I just signed a petition calling for Norwegian universities to use research expertise on AI when deciding how to implement it, rather than having decisions be made mostly administratively. , If you are a researcher in Norway, please read it and sign it if you agree – and share with anyone else who might be interested. The petition was written by three researchers at UiT: Maria Danielsen (a philosopher who completed her PhD in 2025 on AI and ethics, including discussions of art and working life), Knut Ørke (Norwegian as a second language), and Holger Pötzsch (a professor of media studies with many years of research on digital media, video games, disruption, and working life, among other topics). This is not about preventing researchers from exploring AI methods in their research. It is about not uncritically accepting the hype that everyone must use AI everywhere without critical reflection. It is about not introducing Copilot as the default option in word processors, or training PhD candidates to believe they will fall behind if they do not use AI when writing articles, without proper academic discussion. Changes like these should be knowledge-based and discussed academically, not merely decided administratively, because they alter the epistemological foundations of research. Maria wrote to me a couple of months ago because she had read my opinion piece in Aftenposten in which I called for a strong brake on the use of language models in knowledge work. She was part of a committee tasked with developing UiT’s AI strategy and was concerned because there was so much hype and so few members of the committee with actual expertise in AI. I fully support the petition. There are probably some good uses for AI in research, but the uncritical, hype-driven insistence that we must simply adopt it everywhere is highly risky. There are many researchers in Norway with strong expertise in AI, language, ethics, working life, and culture. We must make use of this expertise. This is also partly about respect for research in the humanities, social sciences, psychology, and law. Introducing AI at universities and university colleges is not merely a technical issue, and perhaps not even primarily a technical one. It concerns much more: philosophy of science, methodological reflection, epistemology, writing, publishing, the working environment, and more. […]
I’ve got two more days to finish up the final version of the manuscript for my book Blogging, and it’s going pretty well. And look, the cover is ready! The book is part of a series called Digital Media and Society (the first book in the series is Mark Deuze’s Media Work), and so the books have a uniform sort of look, with the grey, black and white and the rain of zeroes and ones. Andrea, my wonderful editor at Polity, asked whether I had any particular ideas for the cover image, and when I asked Scott he suggested a megaphone, which is what the designer has chosen to use. I think it looks great – I like the semi-see-throughness a lot. And it looks a bit like a steering wheel, which you know, I’m the navigator of my blog, that sort of fits, though I’ve no idea if the designer intended that.
Tama
The cover looks great, and the timing of this post seems rather fortuitous! 🙂
Have a fabulous festive season!
Anne Helmond » Happy Birthday to Me and You and Everyone We Know!
[…] December 17th, 2007 | Filed under Events, MA Thesis, Web 2.0 | Today we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the word weblog as coined on December 17, 1997 by Jorn Barger. In another two years we can celebrate the coinage of the word blog but in the meanwhile let’s focus on creating new pathways into the history of blogging. Instead of arguing about definitions and dates we should write more blogging histories as there is no single history of blogs and blogging. Michael Stevenson is working on one, I am working on one and Jill Walker Rettberg is working on her final manuscript of her Blogging book. […]
MC
Congratulations Jill. Really looking forward to reading it.
Chuck
Congrats! The cover looks great, and I’m looking forward to reading the book when I can.
Jill Walker Rettberg
Tama, let it be a testimony to my eager working on the book that I forgot to blog the tenth anniversary of the word blog. How sad of me… Better get back to work – only a few hours left, now!!!
Deena Larsen
Hi Jill
CONGRATS on your book!! Hooray 🙂
I was wondering what you knew or could find out about the site Spock. I joined, innocently thinking it was a network like Facebook, but it seems to be quite sinister. People I don’t know are now linked into my profile and have been flagging information as inappropriate (such as I enjoy hiking, or using a waterfall as a picture for myself). What is the scoop on this thing and am I right to be worried?
Thanks!
Deena
The Chutry Experiment » Wednesday Linkfest
[…] Also wanted to point out that Jill Walker Rettberg recently blogged the cover of her book on blogging, which is due to be released by Polity Press. […]
Masters of Media » A review of: Blogging
[…] Blogging provides many references to blogs. Rettberg mentions authors of different fields that are important to contextualize blogging. She mentions names like Walter Ong, Ted Nelson, Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart, Geert Lovink, Yochai Benkler, Mark Granovetter and Peter Brooks. She discusses some quotes from them which are relevant to contextualize blogging. She also mentions the popular websites such as Facebook, Flickr, LiveJournal, YouTube, MySpace and Google. In this way she offers the reader a very broad overview of the frame of blogging such as Internet, sociology and communication. Although she provides the reader a broad overview of the field of blogging the book misses real depth. She makes very interesting arguments but doesn‚Äôt elaborate enough on them. With this book she tries to reach a broad audience: people who know nothing about blogs and people who like to know more. For the former she inserts a lot of critical theory. She writes on her blog about this book: ‚ÄúI‚Äôm mostly pretty happy with the book – it‚Äôs going to be awesome!‚Äù I am not as positive about her book as she is but I enjoyed reading it, especially all the examples she mentioned of blogs. […]