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In Barbara Herr Harthorn's lecture, she discussed her recent study of perceptions of nanotechnologies in the United States and United Kingdom.

A major difficulty for the research teams was the low level of knowledge of nanotechnologies in both countries. As such, the teams decided upon an innovative methodology to triangulate results. "Deliberative forums" were conducted. These forums integrate reasoning with deliberation and interpretation. A workshop was designed to promote self-activated learning.

Social network sites are of great interest to researchers. Usage statistics are quite difficult to find, as these sites grow so quickly. Additionally, the difficulty in measuring "use" include defining heavy versus light use as well as determining real profiles versus fake profiles and multiple profiles.

A mashup, according to Wikipedia is "a digital media file containing any or all of text, graphics, audio, video, and animation, which recombines and modifies existing digital works to create a derivative work." Every year DJ Earworm creates a mashup of the top popular songs of the year and makes it available via MP3 file.

Web-based journalism is often discussed as an entirely separate sphere from traditional print-based journalism. In particular, blogging and other web-based citizen-based reporting is sometimes seen as less credible, perhaps due to the lack of an editorial filter. Some argue that the line between the two spheres is blurring. Mark Glaser gives this quiz:

How indistinguishable are large independent blogs and traditional media sites? Take the following quiz:

If one had to think of the countries in which blogging is most popular, the United States, Canada, the UK would likely be the first to pop into one's head. Then perhaps Latin American countries, China?

In fact, the country with the third most bloggers in the world is Iran, according to Wikipedia. Technorati rates Farsi as the tenth most popular language of blogs in its 2008 state of the blog report. Even the president has a blog.

According to CNET, Wikipedia has received $890,000 in funding from the Stanton Foundation to create an easier-to-use interface. Wikipedia's goal is "to identify the most common barriers to entry for first-time writers, and then work to systematically reduce or eliminate them."

Contrary to the opinions of many parents, time spent online is important for teenage social and technological skill development, according to a new study from the MacArthur Foundation. This ethnographic study interviewed over 800 teens and parents about digital media use and logged over 5000 media use observation hours. The researchers found that teens use digital media for two primary reasons: friendship-driven activities and interest-driven activities.

The New York Times launched a new version of their front page last week called "Times Extra" that incorporates related or supporting blog posts and news articles from outside sources, including competitors.

Rene Weber from the Communication Department spoke at CITS's Faculty Lecture Series on December 5 on the topic of Video Games: Motives, Responses and Consequences.

Some interesting highlights from Rene's talk:

* The video game market is huge. Children and young people play quite a bit, but the average age of a video game player is 35 years old.