New research shows for the first time that we process cash and social values in the same part of our brain (the striatum)—and likely weigh them against one another when making decisions. So what's more important—money or social standing? It might be the latter, according to two new studies published in the journal Neuron.
Jacob Caggiano tracked me down at the Berkeley Free Culture summit and asked me some questions about Free Culture. In reviewing the video, it’s clear that I did not answer the journalism question (how do you make money off citizen journalism?). But that’s probably good, because I don’t know the answer to that — if I did, lots of people would be very very curious, considering the terrible state of journalism, news media, and traditional publishing. Still, if you want to see me chatting away, here’s the vid:
I am very happy to announce the release of a major research report I wrote for LiveJournal based on an analysis of previous academic research, interviews with long-term LJ users and observation of communities and individual journals.
I was asked to answer the question “What makes LJ different?” I identified the depth of engagement between users and the substantive nature of entries and comments as the two major differences between LiveJournal and other forms of social media.
From the introduction:
LiveJournal’s present success can be attributed to what sets it apart rather than what it has in common with typical social media sites. Unlike Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter, LiveJournal’s features encourage a long-term, deep engagement between users that is comparable to a real-life (usually abbreviated as “RL” on LiveJournal) conversation.
While a Twitter message (140 characters) or a Facebook status update (160 characters) is designed to be extremely brief, LiveJournal users frequently write lengthy entries that encourage and solicit substantial comments from friends. These comment threads can include dozens of people and multithreaded conversations on both personal journals and community journals. LiveJournal also has full integration with a network of friends that encourages more meaningful relationships.
Note that this was a report that LJ paid for me to do. I’m still figuring out the ethics of paid research. Some of the comments in the LJ_Research blog call me out for not mentioning events that were highly critical of the company, or heavily-populated communities that aren’t as “family friendly” as the ones I included. And I fully admit that I went through several rounds of edits with LJ to get to a point where we were all comfortable with the work. It’s an interesting conundrum. But overall, I stand behind my work and there’s nothing in the report I don’t believe in fully.
You can comment at this LJ_Research thread until I get my comments on this blog working again (re-installing the blog software and generally modernizing this from 2005’s hottest technology is on my 2009 to-do list).
About tiara.org
Alice E. Marwick (alicetiara) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU. This summer I'm interning with danah boyd at Microsoft Research. I study social technology. This blog focuses on that, pop culture, communication, and media studies. Click on "About Me" for more blathering.
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