The Network Observer

http://communication.ucsd.edu/pagre/tno.html (World Wide Web Directory, ~04/1995)

The Network Observer THE NETWORK OBSERVER

The Network Observer (TNO) is a free on-line newsletter about networks and democracy edited by Phil Agre <pagre@ucsd.edu> of the Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. Volume 1 (1994) was published on a monthly basis; future volumes will be published irregularly.

I've also written up a set of Frequently Asked Questions about The Network Observer.

Current issue: March 1995.

Here are the back issues, month by month:

Here are pointers to some of the more popular articles.

Articles about how to use the net:

Action alerts. (ten hints for political alerts that work)
The art of getting help. (asking for information on the net)
How to help someone use a computer. (helping people without oppressing them)
How to run an on-line newsletter. (lessons from running TNO)
The Internet as a commons. (preserving the positive culture of the net)
Networking and democracy. (teaching advanced social skills)
New things to do with the net. (filtering lists and other experiments)

Articles about the net community by guest authors:

In defense of progress(ives). by Joe Costello
The Beginning Teachers Computer Network. by Jonathan Grudin
Electronic networking and democracy. by Barbara Welling Hall
Universal access and Free-Nets. by Peter Harter
The role of e-mail in democratic decision-making. by Arun Mehta
Building the NII from the bottom up. by Steve Miller
Canadian Community Networks Conference. by Leslie Regan Shade
What's happening up north, eh? by Leslie Regan Shade
VWAR-L as a network community. by Kali Tal
The net gives new life to journalism. by Marsha Woodbury

Articles about the net community by the editor:

Building community networks. (how communities take hold of networking)
Creeping reality on the net. (the "frontier" metaphor and communities)
The Internet public sphere: A case study. (when action alerts go wrong)
Is the net a wilderness or a library? (metaphors of exploring the net)
The new politics of technology in the US. (liberals and libertarians on the net)
Public relations on the Internet. (manipulation doesn't work on the net)

Articles about privacy:

Orwellian privacy. (George Gilder redefines data collection as privacy protection)
Privacy and computer-mediated activity. (automated tracking of human activities)
Some strange ideas about privacy. (some dubious arguments I've heard lately)

Articles about the politics of technology:

Augmented reality and augmented fantasy. (magical thinking in HCI)
The epidemiology of Unix. (the UNIX-HATERS mailing list)
New roles for user groups. (sociology of computing knowledge)
Outsourcing and you. (information technology and business restructuring)
Science fiction and social choice. (a dystopian view of the labor market)
The wireless consumers' movement. (Consumer Reports on your PDA)
The future of network politics. (The Progress and Freedom Foundation)
The conservative revolution. (the infrastructure of political movements)
The NII and workplaces. (information technology and global industry)
The Internet meets the Constitution. (social organization of information use)
Notes on the industrial organization of public debate. (think tanks, public relations, etc)
Free means free. (debating public information services)
Bowling for democracy. (social networks and civil society)

Click here for an index of recommended books.

Recommended periodicals:

Recommended music:

Companies of the month:

Enterprise Integration Technologies (EIT) (commercial networking)
R R Donnelley Information Services (direct marketing services)
Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc (new-age business books)
Action Technologies (workflow systems)
Savi Technology (radio-frequency tracking devices)
PeerLogic (middleware for global networking)
Rochelle Communications (caller-id systems for PC's)
Audio Adventures (books-on-tape on US interstate highways)
PR Newswire (press release distribution)
CDB Infotek (pre-employment background checks)
Dentsu, Inc. (global advertising and PR services)
E-Lab (qualitative market research)
Equifax (consumer credit information)
The Workgroup Solutions -- Conferences and Expo (groupware conferences)
DataCenter (clipping service for political activists)

The Network Observer is distributed by electronic mail through the Red Rock Eater News Service. To subscribe to RRE, send a message that looks like this:

  To: rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu
  Subject: subscribe firstname lastname

For example:

  To: rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu
  Subject: subscribe Jane Doe

For an annotated index to the RRE Archive, including instructions on fetching back issues of TNO by electronic mail, send a message that looks like this:

  To: rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu
  Subject: archive send index

The opinions expressed in TNO are solely those of the editor, or of the guest authors whose names are signed to their articles. They do not reflect the policies of the University of California or any other organization.

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