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I. Cyber Society (includes Community
On/Offline, Collaborative Work, Scholarly Networks)
General Reader
"Connecting
Community: On- and Off-line" (Barry Wellman). The Internet is no longer a separate
world for the in-group millions of people routinely come online. Rather than
isolating users in a virtual world, the Internet extends community in the
real world, and connects people through individualized and flexible social
networks rather than fixed and grounded groups. The article gives examples
from NetLab's research.
[Contexts 3, 4 (Fall 2004): 22-28]
Movies, Songs, Stage
Plays, TV/Radio, Fiction, Non-Fiction about HCI" List compiled by Barry Wellman. [Excerpted (with permission) from The Berkshire Encyclopedia of
Human-Computer Interaction (Berkshire Reference Works, 2004).]
"Netlab
Probes the GlocalVillage" An article about NetLab's work
on networked individualism.
"The
Glocal Village: Internet and Community" (Barry Wellman).Magazine article
for the general reader about NetLab's research into the internet in everyday
life, especially their local and long-distance communities.
[Idea&s - The Arts & Science Review,
University of Toronto, 1(1),2004: 26-30.]
"Updating
Cyber Times: It's Time to Bring Our Culture Into Cyberspace" Listed compiled and maintained
by Barry Wellman. Translation of song titles into contemporary cyber times.
The Connected Lives study investigates
interrelationships of personal networks, household relations, community
involvement and media use (Internet, phone, in-person). It is the third in
the series of East York (Toronto)
studies, but the first done in the age of the Internet. The evidence comes
from a random-sample survey of 350 adults done in 2004 and full-evening
interviews with a 25% subsample of them in 2005. We expect that at least four
doctoral dissertations and many papers will come from this research.
"The Turn Toward Networked Individualism at the Intersection of Transportation and Information/Communication Technologies "
[Presented to the International Conference on New Frontiers in Transportation Research Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, August 2009]
"Agency in Social Activities Interactions: The Role of Social Networks in Time and Space "(Juan-Antonio Carrasco, Bernie
Hogan, Barry Wellman and Eric J. Miller). This paper explores the relationship between travel behaviour, ICT use and
social networks. Specifically, we outline a theory of social action that
can inform how ICTs relates to social activity travel and explore the
efficacy of this theory in an empirical setting. We begin by outlining two
factors that influence the propensity to travel: an individual's will to
initiate events with members of one's social network, referred to as
agency, and the social accessibility of network members themselves. Social
accessibility defines a series of practical constraints for
social-activity travel and agency defines the extent to which an
individual will actively work within these constraints to maintain their
social network. The theoretical section first unpacks these concepts while
embedding them in the research literature, finishing with an
operationalisation of agency and social accessibility. Using this theory,
the empirical section investigates the relationship between agency, social
accessibility, and factors associated with both the respondents and their
personal networks. More specifically, we examine how agency levels of
interaction are related to differences in demographics, global measures of
network structure and composition, and measures of media use, particularly
of Internet and telephone. We conclude that individuals who are proximate
or more active are more likely to maintain reciprocal relationships, and
that more distant or infrequent ties require greater maintenance on the
individual's part. We believe that studies of activity-travel and ICTs
will benefit from a theoretical lens that articulates some of the
transformative effects of ICTs on travel vis-à-vis its effects on social
life. Social accessibility and agency can help focus that lens thereby
enabling researchers to make potentially more elaborate and realistic
models that move beyond the spatial and temporal dimensions into social
dimensions.
[Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie 99 (5), December 2008: 562- 583]
"Can You Take It with You? Mobility, ICTs and Work-Life Balance"(Tracy L.M. Kennedy, Barry Wellman and Julie Amoroso). Our focus is on a common form of work mobility - working at home: over-time, part-time and full-time.
It is part of the reconfiguration of work from being bound up in closely-supervised, physically compact groups to being networked - where
people are individually responsible for their own production. Our Connected Lives data shows that most home-work is part-time or over-time,
rather than full-time. There are important differences in the work and domestic practices of these three types of work.
Full-timers have blurrier boundaries between work and domestic life. They frequently use ICTs to connect with their partners during the day.
By contrast, over-timers, who bring their work home at night, more rigidly segregate their work and domestic lives.
[Pp. 191-210 in Mobile Communication: Dimensions of Social Policy, edited by James Katz. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2011.]
"Canadians,
Culture, and Computers"(Jennifer Kayahara and Barry Wellman with Jeffrey
Boase, Bernie Hogan and Tracy Kennedy). As the internet has become more
commonplace, Canadians have begun to use the internet to engage with culture
in their daily lives. In general, Canadians favour using the internet as a
source of specific information to supplement more general information and
recommendations gathered from offline sources. However, this varies somewhat
according to individual orientations toward technology. People who are
strongly enthusiastic about the possibilities of the internet tend to make
wider use of it than people who view the internet as one tool among many.
"Searching for Culture -- High and Low" is a more focused look at this
research.
[Report to Department of Canadian Heritage, 2005]
"CollectingSocial Network Data to Study Social Activity - Travel Behavior: An
Egocentric Approach" (Juan-Antonio Carrasco, Bernie
Hogan, Barry Wellman and Eric J. Miller).This paper presents a data collection effort designed to
incorporate the social dimension in social activity-travel behavior,
explicitly studying the link between individuals’ social
activities and their social networks. Using survey and interview instruments,
the data collects the respondents’ social networks using an egocentric
approach, constituted by the interplay between their individual social
structure and their social activity-behavior. More explicitly,
individuals’ networks are studied in their relationship with social
activity-travel generation, spatial distribution, and information
communication technology use. The resultant data set links in novel ways
aspects that have been rarely studied together.
[Presented at the 85th Transportation Research Board Meeting, WashingtonDC,January 22-26, 2006.]
"Connected
Lives: The Project" (Barry Wellman and Bernie Hogan and Kristen Berg, Jeffrey Boase,
Juan-Antonio Carrasco, Rochelle Côté, Jennifer Kayahara, Tracy L. M. Kennedy
and Phuoc Tran).This first paper from the Connected Lives project
provides a preliminary view of the many linked paths that our research is
following. The Connected Lives project is our third study of East York and the first to take the Internet (and other
ICTs) into account.
[Chapter 8 in Networked
Neighbourhoods, edited by Patrick Purcell. London: Springer, 2006.]
"Connected
Lives: The Survey" (Barry Wellman and Bernie Hogan and Kristen Berg, Jeffrey Boase,
Juan-Antonio Carrasco, Rochelle Côté, Jennifer Kayahara, Tracy L. M. Kennedy
and Phuoc Tran).This is the questionnaire for Connected Lives, the 3rd East York Study. This random sample survey was administered to 350 adults in East York in 2004.See Connected Lives: The Project above.
"Connected
Lives: The Interview Schedule" (Barry Wellman and Bernie Hogan and Kristen Berg, Jeffrey Boase,
Juan-Antonio Carrasco, Rochelle Côté, Jennifer Kayahara, Tracy L. M. Kennedy
and Phuoc Tran).This is the interview guide for the 3rd East York (Connected Lives) study. Interviews were conducted in 2005 with a 25% subsamble of the survey respondents. See Connected Lives: The Project above.
"Does Distance Still Matter in the Age of the Internet?" (Diana Mok, Juan-Antonio Carrasco and Barry Wellman). Our study is part of the broad debate about the role of distance and technology for interpersonal contact. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that systematically and explicitly compares the role of distance in social networks pre- and post-Internet. We analyze the effect of distance on the frequency of email, phone, face-to-face and overall contact in personal networks, and we compare the findings with its pre-Internet counterpart whose data were collected in 1978 in the same East York, Toronto locality. We use multilevel models with spline specification to examine the nonlinear effects of distance on the frequency of contact. We compare these effects for both very close and somewhat close ties, and for different role relationships: immediate kin, extended kin, friends and neighbours. The results show that email contact is generally insensitive to distance, but tends to increase for transoceanic relationships greater than 3,000 miles apart. Face-to-face contact remains strongly related to short distances (within five miles), while distance has little impact on how often people phone each other at the regional level (within 100 miles). The study concludes that email has only somewhat altered the way people maintain their relationships. The frequency of face-to-face contact among socially-close friends and relatives has hardly changed between the 1970s and the 2000s, although the frequency of phone contact has slightly increased. Moreover, the sensitivity of these relationships to distance has remained similar, despite the communication affordances of the Internet and low-cost telephony.
[Forthcoming in Urban Studies, 2009]
"How Far and With Whom do People Socialize? Empirical Evidence About the Distance Between Social Network Members." (Juan-Antonio Carrasco, Eric Miller and Barry Wellman). Hägerstrand’s seminal argument that regional science is about people and not only locations is
still a compelling and challenging idea when studying the spatial distribution of activities. In
the context of social activity-travel behavior (hosting and visiting), this issue is particularly
fundamental since the individual's main motivation to perform social trips is mostly with whom
they interact rather than where they go. A useful approach to incorporate the travelers’ social
context is by explicitly studying the spatial distribution of their social networks, focusing on
social locations as emerging from their contacts, rather than analyzing social activity locations
in isolation. In this context, this paper studies the spatial distribution of social activities,
focusing on the home distances between specific individuals (egos) and their network members
(alters) with whom they socialize -- serving as a proxy to study social activity-travel location.
Using data from a recent study of personal networks and social interaction, and
multilevel models that account for the hierarchical structure of these networks, this paper
provides empirical evidence on how the characteristics of the individuals and their social
context relates with the distance separating them. The results strongly suggest that, although
the spatial distribution of social interaction has idiosyncratic characteristics, there are several
systematic effects associated with the characteristics of egos, alters, and their personal
networks that affect the spatial distribution of relationships, and which can aid understanding
of where people perform social activities with others.
[Transportation Research Record, issue # 2076 (2008)]
"The
Networked Household"(Tracy L.M. Kennedy and Barry Wellman). We argue that many
households do not operate as traditional densely-knit groups but as more
sparsely-knit social networks where each person juggles his/her own agenda
and schedule. Individuals, rather than family solidarities, have become the
primary unit of household connectivity. At a time when many people enact
multiple, individual roles at home, in the community and at work, we ask: how
do information and communication technologies affect how networked
individuals operate within and between households? How do people reconcile
individualism within their homes with household cohesion? Interviews and
surveys conducted in 2004-2005 in the Toronto,
Canada area of East York examine how household members network with
each other and how individuals have supplanted households to become portals
of communication and information. Our analyses show that households remain
connected - but as networks rather than solidary groups. We show how
networked individuals bridge their relationships and connect with each other
within the home and build bridges to friends and relatives. Individuals act
both for themselves and as agents of their household for information and communication.
"Searching
for Culture – High and Low"(Jennifer Kayahara and Barry Wellman). We examine the
link between finding out about cultural activities online and
interpersonally. Using data from interviews with Torontonians, we show that
people first obtain cultural information from interpersonal ties or other
offline sources, and only then turn to the Web to amplify this information.
The decisions about what information to seek from which media can be
evaluated in terms of a uses and gratifications approach. The main
gratifications identified include efficiency and the availability of
up-to-date information. We also argue that our findings have implications for
the model of the traditional two-step flow of communication. We suggest the
possible existence of new steps, whereby people receive recommendations from
their interpersonal ties, gather information about these recommendations
online, take this information back to their ties, and at times go back to the
Web to check what new information their ties have given to them. Revised,
focused and more theoretically developed version of " Canadians, Culture and
Computers ".
[Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 12 (4): April: 2007 Online here.]
"Statistical Profiles: East York 1981-2005 and Chapleau 2001"(Sarah Gram, Barry Wellman and Julie Amoroso). This report uses census data and NetLab survey statistics to profile East York and Chapleau at approximately the time of our research and interviews for the second (1979) and third (2004-2005) East York studies. These profiles are intended to be introductions to the characteristics of two areas studied by NetLab’s Connected Lives projects: the area of East York in metropolitan Toronto and the northern Ontario town of Chapleau. The information in this profile is drawn from Canadian censuses as well as from the data collected by the Connected Lives project. These profiles compare East York at two points in time, when they were studied by NetLab in the late 1970s and again in 2004-2005. It also compares contemporary East York with Chapleau.
"Visualizing
Personal Networks: Working with Participant-Aided Sociograms"(Bernie Hogan, Juan Antonio
Carrasco and Barry Wellman).We describe an interview-based data collection procedure for social network analysis
designed to (a) aid gathering information about the people known by a respondent
and reduce problems with (b) data integrity, and (c) respondent burden. This
procedure, a participant-aided network diagram (sociogram), is an extension
of traditional name generators. While such a diagram can be produced through
computer assisted programs for interviewing (CAPIs) and low-technology (i.e.,
paper), we demonstrate both practical and methodological reasons for keeping
high technology in the lab and low technology in the field. We provide some
general heuristics that can reduce the time needed to complete a name
generator. We present findings from our Connected Lives field study to
illustrate this procedure and compare to an alternative method for gathering
network data.
"Connected Lives North (The Chapleau Study) ." (Dean Behrens, Paul Glavin and Barry Wellman).This is a preliminary report (May 2007) on the effects of a new broadband installation (mesh technology) in the northern Ontario town of Chapleau. Our two surveys show that many Chapleau residents who had not been using the Internet did not switch to using it after the introduction of mesh technology. However, when used, the Internet was incorporated into people's lives in a process of "normalization". Internet use supplemented both social interaction and social engagement: 1. Internet users engaged in more face-to-face contact than non-users. 2. Moderate users of the Internet were more likely to belong to a voluntary organization. This may be due to the Internet acting as a catalyst for engagement- a facilitating tool to enable a greater ease in scheduling face-to-face social interaction and engagement. [Report to Bell Canada and Nortel Networks, 2007]
"Small Town in the Internet Society: Chapleau Is No Longer an Island." (Jessica L. Collins and Barry Wellman). We analyze the impact of new digital media on the residents of Chapleau, a remote rural Northern Ontario town. Like urban situations, broadband email facilitates communication with friends and relatives who live both locally and far away. Unlike urban situations, mobile phones are rarely used locally: they are for trips outside of town. Broadband use has aided health-care, shopping and information gathering. Indeed, it is the increased connectivity to the outside that stands out, making Chapleau much less of an "island". [American Behavioral Scientist, 53 (9): in press, 2010. DOI:10.1177/0002764210361689]
"Statistical Profiles: East York 1981-2005 and Chapleau 2001"(Sarah Gram, Barry Wellman and Julie Amoroso). This report uses census data and NetLab survey statistics to profile East York and Chapleau at approximately the time of our research and interviews for the second (1979) and third (2004-2005) East York studies. These profiles are intended to be introductions to the characteristics of two areas studied by NetLab’s Connected Lives projects: the area of East York in metropolitan Toronto and the northern Ontario town of Chapleau. The information in this profile is drawn from Canadian censuses as well as from the data collected by the Connected Lives project. These profiles compare East York at two points in time, when they were studied by NetLab in the late 1970s and again in 2004-2005. It also compares contemporary East York with Chapleau.
"Charting
Digital Divides: Comparing Socioeconomic, Gender, Life Stage, and Rural-Urban
Internet Access and Use in Five Countries." (Wenhong Chen and Barry
Wellman). Comparing Socioeconomic, Gender, Life Stage, and Rural-Urban
Internet Access and Use in Five Countries -- U.S.,
U.K., Germany, Italy,
Japan, Korea, China
and Mexico. [Pp. 467-97 in Transforming Enterprise, edited by William Dutton, Brian Kahin, Ramon O'Callaghan and Andrew Wyckoff. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.,2005]
"Correlates of
the Digital Divide: Individual, Household and Spatial Variation" (With Eric Fong, Melissa Kew,
and Rima Wilkes). Reviews research literature about the
socioeconomic, gender, life-course, ethnic and linguistic nature of who in North America uses personal computers and the Internet.
Includes new statistical analyses of American and Canadian research. [Report to Office of Learning Technologies, Human Resources
Development Canada,
June 2001.]
"Minding the Cyber-Gap: The Internet and Social Inequality." (Wenhong Chen and Barry
Wellman). The primary goal of this chapter is to evaluate and synthesize
literature on the relation of the internet and social inequality since the
earlier 1990s. In the first part of this chapter, we look at how various
forms of social inequality affect uneven access and use of the internet
and develop a framework to analyze systematically how technological and
social factors affect both access and use of the internet. We argue that
the digital divide is not a binary yes/no question of whether the basic
physical access to the internet is available because access does not equal
use, and we show how the digital divide is shaped by social factors as
much as by technological factors. In the second section, we explore the
internet's impact on individuals, communities, and countries. We assess
three scenarios common in the existing literature: equalization,
amplification, and transformation. We argue for a transformation scenario
that emphasizes the social embeddedness of technologies and their social
impacts. In the third section, we review literature on how to narrow the
digital divide in disadvantaged communities. [Chapter prepared for Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities, edited by Mary Romero and Eric Margolis, Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.]
"The Global
Digital Divide - Within and Between Countries" (Wenhong Chen and Barry
Wellman).The diffusion of the Internet (and
its accompanying digital divides) has occurred at the intersection of both
international and within-country differences in socioeconomic, technological
and linguistic factors. Telecommunications policies, infrastructures and
education are prerequisites for marginalized ommunities to participate in the
information age. High costs, English language dominance, the lack of relevant
content, and the lack of technological support are barriers for disadvantaged
communities using computers and the Internet. [IT & Society,
1(7) Spring/Summer 2004, pp. 39-45.]
"An
Electronic Group is Virtually a Social Network"Compares network and group models of community and work.
[Culture
of the Internet, edited by Sara Kiesler. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 1997, Pp. 179-205.]
"Changing
Connectivity: A Future History of Y2.03K"i>How
the possible shape of things to come in computer mediated communication may
affect social interaction and the network society. "Physical Place and Cyber Place" (below) continues
this story. [Sociological Research Online 4, 4, February 2000 Online here.]
"Computer
Networks As Social Networks"Review article about how social networks affect (a) the Internet in everyday life
and (b) knowledge management in complex organizations
[Science 293, 14, Sept 2001: 2031-34.]
"Computer
Networks as Social Networks: Virtual Community, Computer Supported
Cooperative Work and Telework" (with Janet Salaff, Dimitrina Dimitrova, Laura Garton,
Milena Gulia and Caroline Haythornthwaite).Review article about virtual community,
computer-supported cooperative work, and telework.
[Annual Review of Sociology
22, Feb 1996: 213-38.]
"Designing the
Internet for a Networked Society" [Communications of the ACM (Association for Computing
Machinery), 45, 5 (May 2002), pp. 91-96.]
"Examining
the Internet in Everyday Life" (with Anabel Quan-Haase, Jeffrey Boase, and Wenhong
Chen). Keynote address (given by Barry Wellman) to the Euricom Conference on
e-Democracy. Nijmegen, Netherlands. October 2002.
"How
Does the Internet Affect Social Capital?"
(with Anabel Quan-Haase),We use data from
a variety of recent surveys to examine the interplay between social capital
and the Internet.
[Pp. 113-32 in Social Capital and Information Technology, edited by Marleen Huysman and
Volker Wulf. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004.]
"Living
Networked in a Wired World" A short review of how the social affordances of email affect work and community
interaction.
[IEEE Intelligent Systems 14 (1), Jan-Feb, 1999: 15-17.]
"Living
Networked On and Off Line" (with Keith Hampton).
[Contemporary Sociology 28 (6), November 1999: 648-54.]
"Net
Surfers Don't Ride Alone: Virtual Community as Community" (with Milena Gulia).Argues that community sociology's lore can help
inform the study of virtual community.
"Personal
Relationships: On and Off the Internet" (Jeffrey Boase and Barry
Wellman).This chapter discusses the role of the internet in personal
relationships. It starts with a brief description of the socially relevant
characteristics of internet technology and a summary of the debate between
utopian and dystopian accounts of internet use on personal relationships.
Research that examines the internet’s role in facilitating
communication between family and friends, forming new social ties and
neighboring relations shows that the internet is neither destroying nor
radically altering society for the better. They suggest that the
interpersonal patterns associated with internet use are the continuations of
a shift in the nature of personal networks that began well before the advent
of the internet. This shift toward “networked individualism”
involves the transition from spatially proximate and densely-knit communities
in which people belong to more spatially dispersed and sparsely-knit personal
networks in which people maneuver.
[In Cambridge Handbook of
Personal Relationships, edited by Anita Vangelisti. and Daniel
Perlman. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity
Press, 2006, Pp.709-723.]
"Physical Place
and Cyber Place:
The Rise of Personalized Networking" Reviews the implications of technological
changes in computer-mediated interaction for changes in the network society,
especially personalization. Continues the story of "Changing
Connectivity" (above). [International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research 25, 2 (2001): 227-52.]
"Studying
Online Social Networks" (with Laura Garton and Caroline Haythornthwaite).How to use
social network analysis to study computer supported cooperative work and
communty.
[Journal
of Computer Mediated Communication 3 (1), June, 1997.]
"The Immanent
Internet"(with Bernie Hogan).The
internet has descended from the ethereal firmament to become immanent in
everyday life. The stand-alone capital-I “Internet” became the
more widespread and complex small-i “internet”. The internet has
become intertwined with a larger paradigm shift in how people are connected:
from relatively homogenous, broadly-embracing, densely-knit, and
tightly-bounded groups to more heterogeneous, specialized, sparsely-knit, and
loosely-bounded social networks. Although the transformation began in the
pre-internet 1960s, the proliferation of the internet both reflects and
further facilitates this shift in social organization to networked
individualism. [Pp. 54-80
in Netting Citizens: Exploring Citizenship
in a Digital Age, edited by Johnston McKay. Edinburgh:
St. Andrew Press, 2004.]
"The Immanent Internet Redux
"(with Bernie Hogan).Interaction on the Internet has never been completely divorced from offline interaction. Nevertheless, myths of a transcendent Internet emerged, and persist to this day. We review these myths, and the perennial moral panics that they engender. We do not deny the Internet’s capacity to link people across time, space and social location. However, we assert that technological trends on the Internet do not move it away from offline life, or more realistically stated, everyday life. Instead, the trend is towards increased involvement of the Internet in mundane affairs. In the seven years since the publication of our original “The Immanent Internet” article, this trend has intensified with no sign of abating. The broad diffusion of social network sites with real identities, political and charitable mobilization online, and location-based services, alongside the increasing sophistication of search technologies serve only to reinforce and strengthen this claim. Throughout this article we indicate how spiritual metaphors have resonated with the myth of a transcendent Internet. The immanent internet provides a technological means for social connection, including both broad interfaith communication and narrowly focused ideological echo-chambers. [Forthcoming in Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture:
Perspectives, Practices and Futures, edited by Pauline Hope Cheong, Peter Fischer-Nielsen, Stefan Gelfgren and Charles Ess. Bern, Switz: Peter Lang, 2011.]
"The
Internet in Everyday Life" (Barry Wellman and Bernie Hogan). The increasing presence of the Internet in everyday lives
has created important issues about what it means for access to resources,
social interaction, and commitment to groups, organizations and communities.
This brief article discusses how the use of the Internet affects traditional
social and communal behaviors, such as communication with local family and
commitment to geographical communities. [Pp. 389-97 in the Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer
Interaction, edited by William Sims Bainbridge. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing, 2004.]
"The
Networked Nature of Community Online and Offline" (with Jeffrey Boase and Wenhong
Chen). This paper summarizes the recent works of NetLab studying the Internet in everyday
life.
[IT & Society 1 (1), Summer, 2002: 151-165.]
"The
Persistence and Transformation of Community: From Neighbourhood Groups to
Social Networks" Reviews different conceptions of community, the transformation of community into
spatially-dispersed social networks, and how the Internet is affecting
community on and offline.
[Report to the Law Commission of Canada, 2001.]
"The
Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Individualism." (Barry Wellman, Anabel
Quan-Haase, Jeffrey Boase, Wenhong Chen, Keith
Hampton, Isabel Diaz de Isla and Kakuko Miyata).
[Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 8, 3 (April
2003)]
"Studying Internet Studies Through the Ages." In two decades, social studies of the Internet have gone from utopian hype
and dystopian fear, to documentating the shape of the Internet, to
theoretically-informed analyses that are often embedded in larger debates
within disciplines.
[Forthcoming in Blackwell Handbook of Internet Studies, 2009]
In 1998, NetLab's Barry Wellman, Keith Hampton and a
team of American scholars worked with the National Geographic Society to do a
web survey of visitors to their web site. (James Witte [ClemsonUniversity]
was the Principal Investigator.) Although the sampling was not random, this
was the first very large, international study of web users.
"Capitalizing
on the Internet: Network Capital, Participatory Capital, and Sense of
Community" (Anabel
Quan Hasse, Barry Wellman, James Witte and Keith Hampton). [Pp.291-324 in The
Internet in Everyday Life, edited by Barry Wellman and Caroline
Haythornthwaite. Oxford:
Blackwell. 2002.]
"Gendering
the Digital Divide" (Tracy Kennedy, Barry Wellman, Kristine Klement).Gender pervades how people use the Internet.
Three large North American national surveys are used to compare women’s
Internet use with men. Consistent with the earlier literature on gender
roles, they show that women use the Internet more for social reasons, while
men use it more for instrumental and solo recreational reasons. Caregiving
for children at home limits mothers more than fathers in the use they make of
the Internet.]
[IT & Society 1, 5 (Summer 2003).]
"“Y-a-t-il du
territoire dans le cyberspace? Usages et usagers des lieux d’accès
publics à Internet.”[Is There a Place in
Cyberspace: The Uses and Users of Public Internet Terminals]" (with Wenhong Chen, Jeffrey
Boase and Monica Prijatelj).We compare the users and
uses of the Internet according to the places where they access it, paying
especially attention to public terminal users. We find that the users of
public terminals are more apt to be younger, single and newbies. They make
somewhat less social use of the Internet and somewhat more recreational use.
However, the differences between public terminal users, and work, home and
school users are generally not substantial.
[Géographie
et Cultures, #46 (Été): 5-2, 2003.]
"The
Global Villagers: Comparing Internet Users and Uses Around the World" (with Wenhong Chen and Jeffrey
Boase).
[Pp. 74-113 in The Internet in Everyday Life, edited by
Barry Wellman and Caroline Haythornthwaite. Oxford: Blackwell. 2002.]
"Tracking
Geekus Unixus: An Explorers' Report from the National Geographic
Website" (with
Thomas Chmielewski).Compares the demographic, behavioral and
attitudinal characteristics of Unix users with normal people.
"Netville" was Canada's first wired suburb, and
one of the first in the world. In the 1990s, many of Netville's residents had
extremely high-speed, always-on Internet service when almost all others had
slow-speed, intermittant dial-up service. As Netville is a suburb of Toronto, then doctoral
student Keith Hampton was able to live there as a participant-observer for
well over a year. In addition, Hampton and Barry Wellman surveyed almost all
Netville residents. As the telephone company was unable to connect every
household to the high-speed network, we had an opportunity to compare
"wired" and "non-wired" Netville residents.
"Examining
Community in the Digital Neighbourhood: Early Results from Canada's
Wired Suburb" (with
Keith Hampton).Preliminary account of local interaction in a
leading-edge wired suburb. See "Netville ..." below for research
design.
[Pp. 475-92 in Digital Cities: Technologies, Experiences,
and Future Perspectives, edited by Toru Ishida and Katherine Isbister. Berlin:
Springer-Verlag, 2000.]
"Grieving
For a Lost Network: Collective Action in a Wired Suburb" (By Keith Hampton.)
[The Information Society, 19, October 2003:417-428.]
"Living
the Wired Life in the Wired Suburb: Netville, Glocalization and Civil
Society" By
Keith Hampton.
[Doctoral Dissertation. August 2001.]
"Long
Distance Community in the Network Society: Contact and Support Beyond
Netville" (With Keith Hampton).
[American Behavioral Scientist 45(3),
Nov 2001: 477-96.]
"Neighboring
in Netville: How the Internet Supports Community and Social Capital in a
Wired Suburb" (With Keith Hampton).What is
the Internet doing to local community? Analysts have debated about whether
the Internet is weakening community by leading people away from meaningful
in-person contact; transforming community by creating new forms of community
online; or enhancing community by adding a new means of connecting with
existing relationships. They have been especially concerned that the
globe-spanning capabilities of the Internet would limit local involvements.
Survey and ethnographic data from a “wired suburb” near Toronto shows that
high-speed, always-on access to the Internet, coupled with a local online
discussion group, transforms and enhances neighboring. The Internet
especially supports increased contact with weaker ties. In comparison to
non-wired residents of the same suburb, more neighbors are known and chatted
with, and they are more geographically dispersed around the suburb. Not only
did the Internet support neighboring, it also facilitated discussion and
mobilization around local issues.
[Final draft of article
published in City & Community
2,4, December 2003: pp. 277-311.]
"Netville
On-Line and Off-Line: Observing and Surveying a Wired Suburb" (with Keith Hampton).Documents the research
design and information collection of studying a leading-edge wired suburb.
See "Examining ..." above for preliminary data.
"Pew
Report: The Strength of Internet Ties" (Jeffrey Boase, John B.
Horrigan, Barry Wellman and Lee Rainie).The internet and email aid users
in maintaining their social networks and provide pathways to help when people
face big decisions. The internet and email expand and strengthen the social
ties that people maintain in the offline world, according to a new report
released today by the Pew
Internet & American Life Project. One major payoff comes when people
use the internet to press their social networks into action as they face
major challenges. People not only socialize online, but they also incorporate
the internet into their quest for information and advice as they seek help
and make decisions.
[Washington: Pew Internet and American Life Project, January 2006.Online here
The Internet in Everyday Life Barry Wellman and Caroline Haythornthweait, eds. Oxford: Blackwell.
2002, November 2002. 588 pages. ISBN: 0-631-23508-6 Price: USD $27.95; Euros
20.36; CdnD $44.09; British Pounds ?7.95
The Internet in Everyday Life brings together pioneering studies that
systematically investigate how being online fits into everyday lives. Until
now, the Internet has been treated and discussed as detached from daily life,
occupying some separate sphere of social endeavor. This collection of
original articles from leading scholars in North America, Asia, and Europe
moves discussion of the Internet closer to home, showing how the Internet
does not exist "out there" but is instead an integral part of daily
work and home life. Contributors show who is on the Internet and what they
are doing there. They debate whether the Internet adds to or detracts from
the well being of individuals, communities, and societies. They demonstrate
how the Internet affects friendship, social capital, social support, civic
involvement, school, work, and shopping. They reveal the extent to which the
Internet is supporting new forms of human relationships, and describe what gets
dropped and strained when Internet hours are added to already full schedules.
The book goes beyond speculation to provide solid findings. Surveys,
interviews, and field observations inform analyses of behavior on and with
the Internet. Taken as a whole, this body of evidence should raise the level
of debate about the impact of the Internet and raises serious questions about
the popular myth that Internet use increases social alienation. Click here for
more about the book
Networks in the
Global Village: Table of Contents
Edited by Barry Wellman.Networks in the Global
Village examines how people live through personal communities: their networks
of friends, neighbors, relatives, and coworkers. It is the first book to
compare the communities of people around the world. Major social differences
between and within the First, Second, and Third Worlds affect the
opportunities and insecurities with which individuals and households must
deal, the supportive resources they seek, and the ways in which markets,
institutions, and networks structure access to these resources. Each article
written by a resident shows how living in a country affects the ways in which
people use networks to access resources.
[in Networks in the Global Village,Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.]
Review
of The Internet in Everyday Lifeby Mary Chayko.
[In Contemporary Sociology, Dec 03).]
The
Internet in Everyday Life: Table of ContentsEdited by Barry Wellman and Caroline Haythornthwaite. .
[Oxford:
Blackwell. November 2002]
Introduction
to The Internet in Everyday LifeBy Caroline Haythornthwaite and Barry Wellman.
[Oxford: Blackwell. November 2002.]
The Network Society in Catalonia (La Societat Xarza a Catalunya) Manuel Castells, Imma
Tubella, Teresa Sancho, Maria Isabel Diaz de Isla and Barry Wellman. Barcelona:
Random House Mondadori, 2003.
This book -- in the
Catalan language -- describes and analyzes the Catalan society in the age of
the Internet. It analyzes Internet uses and their relationship to social and
communication practices within the framework of the social structure and
social practices of the whole Catalan population. Analyses are based on an
in-person survey of a sample of 3,005 persons representative of the
population of Catalonia. The survey included both
Internet users and non-users, allowing comparison of the specific effect of
the Internet uses on social practices. The book is an x-ray of the entire
Catalan society in its differential relationship to the organizational
methods and social relationship characteristics of the new technological and
cultural context of the network society.
Among the issues
discussed about this society in transition are Catalan identity and social
structure, Catalan-Spanish bilingualism, Catalan relationships with kin and
friends, social and political mobility, cultural matters, the uses and users
of the Internet at work, home and school, and personal autonomy in the
collectivity.
"Cell
Phone Nation"
Barry Wellman was the principal guest on the US National Public Radio (NPR)
show, "On Point" Tuesday, Nov 25, 2003, 8-9 PM. Wellman argued that
the merging of cell and wired phone numbers was part of the transition from
people functioning in tightly-knit bounded groups to functioning in
sparsely-knit, less-bounded social networks. He noted that many household
members keep individual schedules rather than being together as families.
Similarly, many employees move among multiple work teams rather than being
part of a single work group. Such situations call for the individualized
connectivity provided by cellphones, PCs (which pioneered individual logons),
and Blackberries. For example, truck drivers and taxi drivers value being
able to connect with loved ones and coworkers throughout the day.
"Connected
Lives: The Project" (Barry Wellman and Bernie Hogan and Kristen Berg,
Jeffrey Boase, Juan-Antonio Carrasco, Rochelle Côté, Jennifer Kayahara, Tracy
L. M. Kennedy and Phuoc Tran).
"Little
Boxes, Glocalization, Networked Individualism"These slides integrate two
lectures by Barry Wellman presenting some of NetLab's research studying the
rise of networked individualism in the community and at work to the Digital
Cities Conference in Kyoto October 2001 and to a joint meeting of the NTT
Communication Sciences Laboratories and the IEEE-Kyoto section.
NOTE: The Powerpoint
version of this file is in HTML - use the index to the left to switch between
slides.Use
Internet Explorer -- not Netscape -- to open in the page.
"Living
Networked in a Wired World" A
lengthy set of slides that argues the development of networked individualism
and documents this with summaries of our group's research projects studying
computer-supported community and work: the wired suburb, the National
Geographic study, smaller community case studies, networked and virtual
organizations (scholarly networks), telework.
[Keynote Address to the Inaugural Conference of the
Association of Internet Researchers Lawrence, Kansas, USA, Sept 14 2000.]
NOTE: The Powerpoint
version of this file is in HTML - use the index to the left to switch between
slides.Use
Internet Explorer -- not Netscape -- to open in the page.
"Networking
Trust" (Barry
Wellman).Includes information on the principles and social
network analysis plus a case study, "Hyperconnected Net Work"
(joint with Anabel Quan-Haase of a heavily email and IM using organization).]
[Extended version of the talk given at the "Communities and
Trust" session of CSCW04, Chicago, Nov 2004.]
"The
Internet In Everyday Life" Eighty Nine slides integrating NetLab's research since
the 1960s, with special emphasis on five debates about how email (and other
Internet technologies) is affecting community. [From Prof.
Wellman's inaugural lecture as S.D. Clark Chair of Sociology, October 24,
2006.
Video of presentation available here.]
"The
Internet and Networked Individualism" (Barry Wellman). An April 2003 video lecture by
Barry Wellman to the Lustrum celebrating the 75th anniversary of the
University of Tilburg, Netherlands. Wellman presents his ideas about the turn
from Place-to-Place to Person-to-Person connectivity, and supplies a variety
of data from NetLab research to illustrate his contentions.
"Context and
Intent in Call Processing" (Tom Gray, Ramiro Liscano, Barry Wellman, Anabel
Quan-Haase, T. Radhakrishnan, and Yongseok Choi). This
article summarizes the collaborative work done by Barry Wellman and Anabel
Quan-Haase at NetLab with the Strategic Technology Group of Mitel Networks,
headed by Tom Gray and Ramiro Liscano until December 2003. It discusses the
issues involved in building personalized computer-supported communication
systems, with especial concern to developing rules for prioritizing messages.
[Pp. 177-84 in Feature
Interactions in Telecommunications and Software Systems VII, edited by
Daniel Amyot and Luigi Logrippo. Amsterdam: IOS Press: 2003.]
"Escape
From the Fishbowl? Office Workers Go Virtual" (With Janet W. Salaff, Arent
Greve, Dimitrina Dimitrova and Jeff Boase)
We study the work relations of teleworkers at a high-tech organization. How
does computer mediated communication integrate with in-person and telephone
communication to organize work. We contrast the exchange of information in
two work communities, one with bounded (fishbowl) and one with unbounded
(fishnet) relationships.
[Working Paper, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, November 2000.]
"From
the Computerization Movement to Computerization:A Case Study of a Community
of Practice"
By Anabel Quan-Haase and Barry Wellman.We find mixed results when
assessing how the expectations of the computerization movement fit with our
case study of a high-tech organization that is heavily computerized. In the
organization, "internetworking technologies" are the main local -
as well as global - means of communication. We find that hyperconnectivity
fosters collaboration, community of practice, and commitment to the
organization. Yet the evidence only partially supports the "death of
distance" and "democratization technological action" frames of
Rob Kling and associates. The organization is a local virtuality, with email
and instant messaging primarily supporting local, within-department
connectivity. The organization remains a hierarchy, although extensive
networking occurs within organizational constraints. This paper is from the
same study as "Hyperconnected Networks".
[Conference on the Computerization Movement, organized in memory of Rob Kling, University of California Irvine, March 2005.]
"Hyperconnected
Net Work"
(Anabel Quan-Haase and Barry Wellman).We use
a case study of a medium-size, high-tech firm to see how computer mediated
communication (CMC) affects communication, community, and trust in
organizations. We use social network analysis to make visible the actual
lines of communication within departments, between departments, and outside
of the organization. We focus especially on three phenomena: 1. Hyperconnectivity:
The availability of people for communication anywhere and anytime. 2. Local
Virtuality: The pervasive use of CMC for interaction with physical proximate
people, even if located at the next desk at work or next door at home. 3.
Glocalization: Constraint-free communication combining global and local
connectivity. We discover a quasi-law of the conservation of media (reply
unto others as they have messaged to you). Although our case study is not a
networked organization, computer-mediated networks permeate its hierarchical
bureaucracy. We show how CMC affords trust and interdependence in a work
community.] This paper is from the same study as "From the
Computerization Movement to Computerization".
[Pp. 281-333 in The Firm as a Collaborative Community:
Reconstructing Trust in the Knowledge Economy,edited by Charles
Heckscher and Paul Adler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.]
"Local
Virtuality in a High-Tech Networked Organization" By Anabel Quan-Haase and Barry
Wellman.We examine how employees at a high-tech company communicate with members of their work groups, and others
inside and outside of their organization. To what extent does boundary
spanning communication take place? The findings suggest that organizations
have only partially moved toward a pure form of the networked organization.
We propose "glocalization" as an alternative perspective for
understanding these new forms of work: local involvement with global reach.
The high local reliance on computer-mediated communication creates
"local virtualities". [Analyse und Kritik,
Summer, 2004.]
"Social
Impacts of Electronic Mail in Organizations: A Review of the Research
Literature"
(with Laura Garton).Reviews the state of knowledge at the
time. A slightly revised version appears in Communications Yearbook, 1995.
Major address given by Barry Wellman to the Clinton School of Public Service,
Little Rock, Ark, April 14 2009. It provides 12 points about the intersection of social networks,
the internet and mobile connectivity in changing lives.
"Imagining Twitter as an Imagined Community" (With Anatoliy Gruzd and Yuri Takhteyev). The notion of “community” has often been caught between concrete social
relationships and imagined sets of people perceived to be similar. The rise of the
Internet has refocused our attention on this ongoing tension. The Internet has
enabled people who know each other to use social media, from e-mail to Facebook,
to interact without meeting physically. Into this mix came Twitter, an asymmetric
microblogging service: If you follow me, I do not have to follow you. This means that
connections on Twitter depend less on in-person contact, as many users have more
followers than they know. Yet there is a possibility that Twitter can form the basis of
interlinked personal communities—and even of a sense of community. This analysis
of one person’s Twitter network shows that it is the basis for a real community, even
though Twitter was not designed to support the development of online communities.
Studying Twitter is useful for understanding how people use new communication
technologies to form new social connections and maintain existing ones.
"Geography of Twitter Networks" (With Yuri Takhteyev and Anatoliy Gruzd). The paper examines the influence of geographic distance, national boundaries,
language and frequency of air travel on the formation of social ties on Twitter, a popular micro-blogging website. Based on a large sample
of publicly available Twitter data, our study shows that a substantial share of ties lies within the same
metropolitan region, and that for ties between regional clusters, distance, national borders and language
differences all predict Twitter ties. We find that the frequency of airline flights between the two parties is the
best predictor of Twitter ties. This highlights the importance of looking at pre-existing ties between places
and people.
"The
Mobile-izing Japanese: Connecting to the Internet by PC and Webphone in
Yamanishi"
(with Kakuko Miyata, Jeffrey Boase, and Ken’ichi Ikeda). Japanese internet use is from both webphones and PCs. This first paper
from the Winter 2002 Yamanishi study compares the social networks and
internet use of those who use webphones only, PCs only, or both. We find the
more, the more: Those who use both internet media have larger networks and
are more involved with the internet. Webphones and PCs are complementary,
with webphones being used for quick information seeking and short messages
with intimates, and PCs being used for more in-depth searches and longer
messages with both intimates and weaker ties.
[Pp. 143-64 in Portable, Personal, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, edited by Mizuko Ito, Misa Matsuda and Daisuke Okabe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005]
"The Social Effects of Keitei and Personal Computer E-mail in Japan"
(with Kakuko Miyata and Jeffrey Boase). Reviews and analyzes research into Japanese use of mobile
communication devices: phones, webphones, smartphones,keitai.
[Forthcoming in Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies, edited by J.Katz. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008]
"The Wired and Wireless- Japanese: Webphones, PCs and Social Networks."
(with Kakuko Miyata and Jeffrey Boase).
[Pp. 427-449 in Mobile Communications: Re-negotiation of the Social Sphere, edited by R. Ling and P.E. Pederson. UK: Springer: Surrey, 2005.]
"Egypt: The First Internet Revolt?"
(Xiaolin Zhuo, Barry Wellman and Justine Yu). We discuss the many ways in which information and communication technologies facilitated the January 2011 Egyptian revolt. We argue that mobile phones, Facebook, et al provided a means of modernity, reduced alienation, and helped both internal and external connectivity. In addition to the role of ICTs, We discuss the roles of informal networks, formal groups, and elite acquiescence.
[Peace Magazine, July 2011 (27, 3): 6-10]
"Experiences
in the Use of a Media Space" (With Marilyn Mantei, Ronald Baecker, William Buxton,
Thomas Milligan, Abigail Sellen).About the design and use of the Cavecat and Telepresence desktop
videoconferencing systems.
"How Canadians' Use of the Internet Affects Social Life and Civic Participation" (With Ben Veenhoff, Carsten Quell and Bernie Hogan.) This article uses survey results amassed by Statistics Canada and the Connected Lives project in Toronto to explore the role of the Internet in social engagement and the opportunities it represents for Canadians to be active citizens. It finds that Internet users are at least as socially engaged as non-users. They have large networks and frequent interactions with friends and family, although they tend to spend somewhat less in-person time and, of course, more time online. An appreciable number of Internet users are civically and politically engaged, using the Internet to find out about opportunities and make contact with others. Rather than being a separate "second life", the Internet is firmly and increasingly interwoven with the fabric of Canadian society.
"Muslim
Women On-Line" By Susan Bastani. How Muslim
women in North America use the Internet to find community and support. [Arab World Geographer 3 (1), 2000: 40-59.]
"Social Connectivity in America: Changes in Adult Friendship Network Size from 2002 to 2007"
(Hua Wang and Barry Wellman). There is some panic in the United States about a possible decline in social connectivity. We use two American national surveys to analyze how changes in the number of friends are related to changes in Internet use. We find that friendships continue to be abundant among adult Americans between the ages of 25 to 74 and to have grown from 2002 to 2007. This trend is similar among Internet non-users, light users, moderate users, and heavy users – and across communication contexts: offline, virtual only, and migrating from online to offline. Heavy users are particularly active, having the most friends both on- and off-line. Intracohort change consistently outweighs cohort replacement in overall growth in friendship.
"Social Connectivity in America: Appendices "
(Hua Wang and Barry Wellman). Additional tables to the Social Connectivity in America paper (see above).
"Sousveillance:
Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices to Challenge
Surveillance"
(with Steve Mann and Jason Nolan).
[Surveillance
& Society 1(3): 331-355.]
"The Internet, Technology and Connectedness"
(Barry Wellman, Amanda and Venessa Garofalo). We use evidence from the 2009 Telus Canadians and Technology survey to show that Canadians believe that information and communication technologies (ICTs) -- the internet and mobile phones -- are supporting and enhancing interpersonal connectivity. ICTs enable extra contact within families, allowing couples both to touch base and coordinate their busy lives. ICT use is not replacing in-person family contact, but supplementing it. ICTs are no longer a novelty, but integral parts of peoples daily lives.
II.
Network Society
(includes Community, Network Methods, Social Capital, Social Support)
East York Studies
East York is a distinct residential area in the heart
of Toronto. The first East York study (1968, survey) and the second study
(1978, in-depth interviews) pioneered the study of personal networks. These
studies were among the first to show the dispersed nature of community ties
and that different kinds of relationships (parent-child, friends, etc.)
provide different types of social support (emotional aid, financial aid,
etc.)
"An
Egocentric Network Tale: Comment on Bien et al."An account of the origin and design of the East York
studies.
[Social Networks 15, Dec,
1993: 423-36.]
"Did
Distance Matter Before the Internet?" By Diana Mok, Barry Wellman, with Ranu Basu.Well before
the coming of the Internet, strong ties with friends and relatives stretched
well beyond the neighborhood: the traditional domain of community. Phones,
cars and planes allowed people to have contact over substantial distances.
But the mere fact that ties stretched over long distances does not tell us
the extent to which distance mattered for contact and support in pre-Internet
days. Although scholars have mused about this question, they have not
provided empirical evidence. This paper applies multi-level analysis to
assess the extent contact and support declines with distance. It shows a
marked drop in the frequency of face-to-face contact at about five miles. The
frequency of contact continues to decrease steadily further away, with
substantial declines happening at about 50 miles and 100 miles. Distance
affects telephone contact somewhat differently, with a marked drop only happening
at about 100 miles. Distance also has a significant impact on providing
tangible support. As our data were gathered in 1978 in the Toronto area of
East York, they allow comparisons with how relationships have changed in
light of new forms of communication, such as the Internet and mobile phones.
[2007. Social Networks 29, 3 (July): 430-61]
"Different
Strokes from Different Folks: Community Ties and Social Support" (with Scot Wortley).Continues the "Community
Question" story (above), by using qualitative and quantitative data from
the second East York study to show how different types of community
relationships (especially kinship, friendship) affect the provision of
different kinds of social support. See also "Network Capital in a Multi-Level World".
[American
Journal of Sociology 96, November, 1990: 558-88.]
"Domestic
Affairs and Network Relations" (with Beverly Wellman). Where community ties
provide differentiated support, the marital ties of East Yorkers provide
broadly-based support.
[Journal of Social and
Personal Relationships 9, August, 1992: 385-409.]
"Domestic Work,
Paid Work and Net Work." [Pp. 159-91 in Understanding Personal Relationships,
edited by Steve Duck and Daniel Perlman. London: Sage, 1985.]
"How
Telephone Networks Connect Social Networks" (Barry Wellman and David B.
Tindall)
[Progress in Communication Science 12 (1993): 63-94]
"Men
in Networks: Private Communities, Domestic Friendships." Compares the personal
communities of men and women. Argues that there has been a privatization,
domestication, and feminization of community.
[Pp. 74-114 in Men's
Friendships. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992.]
"Network
Capital in a Multi-Level World: Getting Support from Personal
Communities."
(with Kenneth Frank).On
the methodological side, combines tie-level and network-level analyses of
social support in East York. On the substantive side, provides better
analysis of the data examined in "The Community Question" and
"Different Strokes ..." (above). On the theoretical side, shows
that individual agency, interpersonal duets, and network processes all affect
the provision of social support.
[Pp.233-273 in Social Capital: Theory and Research, edited
by Nan Lin, Karen Cook and Ronald Burt. Chicago: Aldine DeGruyter, 2001.]
"Networks
as Personal Communities" This article reports the basic findings of the
second East York study on the composition, frequency-proximity of contact, structure,
content-support, and of personal network members.
[Pp. 130-184 in Social Structures: A Network Analysis,
edited by Barry Wellman and S.D. Berkowitz. Cambridge, UK:Cambridge
University Press, 1988.]
"Statistical Profiles: East York 1981-2005 and Chapleau 2001"(Sarah Gram, Barry Wellman and Julie Amoroso). This report uses census data and NetLab survey statistics to profile East York and Chapleau at approximately the time of our research and interviews for the second (1979) and third (2004-2005) East York studies. These profiles are intended to be introductions to the characteristics of two areas studied by NetLab’s Connected Lives projects: the area of East York in metropolitan Toronto and the northern Ontario town of Chapleau. The information in this profile is drawn from Canadian censuses as well as from the data collected by the Connected Lives project. These profiles compare East York at two points in time, when they were studied by NetLab in the late 1970s and again in 2004-2005. It also compares contemporary East York with Chapleau.
"Studying
Personal Communities"How to do personal community network research, with special reference to the East
York studies.
[Pp. 61-80 in Social Networks and Social Structure,
edited by Peter Marsden and Nan Lin. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1982.]
"The
Community Question: The Intimate Networks of East Yorkers"Uses data from the first East
York (Toronto) study to show how large-scale social changes have affected the
nature of personal communities and the support they provide. The story is
continued in "Different Strokes ..." and "Network Capital in a Multi-Level World"
.
[American Journal of
Sociology 84, March, 1979: 1201-31.]
"Tit-for-Tat
and All That: Reciprocity in East York in the 1970s"
Barry Wellman, Rochelle R. Côté and Gabriele Plickert
This web-only paper synthesizes and expands on two papers that have appeared in a
journal (It's Not Who You Know, It's How You Know Them: Who Exchanges What With Whom?" Social Networks 29, 3, July: 405-29.) and book (Pp. 49-71 in Contexts of Social Capital: Social Networks in Markets, Communities and Families, edited by Ray-May Hsung, Nan Lin and Ronald Breiger. London: Routledge.). It asks: does the Golden Rule rule? Although
saints, sages, sinners and scholars have talked about reciprocity, we use
data from the second East York study to provide the first-ever survey-based
analysis of the relational determinants of exchanges between two persons. We
find that the principal causal relationship of reciprocity is giving: those
who give help are much more likely to receive it back -- and usually the same
kind of help. Reciprocity turns out to be an efficient, focused and effective
way of using social capital.
"First East York Survey" Original First East York Survey, 1968. D.B. Coates Principal Investigator;
Barry Wellman Co-Investigator.
"Second East York Interview Schedule" This is the Interview Schedule for the Second East York Social Networks Project. Data was collected in 1977 and 78.See Different Strokes From Different Strokes (with Scott Wortley) below.
"Understanding
Sequencing in Social Network Communications" (with Guang Ying Mo). Sequencing is an indispensable decision-making process during information flows. This
paper proposes the conceptualization of sequencing to understand how and why information
senders prioritize some network members when they communicate with others.
We examine the usefulness of this conceptualization with data collected from GRAND, a
scholarly network. The concept of sequencing enables researchers to explore the
decision-making process that occurs prior to information flows and link individuals’
behavior to the social context.
[Bulletin de Methodologie Sociologique 133, (2012): 76-87.]
"Does
Citation Reflect Social Structure? Longitudinal Evidence from the 'Globenet'
Interdisciplinary Reserach Group" (with Howard D. White and Nancy Nazer).Scholars use and cite each other's work. Is
it because of who they know or what they know? Here, social networks meet
citation networks as we study the interplay between relationships and
citations within an international and interdisciplinary research group.
[Journal of the American Society for Information Science
and Technology 55, 2 (January 2004): 111-26.]
"Netting
Scholars: Online and Offline" (with Emmanuel Koku and Nancy Nazer).Shows
how scholars use email as a complement to in-person communciation. Argues
that scholarly networks epitomized loosely-coupled networked and virtual
organizations.
[[American Behavioral Scientist 44
(10), June, 2001: 1750-72. Listed at PESOS ("Penn Economic and
Organizational Sociology Working Paper Abstract Series"), University of
Pennsylvania, November 2000.]
"Networked
Scholarship"(with Emmanuel Koku and Jeremy Hunsinger).Page proofs of a review of
scholarly networks and scholarly community research for The International
Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments (2006).
"Scholarly
Networks as Learning Communities: The Case of Technet" (with Emmanuel Koku).
[Pp.
299-337 in Building Online Communities
in the Service of Learning, edited by Sasha Barab, Rob Kling, and
James H. Gray. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.] Available in PDF only.
"Work,
Friendship and Media Use for Information Exchange in a Networked
Organization" (with
Caroline Haythornthwaite).Using data from an R&D
organization, analyzes the extent to which e-mail supplants or supplements
in-person communication, and the kinds of interaction (emotional,
instrumental) for which email is used.
[Journal of the American Society for Information
Science 49, 12, October, 1998: 1101-14.]
"Network Mapping Study(Final Report):Prepared for the Canadian Water Network
" An analysis of the Canadian Water Network, linking scholars, organizations
(for-profit and NGO) and government officials investigating water quality.
Network analysis of the participants and their publications shows that a
small number of senior physical/life scientists are at the core, with
junior scholars and social scientists more peripheral. Recommendations are
made to improve the interconnectedness of the network.
"
Doing Business at Home and Away: Policy Implications of Chinese-Canadian Entrepreneurship" (With Wenhong Chen. For the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada,2007.)
This report presents findings from the Transnational Immigrant Entrepreneurship Study. We demonstrate the contribution of transnational
entrepreneurship to economic ties between Canada and immigrant source countries. Second, we investigate the causes and dynamics of transnational
entrepreneurship between China and Canada and show how it is facilitated by state policies, cross-border networks and the Internet.
We find that 42% of Chinese Canadian entrepreneurs are transnational. They are bridge builders: nearly three-quarters have helped Canadian firms do business in their home countries or home country firms in Canada.
They depend on large "glocalized" and diverse networks that have both global connections and local interactions.They also use the Internet more productively.
"Net and Jet:The Internet Use, Travel and Social Networks
of Chinese Canadian Entrepreneurs " (Wenhong Chen and Barry Wellman.) How does the connectivity afforded by new communication and transportation technologies affect entrepreneurs' geographic and social closeness to each other? Using qualitative and quantitative evidence we analyze how Chinese Canadian entrepreneurs combine the Internet and airplane travel in their business activities. Our results show that the use of new communication and transportation technologies are positively related to to the creation and maintenance of "glocalized" networks, a function of both local embeddedness and global outreach. We find that online interaction cannot replace face-to-face interaction; travel abroad is crucial for adding a human touch to glocalized networks. Moreover, while technologies help to liberate communication from being local, Internet use and travel have limited impact on the ethnic diversity of the entrepreneurs' social networks. Dedicated to Daniel Barry Li
[Information, Communication and Society 12, 4 (June 2009).]
"An
Egocentric Network Tale: Comment on Bien et al."An account of the origin and design of the East York
studies.
[Social Networks 15, Dec,
1993: 423-36.]
"Doing It
Ourselves: The SPSS Manual as Sociology's Most Influential Recent Book." [expanded version] Barry
Wellman. [Pp. 71-78 in Required Reading:
Sociology's Most Influential Books, edited by Dan Clawson.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998.]
"How
to Use SAS to Study Egocentric Networks"A step-by-step guide for using
SAS to analyze survey data in which respondents report about each of their
network members.
"How
to Use SPSS to Study Ego-Centered Networks" (with Christoph Mueller and
Alexandra Marin).A step-by-step guide for using SPSS to analyze survey data in
which respondents report about each of their network members.
[Bulletin de Methode Sociologique 69, Oct., 1999:
83-100.]
"How to Write
-- and Edit -- a Paper" Revised version Notes gathered in the
past decade for workshops. PDF version is much more readable
"Indexing Networked: Notes by Barry Wellman" January 2012 Tips gleaned from indexing Rainie & Wellman, Networked book.
"Are
Personal Communities Local? A Dumptarian Reconsideration"While most community networks are non-local, most
interactions within these networks are with physically proximate neighbors
and workmates.
Book review of Linton Freeman, The Development of Social Network Analysis:
A Study in the Sociology of Science. [Contemporary Sociology 37, 3 (May
2008): 221-22.]
"Canada as
Social Structure: Social Network Analysis
and Canadian Sociology" (David Tindall and Barry
Wellman) [In the Canadian Journal of
Sociology, 26(3), Fall, 2001: Pp.265-308.Special issue on "The
Legacy of Canadian Sociology," edited by Harry Hiller.]
Challenges
in Collecting Personal Network Data
(By Barry Wellman)
An introduction to the special issue of Field Methods (May 2007) focusing on
collecting and visualizing personal networks.
[Field Methods 19,2 (May 2007):111-115.]
From
Little Boxes to Loosely-Bounded Networks: The Privatization and Domestication
of Community? Argues the transition from group-based to networked society, in the
realms of community and work.
[Pp.94-114 in Sociology for the Twenty-first Century, edited by Janet Abu-Lughod. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1999.]
Little
Boxes, Glocalization, and Networked Individualism?
[Pp. 10-25 in Digital Cities
II: Computational and Sociological Approaches, edited by Makoto Tanabe,
Peter van den Besselaar and Toru Ishida. Berlin: Springer, 2002.]
"Networking
Canada"
Acceptance speech for the 2001 Canadian Sociological and Anthropological
Association Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award. Combines biographical
reminisces with an account of work at NetLab.
"Networking
Guanxi" (with Wenhong Chen and Dong Weizhen).
[Pp. 221-41. in Social
Connections in China:Institutions, Culture and the Changing Nature of Guanxi,
edited by Thomas Gold, Douglas Guthrie and David Wank. Cambridge
University Press, 2002.]
"Networks for
Newbies" A
non-technical introduction to social network analysis. [Presented at the
Sunbelt Social Network Conference, February 2003.]
Networks
in the Global Village: Table of Contents
Collection of original articles about personal communities around the world.
[Networks in the Global Village, edited by
Barry Wellman. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.]
"Networking
Network Analysts: How INSNA (the International Network for Social Network
Analysis) Came to Be"Historical account by the founder of the society.
[Connections 23, 1, Summer 2000: 20-31.]
"Networks,
Neighborhoods, and Communities: Approaches to the Study of the Community
Question" (Barry Wellman and Barry Leighton). We propose a network analytic approach to the community question in
order to separate the study of communities from the study of neighborhoods.
Three arguments about the community question - that "community" has
been "lost," "saved," or "liberated" - are
reviewed for their development, network depictions, imagery, policy
implications, and current status. The lost argument contends that communal
ties have become attenuated in industrial bureaucratic societies; the saved
argument contends that neighborhood communities remain as important sources
of sociability, support and mediation with formal institutions; the liberated
argument maintains that while communal ties still flourish, they have
disperesed beyond the neighborhood and are no longer clustered in solidary
communities. Our review finds that both the saved and liberated arguments
proposed viable network patterns under appropriate conditions, for social
systems as well as individuals.
[Urban Affairs Quarterly, 14(3). March
1979: 363-390.]
"Personal Communities: The World According to Me"(Vincent Chua, Julia Madej and Barry Wellman). In this lengthy review, we describe the nature of personal communities:
their characteristics and their consequences. We discuss how to collect
information about personal communities. The topics include the nature of
personal communities as contrasted with personal networks; the rise of
networked individualism; the impact of social software such as Facebook;
characteristics of personal communities such as geographical dispersion,
network density, homogeneity, specialized ties, kinship/friendship, social
support, and variations by social location and national context. For
reasons of space, we focus on personal communities in the developed world,
but bring in some comparative information from elsewhere.
[Pp. 101-115 in Handbook of Social Network Analysis edited by Peter
Carrington and John Scott. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2011.]
"Personal Communities: The World According to Me" - Extended Version (Vincent Chua, Julia Madej and Barry Wellman). In this lengthy review, we describe the nature of personal communities:
their characteristics and their consequences. We discuss how to collect
information about personal communities. The topics include the nature of
personal communities as contrasted with personal networks; the rise of
networked individualism; the impact of social software such as Facebook;
characteristics of personal communities such as geographical dispersion,
network density, homogeneity, specialized ties, kinship/friendship, social
support, and variations by social location and national context. For
reasons of space, we focus on personal communities in the developed world,
but bring in some comparative information from elsewhere. A shorter
version is published in the Sage Handbook of Social Network
Analysis, edited by Peter Carrington and John Scott.
" The
Network Community: An Introduction to Networks in the Global Village " An integrated presentation of personal communities and social
support in networked societies.
[Pp. 1-47 in Networks in the
Global Village, edited by Barry Wellman. Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1999.]
" The
Network is Personal: Introduction to a Special Issue of Social Networks "
(Barry Wellman)
An introduction to the special issue of _Social Networks_ focusing on the
analysis of personal networks.
[Social Networks 29, 3 (July):349-56.]
"Social Network Analysis: An Introduction" (Alexandra Marin and Barry Wellman). In this chapter, we begin by discussing issues involved in defining social
networks, and then go on to describe three principles implicit in the
social network perspective. We explain how these principles set network
analysis apart from attribute- or group-based perspectives. In Section II
we summarize the theoretical roots of network analysis and the current
state of the field, while in Section III we discuss theoretical approaches
to asking and answering questions using a network analytic approach. In
Section IV we turn our attention to social network methods - which we see
as a set of tools for applying network theory rather than as the defining
feature of network analysis. In our concluding section we argue that
social network analysis is best understood as a perspective within the
social sciences and not as a method or narrowly-defined theory.
[Pp. 11-25 in Handbook of Social Network Analysis edited by Peter
Carrington and John Scott. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2011.]
"Social
Networks & Social Capital: Concepts, Contexts, Methods, Policy" (Barry Wellman).Intoduction to Social Network
Analysis
[Powerpoint
presentation converted to Adobe PDF.]
"Structural
Analysis: From Method and Metaphor to Theory and Substance" Presents network
analytic theory, with substantive examples.
[Pp. 19-61 in Social
Structures a Network Approach, edited by Barry Wellman & S.D.
Berkowitz. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988.]
"The
Persistence and Transformation of Community: From Neighbourhood Groups to
Social Networks" Reviews
different conceptions of community, the transformation of community into
spatially-dispersed social networks, and how the Internet is affecting
community on and offline.
[Report to the Law Commission of Canada, 2001. 101 pp.]
"The
Place of Kinfolk in Personal Community Networks"Marriage and Family Review 15,
1/2, 1990: 195-228. [Review article.]
"A
Plague of Viruses: Biological, Computer and Marketing" (With Jeffrey Boase).
[Current Sociology 49, 6 (November
2001): 39-55.]
"Where
Does Social Support Come From? The Social Network Basis of Interpersonal
Resources for Coping with Stress." (With Milena Gulia and Stephanie Potter).
[Chapter
15 in Socioeconomic Conditions, Stress and Mental Disorders: Toward a New
Synthesis of Research and Public Policy. 2002.]
"Review of Charles Tilly Identities, Boundaries and Social Ties "
I wrote this article as a straight book review, but as it was a selection
of Chuck Tilly's papers, I drew on my 40+ years of knowing him. Alas,
between the time of submission and publication, Charles Tilly died (April
2008), so the review became more of an obituary than I had hoped. There is
another memorial article by myself and Bill Michelson in the American
Behavioral Scientist, August 2008 issue.
[American Journal of Sociology 113, 5 (March 2008), 1439-1441.]
"An
Egocentric Network Tale: Comment on Bien et al."An account of the origin and design of the East York
studies.
[Social Networks 15, Dec,
1993: 423-36.]
"An
Introduction to a Symposium on the History of the Communications and Information
Technologies section of the American Sociological Association,
1988-2005." [The four-paper symposium was published in the Social Science Computing Review, 24,
2, (Summer, 2006).]
"An HCI Love Story" by Barry Wellman. How Barry found a
computer soul mate -- and a wife. [KMDiary, Toronto, May 2004.
Reprinted as “A Personal Story – Love and HCI.” Page 642 in
the Berkshire Encyclopedia of
Human-Computer Interaction, edited by William Sims Bainbridge.
Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing, 2004.]
"Going
Home" (Barry
Wellman and Bob Jones).The Undefeated Lafayette College Bowl Team of 1962
(Barry Wellman, Captain) returns to Lafayette April 2003 for a 40ish reunion,
capped by an epic College Bowl match with current Lafayette undergraduates.
Can old age and experience deal with youth and speed? Photos
of the Lafayette College Bowl Team of 1962
[From the Lafayette
Alumni News, January 2004]
"HCI
- A Personal Timeline" Timeline: A year by year account of Barry's adventures with
technology and computers.
[Pp. 317-318 in the Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction,
edited byWilliam Sims Bainbridge. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing,
2004.]
"Hey, Hey LBJ, How Many Books Did You Ship Today?" A short account of how Barry shipped 1100 books to the National
University of Ho Chi Minh City, 40 years after he moved to Canada
"How
to Beat a Bulgarian Radar Trap"
[1990. Society/Societe 14 (Oct.): 39-41. Contact (Magazine of BMW Car Club of Canada) (Oct., 1990): 24, 27. Expanded version, Roundel (Magazine of BMW Car Club of America) 20 (Oct., 1991): 72-74.]
"INSNA
& the Sunbelt: The Early Days" Barry was the founder and first
coordinator of INSNA. Contains clippings from early issues of
Connections (the INSNA informal journal) about conferences and such. It also includes
an historic photo of the (U.S.) Mathematical Social Sciences Board social
network conference at Dartmouth College, 1975.
"I
Was a Teenage Network Analyst: The Route from The Bronx to the Information
Highway" A totally true account of how Barry Wellman discovered network
analysis as a pre-postmodern Bronx teenager and what it taught him about
personal communities, social support, and computer-supported networks of work
and community.
"I Was a WikiWarrior for Barack Obama"
On how I did my bit during the 2008 US Presidential election, working to
keep the Wikipedia articles about Ann Dunham (Barack Obama's mother) and
Lolo Soetoro (Obama's step-father) fair and balanced. Written Februrary 13, 2009.
"Jane
Jacobs the Torontonian" Although Jane Jacobs is often thought
of as a New Yorker, she lived much of her adult life in Toronto. This short
article describes her life and work in Canada.
[City &
Community 5, 3 (September 2006), 217-222.]
"Judith
Merril: A Great New York Canadian" An obituary of the
noted science-fiction editor (and friend), showing how she was an exemplary
"New York Canadian".
[SOL Rising, No. 20, January, 1998: 12.]
"Networking
Canada"
Acceptance speech for the 2001 Canadian Sociological and Anthropological
Association Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award. Combines biographical
reminisces with an account of work at NetLab.
"Networking
Network Analysts: How INSNA (the International Network for Social Network
Analysis) Came to Be" Historical
account by the founder of the society.
[Connections 23, 1, Summer 2000: 20-31.]
"On
(From) Lafayette: A Journey Through Life from the Bronx to Cyberspace"This memoir was written
(September 5, 2003) for Aristeia,
a Lafayette College undergraduate magazine, after our College Bowl team
returned Spring 2003 for a reunion and to play College Bowl against current
undergraduate. (We won.) It was published in a truncated one-page form
(without my input) as “Through Life from the Bronx to Cyberspace”
in the Fall 2005 issue.
"Steve
Berkowitz: A Network Pioneer Has Passed Away" November 2003.
[Connections,
25, 2 (Winter, 2003).]
"Sociological
Rob: How Rob Kling Brought Computing and Sociology Together" (Barry Wellman and Starr
Roxanne Hiltz). In this short
article, we discuss Rob Kling in his early 1970s-1980s days, when a bright
young computer scientist brought his knowledge of sociology to bear on
understanding the organization of computing, work and science. Rob was a key
founder of social analyses of computing. He was a leader among that most rare
of species: the sociologically acute computer scientist. More personally, he
was a long-time friend and colleague whose work strongly influenced our own.
[The Information Society 20(2):
91-95. Special memorial issue about Rob Kling, the journal's founding editor.]
"The Geneva Gig" (Barry Wellman). 
"The Rules of the Game in Lima" (Beverly and Barry Wellman). A Memoir of Barry and Bev's Two-Weeks Along the Inca Trail in Chile and Peru.
"Vera Davis was dancer,teacher extraordinaire" (Beverly and Barry Wellman). Tribute to Vera Davis, Bev Wellman's (and Barry's) dance teacher,friend and mentor.
[Printed on page 8 of The Bulletin, University of Toronto, May 12, 2009.
"Does
Social Capital Pay Off More Within or Between Ethnic Groups? Analyzing Job
Searchers in Five Toronto Ethnic Groups" (with Emi Ooka).Shows that
the kinds of interpersonal ties that members of Toronto immigrant groups have an
effect on their income.
[Pp. 199-226 in Inside the Mosaic, edited by Eric
Fong. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. [in press].]
"Learning
Beyond the Classroom"Article by Karen Kelly about undergraduate student
research at the University of Toronto, featuring NetLab students Natalie
Zinko and Phuoc Tran.
[Source: University of Toronto - "Stepping Up" report. March 25, 2005.]