Tag Archives: Internet and Society
Increasing retractions, increasing fraud??
There has been a 20-25 percent increase in retractions in a total of 10,000 medical and science journals in the past five years (it’s now up to 500-600 retractions per year). Data has been distorted, faked, and the methods of getting … Continue reading
Where are our survey methods when we most need them?
Problems with sampling and response rates in phone surveys due to cell phones and answering machines continue to bedevil survey researchers. As the 2016 presidential election approaches, the reliability of election polling is increasingly a focus of concern. Predictions in some … Continue reading
Does Anonymity Change Behavior?
Do you use Yik Yak? Do you wish everyone did? This new social media app allows people in a small area–like students in college–post messages without being identified in any way. It has resulted in some very offensive “yaks,” including … Continue reading
Drinking on YouTube?
With the advent of YouTube videos, how can the methods of visual sociology do anything but increase in popularity? But do videos show us a representative slice of the social world? Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh concluded that what … Continue reading
Facelessness and Social Research
Is “the world of faces” dissonant from “the world without faces”? This question is posed in a New York Times article on the social problem created by our ability to communicate directly with others through social media without actually seeing … Continue reading
Big Data, Technology, and Teaching
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee’s New York Times bestseller, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (W. W. Norton) argues that we are at an inflection point of exceptional change in society due … Continue reading
Privacy? Are We Losing It?
Privacy is precious for many reasons, but it is rapidly being lost in online interaction. Houston journalist Kate Murphy points out in a New York Times article that research shows that privacy is associated with higher self-esteem and creativity, as … Continue reading
A new social world in the 21st century?
A recent Boston Globe article on “online personas” was motivated by a tragic case of child neglect in Blackstone, Massachusetts. A woman who was ostensibly living with two school aged children and their father in a small home, while maintaining a cheery … Continue reading
Internet and Society
Lee Rainie and the Pew Research Center Internet Project add regularly to our knowledge about the ways that the Internet is changing our social world. There are many examples in Chapter 1 of Investigating of their findings. Now, Rainie and … Continue reading
Researching in a Social World 