Today I’m on a response panel after Clay Shirky’s talk here in Bergen. But there are two other events today that may be just as interesting (and that are free – Shirky’s talk costs 990 kr, about $180, to attend). This morning […]

Jacob Harris of the New York Times offers a useful critique of word clouds, which as he says are often used indiscriminately, providing little insight, or worse, making the actual data less understandable. His examples are excellent. Look at this meaningless wordcloud […]

Like many others, I’ve been following the 99% movement in social media, intellectually interested in the use of social technology, and certainly engaged in the cause itself as well (from privileged Norway, certainly part of the 1% globally speaking). Mike Konczal’s analysis […]

Today is the final class on Digital Media Ethics in DIKULT106, and we’re discussing sex and games. This is my least favourite chapter in Ess’s book – his discussion of sex barely mentions digital media, instead presenting a general ethical discussion for […]

I’m sipping coffee at Stockfleth’s (found via Foursquare, great place) after sleeping my way to Oslo on the night train from Bergen. I’m reading documents and googling in preparation for the first meeting of Digitutvalget, a government appointed panel that has been […]

We’re working on digital media ethics in DIKULT106, and Facebook’s changes are perfect material for us to discuss in tomorrow’s class on privacy. Here’s ReadWriteWeb’s quick summary of the changes, or you can watch Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote for yourself. (If you’re going […]

Academic couples with small children who are interested in the same conferences get to choose between skipping the conference altogether and bringing the kids. Oh, when they’re older we’ll leave them with family (we hope!) but 18 months is young to spend […]

I was at a meeting in the CIRLinC research group today, discussing our application to be a centre of excellence on the circulation of narratives about climate change, and was fascinated by Helge Drange‘s stories of the automation of climate change debates […]

In a couple of weeks I’ll be teaching a three week module on digital media ethics, using Charles Ess’s book by the same name. I’m especially looking forwards to sessions discussing the ethics of surveillance and the section on global citizenship and […]

I basically just spent three and a half years home with kids. Not quite, I worked full time for a few months between the babies, and have been part time for the last year, but part time with a baby at home […]