in the virtual extension
DOI: 10.1145/1897852.1897855
in the Virtual extension
To ensure the timely publication of articles, Communications created the Virtual Extension (VE)
to expand the page limitations of the print edition by bringing readers the same high-quality
articles in an online-only format. VE articles undergo the same rigorous review process as those
in the print edition and are accepted for publication on merit. The following synopses are from
articles now available in their entirety to ACM members via the Digital Library.
viewpoint
DOI: 10.1145/1897852.1897880
Reaching out to the Media:
Become a computer
science ambassador
Frances Rosamond et al.
Science communication or public
outreach can be seen as taking a lot
of time and effort compared to the
perceived payoffs these types of initiatives
provide. In effect, there’s a tragedy of the
commons—we all benefit from those
who do it, so there is incentive to let other
people shoulder the load.
The rationale behind science
communication is fairly obvious, and it
is often difficult to provide compelling
arguments that appeal to skeptics. Public
outreach is related to the reputation of the
scientific field, funding, and the integration
of the science community into society. More
locally and perhaps more relevantly, it is
related to the reputation of your university
and to the quality of your students.
Other sciences have established long-lasting traditions of transmitting their key
issues, raising public awareness including
highlights such as the nobel Prize or
the fields Medal (however, rarely is the
general public aware of the ACM A.M.
Turing Award).
Computer science is not yet where it
should be regarding public awareness.
The reasons for this situation may lie in
the relative youth of the area, the rapid
advances in the field, as well as the fast-moving technology that computer science
is related to. Computer scientists face
the myriad drawbacks of lacking public
awareness. They are confronted with low
enrollment numbers and low funding,
and to some extent, they feel ignored
and misunderstood. The authors of this
article provide suggestions for what can be
pragmatically done to increase coverage of
computer science in the media.
contributed article
DOI: 10.1145/1897852.1897881
the internet electorate
R. Kelly Garrett and James N. Danziger
The Internet was a prominent feature
of the 2008 U.S. presidential election,
regularly noted for its role in the Obama
campaign’s successful fundraising and
supporter-mobilization efforts and for its
widespread use by interested voters. This
article reports on a national telephone
survey conducted in the weeks following
that election to assess how Americans’
experience of elections was changing in
response to the increasing availability
and use of the digital communication
network.
The Internet has long been heralded as
an efficient means of acquiring political
information, but the increasing presence
of user-created content means the
network is also becoming an important
mode of political expression. The
article examines these complementary
roles, focusing on how Americans used
the Internet to learn about the 2008
campaign, share political information,
and voice their own opinions. Also
considered is which individuals are most
likely to engage in online information
acquisition and expression, examining
the influence of these practices on voters.
Analyses are based on the national
random-digit dial telephone survey of 600
adult Americans conducted two weeks
after the 2008 election (november 6–20),
with a response rate of 26.2%.
In the lead-up to the U.S. election in
2008, nearly two-thirds (64%) of Americans
got campaign news online, a marked
increase from 2004, when only about one-quarter (27%) of Americans said they got
campaign news online. Equally notable
is the fact that in 2008 two-fifths (38%)
of respondents reported seeking online
campaign news almost every day.
contributed article
DOI: 10.1145/1897852.1897882
Governing Web 2.0
Steven DeHertogh, Stijn Viaene,
and Guido Dedene
Web 2.0 applications aspire to make
maximal use of the level playing field
for engagement offered by the Internet,
both technologically and socially. The
World Wide Web has thereby entered
“the realm of sociality,” where software
becomes fused with everyday social life.
This evolution has taken huge strides—
Web 2.0 environments such as Wikipedia,
facebook, and MySpace have all become
household names.
Both practitioners and researchers
are converging on the usefulness of Web
2.0 for professional organizations. In and
around enterprises, Web 2.0 platforms
have been professed to support a profound
change in intra- and inter-enterprise
communication patterns. It is still early in
terms of available management research
on so-called “enterprise 2.0” experiences.
nevertheless, we have observed, as have
others, that the way for organizations to
capture benefits from Web 2.0 technology
in the enterprise probably differs
substantially from the way they attended
to other enterprise information system
projects in the past.
This article proposes a set of grounding
principles to get the most out of enterprise
2.0 investments. The principles represent
a synthesis of existing management
theory and the author’s own case research
of companies with recent experience in
introducing Web 2.0 into their enterprises.
The successful introduction of Web 2.0
for the enterprise will require a move
away from predesigned paternalistically
imposed communication strategies and
structures, toward carefully stimulating a
many-to-many, decentralized emergence
of bottom-up communicative connections.