Over the last couple weeks there has been a burst of news items on how neighborhoods are using the Internet to communicate. The most interesting is this article from the New York Times on how a \”Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid\”. There was also an article in the Globe and Mail about an apartment building that is using Facebook to communicate, and an article about the opposite of communicating, from CNN how to publicly shame your neighbors: Annoying neighbors? Rant about \’em online.

As part of what is becoming an annual ritual, I have put together a spreadsheet of papers that relate to communication, information technologies, and media more generally, that will be presented at the ASA meeting (Boston, Aug 1-4). Both lists exclude papers presented at the CITASA pre-conference. This year\’s list contains over 165 papers, a significant increase over the 106 papers that I identified last year. Perhaps optimistically, I would like to think that the 50%+ increase in papers represents the revival of communication studies within sociology.

This special edition of Information, Communication & Society (iCS) that I co-edited with Barry Wellman has just been released. The issue consists of papers presented at the 2007 ASA meeting in New York.

Information, Communication & Society, Volume 11 Issue 4 (2008)

Sociology of ICTs

EDITORIAL COMMENT
Sociology and ICTs
Authors: Keith N. Hampton; Barry Wellman

THE TARGETS OF ONLINE PROTEST
State and private targets of four online protest tactics
Authors: Jennifer Earl; Katrina Kimport

CHANGING PATTERNS OF NEWS CONSUMPTION AND PARTICIPATION
News recommendation engines
Author: Emily Thorson

PERSONAL NETWORKS AND THE PERSONAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
Using multiple media to connect
Author: Jeffrey Boase

THE ASSOCIATION AMONG GENDER, COMPUTER USE AND ONLINE HEALTH SEARCHING, AND MENTAL HEALTH
Authors: Patricia Drentea; Melinda Goldner; Shelia Cotten; Timothy Hale

\’I\’M THERE, BUT I MIGHT NOT WANT TO TALK TO YOU\’
Authors: Anabel Quan-Haase; Jessica L. Collins

GROOMING, GOSSIP, FACEBOOK AND MYSPACE
What can we learn about these sites from those who won\’t assimilate?
Author: Zeynep Tufekci

COPRESENCE AS \’BEING WITH\’
Social contact in online public domains
Authors: Shanyang Zhao; David Elesh