a dumping ground for stuff and things. mostly titbits of social psychology, internet research, links and photos.
the name comes from a (broken) shop sign on a chaotic, disorganised palace of stuff and things in leamington spa, england, a town smack in the centre of the country where i lived for two years.
i also have a tumblog documenting the primary sources i use to research the book that's evolved from my 2010-2011 column for the observer new review, called untangling the web, and one for the serendipity engine, a personal research project.
more structured thoughts at alekskrotoski.com.
Software systems that have been proven to operate efficiently within one culture can fail in the context of the other, especially if they are intended to support rich social interactions….The social interactions reflect the traditional Chinese idea of guanxi, or interpersonal influence and connectedness, while at the same time incorporating the norms of a new generation of Internet users.
Yang, J., Ackerman, M. S., Adamic, L. A. (2011). Virtual gifts and guanxi: supporting social exchange in a Chinese online community. In CSCW: Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on computer-supported cooperative work, New York.
(pdf)
A case study of how cultural values and practices are incorporated into the functions and mechanics of technologies.
Relevant background research for last Friday’s Culture Show film about the effects of the next billion users of the web.
A quote:
…in order to successfully localize, such services need not only adequately navigate the current Chinese economic and political landscape, but also need to account for the deeply rooted Chinese culture.
Nice exploration of the meanings of guanxi (or, relationships), renqing (or, human relationships) within Chinese culture.
Also:
In inter-cultural sociology and cultural psychology, Westerners and East Asians are often categorized as belonging to two differing groups. In terms of this literature, Westerners tend to be labeled as more analytic while East Asians tend to be more holistic; and thus, Westerners are context-independent, more narrowly focused, and use formal logic, while East Asians are field dependent, broadly focused, situational, and dialectical [16] [25]. In terms of social orientation, Western cultures tend to value independence, individualism, autonomy, and selfachievement [8]; in contrast, Asian cultures emphasize interdependence, harmony, relatedness, and connection [7, 21, 23]. Cultures of independent-orientation tend to view the self as bounded and separate from others, while interdependent-orientated cultures view the self as interconnected and encompassing important social relationships [15]. Thus Asian cultures are “characterized by belonging, mandating the fulfillment of obligations and responsibilities to others” [6].
[for footnotes/references, see pdf]
Although such black-white categorisations are easy to parse, I am aware that there are more nuanced relationships and crossovers between the cultures, and conversations I’ve been having suggest that the differences are blurring.
(Source: dl.acm.org)
