more and less constrained internet access. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of skholè, the work outlines the differences between the playful or exploratory stance of those with high quality, high autonomy internet access and the task-oriented stance assumed by those with low quality, low autonomy internet access. Analysis reveals that those with low autonomy, low quality access enact a "taste for the necessary" in their rationing of internet use, striving to avoid what they perceive as "wasteful" activities with no immediate payoff. The research closes with an eye to developing a theory of information habitus, a potentially invaluable concept in future research on digital inequality.