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Over the last few years, research on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has snowballed across many disciplines: technical fields, economics, law, public policy, finance, accounting, and others. As the uses of blockchain technology behind Bitcoin expand, more disciplines will be drawn to its study and the research will greatly expand. This paper provides an assessment of the current state of the literature. From a comprehensive search of the literature that resulted in an original sample of 13,507 results, a final sample of 1,206 papers on Bitcoin are categorised and mapped across six disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research evaluation, which is an increasingly pressing issue, invariably relies on citation counts. In this contribution we highlight two concerns that the research community needs to pay attention to. One, in the world of search engine facilitated research, factors such as ease of Web discovery, ease of access, and content relevance, rather than quality, influence what gets read and cited. Two, research evaluation based on citation counts works against many types of high-quality works. We also elaborate on the implications of these points by examining a recent nationwide evaluation of researchers performed in Italy. We focus on our discipline (computer science), but we believe that our observations have relevance for a broad audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractEvidence from the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) shows the efficacy of a deliberative minipublic serving as a trusted information proxy for an electorate that votes on initiatives and referenda. This paper builds on that model by envisioning a decentralized online process that offers the function of the CIR without the planning and expense of convening the minipublic itself. The resulting model, which we call the Personal Voting Guide, draws on experiments in digital deliberation and provides a scalable process for generating key findings and pro/con arguments on referenda and initiatives, as well as guidance for choosing among parties or candidates. The proposed model addresses the same challenges that inspired the CIR by ensuring trustworthy, high-quality information and motivating voters to use that information before completing their ballots. It also emphasizes the potential for users to customize their voting guides on ballot issues, candidates, and parties based on varied political values, source perceptions, and tolerance for information complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comprehensive review of 1985–2019 trends related to the (English) term social informatics was conducted for scholarly literature, research and educational institutions, conferences, journals, blogs, and presentations at the International Conference on Social Informatics. The bibliographic search yielded 275 scientific documents with the term social informatics in the title, abstract, or keywords; which were coded according to ten characteristics. The analysis showed that corresponding scientific publications peaked in 2005–2009 and then roughly stagnated. At the same time, they increasingly spread worldwide, with most authors still referring to the concept of social informatics developed by Rob Kling. Other activities related to social informatics were mostly stagnant or slightly declining after 2010–2014, except for the number of educational courses. In contrast, the widespread general use of the term social informatics grew rapidly, especially in the context of computational social science. This is most evident in the analysis of 476 papers from the proceedings of International Conference on Social Informatics (2009–2019), which revealed a very weak identification with the notion of social informatics. Considering these findings, the prospects of social informatics are discussed in a broader context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses two deaths on the accommodation platform Airbnb to consider how the spatial understandings of digital infrastructures can have consequences for mortality. The platform internalizes each home or room as a Listing, a template of variables minimally describing space as a unit of accommodation. This universal schema facilitates both compatibility and scalability. But this generic understanding ignores both the unpredictable agency of matter and the significance of a space's sociocultural past. Thus, while acknowledging the force exerted by digital infrastructures in reconfiguring the political economies of space at a global level, this Perspective paper argues that space is not adequately apprehended unless its material and historical aspects are accounted for. The paper concludes by returning to mortality in a broad sense, questioning whether digital infrastructures support or inhibit our capacities for living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the state of Canada's federal access to information (ATI) regime. Drawing from literature on government transparency, we conceptualize Bill C-58 and the problems it proposes to address as a form of policy discordance. We assess the recent digitization of ATI in Canada by analyzing data on request abandonment, record exemptions, as well as variation by ministry. In so doing, we identify tensions between strategic narratives of "open, honest, government" and recent changes brought about through legislative amendments. We conclude by problematizing notions of proactive disclosure, open government, and transparency as currently promoted in the Canadian federal context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we undertake a stakeholder analysis of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's Digital Platforms Inquiry to understand the nature and influence of different forms of public input. Our findings show that nation-state regulation of digital platforms is now very much on the policy agenda worldwide, with a focus upon the competition policy dimensions of platform regulation. The second key finding is that the regulatory activism of the ACCC have ensured that the Inquiry and its findings have had maximum public impact. Finally, we argue that the key dynamic shaping the Inquiry was the competing demands of the traditional news media publishers and digital platforms, and that civil society input was relatively limited and secondary to the final recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Perspective paper we propose a rethink on how we should approach digital and analog news. Although there are literatures that continue to focus on the many and varied characteristics of digital and analog news, we should not consider these as separate, opposing entities. In fact, the intertwining between the digital and the analog of news makes it difficult, if not impossible, to define separately what they are, even if this often is the practice in scholarly debate on news and journalism in new media. What we argue in this paper is that today, in opposition to binary definitions, it would be much more revealing, and also connected to actual media practices, to try to understand how much digital there is in the analog news and, vice versa, how much analog there is in digital news. This approach recognizes three dimensions in media platforms: digital, analog, and, between them, a cross-evolved, digitalized analog present in television, radio, and online newspapers. Recognizing these three dimensions enables us to explore more clearly the implications that the hybridization of digital and analog news has on the overall media system and on the state of news itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior internet studies research has examined dying, death, and disposal from the perspectives of material practices, new persistences, visibilities, and identities, but less so through the lens of platforms and algorithms. This special issue examines how digital infrastructures, manifested as platforms and algorithms, function to transform experiences of mortality and mortal existences. It opens up discussion about the ways in which intersections of death and digital formations produce and inflect experiences and representations of the body and place, providing fresh analytical insight into and through the concept of digital mortality. In doing so, it reflects on the dialogical relationship between digital infrastructure and mortality, and how digital infrastructure transforms meanings of mortality and death. Inverting prior emphases on the internet and media as transforming death, it shows the value of studying and questioning digital infrastructure through the concept of mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with other cultural organizations, newspapers, through waves of digital disruption, have become subject to a dominant narrative of crisis. But newspapers have long participated in change. A constructivist approach, qualified by consideration of media materiality, draws attention to diverse but essential processes of innovation around them. We see a contraflow of migration from digital to print, opening up a shared media space; bonding strategies are bringing multimedia to ink on paper, while bridging via boundary objects such as QR (Quick Response) codes are connecting the two. Among other initiatives, development of automation of news production and experiments with transparency are further evidence of an active embrace of change by newspapers that calls into question the discourse on their demise. This analysis inductively develops a nuanced account of the role of the newspaper as an object and as an institution. It suggests a hybrid, multifaceted, enduring presence of print in the complex media ecology of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The boundary between conferences and journals is blurring in computer science and information science. This perspective identifies probably causal factors as well as unintended consequences that are undermining research communities. I identify some of the experiments that have been undertaken to reduce the stress. I describe conference–journal hybrids, and also a model that might move in the other direction to restore the community maintenance function of conferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study summarizes prior reviews of new media and Internet research, and the growth of the term Internet in academic publications and online newsgroups. It then uses semantic network analysis to summarize the interests and concepts of an interdisciplinary group of Internet researchers, as represented by session titles and paper titles and abstracts from the 2003 and 2004 Association of Internet Researchers conferences. In both years, the most frequent words appearing in the paper abstracts included Internet, online, community, social, technology, and research. The 2003 papers emphasized topics such as the social analysis/research of online/Internet communication, community, and information, with particular coverage of access, individuals, groups, digital media, culture; role and process in e-organizations; and world development. The 2004 papers emphasized topics such as access; news and social issues; the role of individuals in communities; user-based studies; usage data; and blogs, women, and search policy, among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Storytelling teaches. All good storytelling is good teaching. Storytelling is a form of teaching and learning because it asks the readers or listeners to replace well-established explanations that are considered facts with new, unexpected ones. We always learn new things when listening to good stories. Good stories do so by violating expectations and surprising the listener or the reader. Surprise breeds suspense, which generates engagement, which is a catalyst for learning – even truer for scientific and data-driven stories. In this paper we show how understanding the nature of good stories by focusing on the novelty they introduce and assumption they violate helps us to do effective scientific work and tell excellent data-based stories. We start by providing definitions of "story," "storytelling," and "good stories." We then outline a methodology for building stories and provide an illustrative example of an effective data-based story from the history of medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Western governments have come under sharp criticism for their use of surveillance technology. They have been accused of sweeping up massive amounts of information without evidence of the technologies being effective in improving security. The view of critics is clear, but what do intelligence officials themselves say? This paper analyzes statements of intelligence officials in the U.S. and U.K. from 2006 to 2016, examines what criteria officials use in their discourse on effectiveness, and investigates how considerations of cost and proportionality factor into the equation. It identifies seven measures of effectiveness in the statements of intelligence officials, and finds that cost, though rarely discussed, is the driver behind formalized evaluations of surveillance programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite myriad anti-corruption interventions, including digitalization-based efforts, petty corruption in public administrations of developing countries persists, undermining socioeconomic development. Extant research that links corruption to social and economic conditions has yielded inconclusive findings on whether digitalization can reduce corruption. Informed by opportunity theory from the field of criminology, which suggests that opportunities – rather than motives or systemic factors – beget crimes, we explore an alternative approach in this study: how digitalization could reduce the opportunities for petty corruption. We draw on a case study of the 30-year digitalization effort at Ghana's customs administration based on fieldwork, including 91 in-depth interviews with current and former customs officials, importers, clearing agents, banks, regulators, and other stakeholders. Our findings suggest that information technology enables corruption control over time by reducing corruption opportunities through sociotechnical reconfiguration of work practices and organizational arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What kinds of titles are appropriate for research articles? Does creativity have a place in titles or should titles be descriptive and scientific? This article examines the 408 articles titled "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" and asks why there are so many articles with the same title. The academic culture of publication pressure can lead to researchers choosing creative titles, including popular song titles, to stand out from the crowd. Furthermore, risk assessment leads researchers to choose the same songs as others, because well-known, easy-to-understand cultural references are better rewarded than more obscure references. The collective outcome of this, many researchers choosing the same title for their articles, reflects the mass production of cultural products, wherein creativity is standardized and panders to the largest possible audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I present an infrastructural analysis of the changing tuk tuk driving sector in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I argue that drivers' informal, long-standing parking associations, located at well-defined parking spots and based on kinship relations, act as the socio-spatial installed base of Phnom Penh's tuk tuk infrastructure. I show that two recent infrastructural changes – the increased popularity of ride-hailing applications and "Indian-style" tuk tuks – have made traditional tuk tuk driving more precarious. I show how the parking associations help traditional drivers manage the negative consequences of infrastructural changes. My analysis indicates that parking associations with their kinship bonds, experience, and geographical positioning put established drivers in a privileged position in relation to new independent drivers using digital tools. In effect, while long-standing associations can be effective tools of subversion to platform economies, they also produce barriers to inclusive solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2007–2008, American undergraduates' media ecology has changed dramatically without an accompanying transformation in how they use media to end relationships. The similarities in people's breakup practices between 2008 and 2018 reveal that, regardless of what social media is used, American undergraduates turn to media in moments of breakup as ways to manage three complicated aspects of ending a relationship: untangling all the ways in which people signal intertwined lives, deciphering the quotidian unknowable of another person's mind, and trying to control who knows what when. This paper explores how rapid shifts in media ecologies may change the ways in which conventionalization around social practices emerges, leading to more norms oriented around what all media accomplish, rather than generating norms around the affordances of a specific medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, the only way for the population of developing countries to access the Internet was through expensive smartphones, designed in and for developed countries. In the past few years, however, a major new innovation has emerged, the smart feature phone with Internet connectivity, which was specifically designed for those with low incomes in developing countries. This paper explains the development process for the smart feature phone, how this has influenced the nature and extent of adoption, and its use by low-income groups, including their demonstrated preference for uses related to entertainment rather than more traditional "work-related" goals. The focus is on the case of India, where the JioPhone has already reached millions of people with low incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about an archaeological investigation is documented in an archaeological report, which makes it the boundary object par excellence for archaeological information work across stakeholder communities such as field archaeologists, heritage managers, and land developers. The quality of reports has been a subject of debate, and recently it has been argued that more emphasis should be placed on making primary research data at least similarly available. This study explores the changing materialities and reciprocal formation of documents and their users with the advent of digitization, and how documents form and lose their status as boundary objects in these processes. The study posits that in order to be functional, a boundary object needs to provide a disclosure that makes it accessible to cognate communities. Further, it shows how assumptions about the functioning of the human and nonhuman (material artifacts) influence the ways in which archaeologists conceptualize the preservation and archiving of archaeological information and the role and potential of different types of digital and paper-based documents. This article is based on an interview study of Swedish archaeology professionals (N = 16) with theoretical underpinnings in the notions of boundary objects, mangle of practice, and disclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]