Sorry for the radio silence all… My FTP account was deactivated… I’m working if someone tried to hack my site.

I’ll get a better update soon.

My application was rejected/deferred. For those interested attached are the following reasons and accompanying vent:

b) Recruitment: Please provide additional information on the procedures that will be used to recruit subjects for the research. Please also submit a copy of the scripts/email messages that will be used to recruit participants (as outlined in the recruitment section of the protocol) and note that the IRB generally requires that recruitment materials/scripts include any age restrictions on participation.

my original entry
After observing subjects, in environments including discussion boards and chat rooms, I will privately approach them via either e-mail or instant messenger and ask if they are interested in participating. This contact will include information on my research and an overview of IRB protections.

If they response positively, we will discuss in what form the interview will take (phone, instant messenger, e-mail). I will then send the full consent form to them and have it returned before proceeding further.

Matt’s Comments
Oy! Recruitment scripts? I mean people will have to sign their lives away if they agree. And in that document everything is painfully explained. Why the heck do I need to script out every freakin’ encounter with people? I can just see it… I’m in the flow of a dialog and then I have to announce “give me a moment while I find the exact script that I will need to say in order to ensure that I don’t damage your obviously fragile psyche.” Yeah… that’s natural.

The larger implied issue here is what constituted a dialog online? Is an email exchange a online proxy for conversation? Or is the equivalent of a mass blanketing or requests for participation in a study?

d) Data storage: Please provide additional information on data storage and coding procedures for the comments collected from chat rooms. Specifically, please indicate whether screen names or any other identifiers will be linked to the chat room comments.

Matt’s comment
The issue of Usernames is really tough. Since they are able to be linked back to e-mail addresses they’re considered identifying information. Like keeping someone’s name.

The problem is that unlike most names, people specifically choose screennames. And they have pretty significant meaning (which I’ll post more on soon). So I’m planning to analyze them as part of the study.

Still the IRB considers this a dangerous thing as someone could, in theory, get a hold of them and do “evil” things (though in this case I don’t know what constitutes evil). So I need to keep them locked down. And then if I want to use my findings, I must create pseudonyms to ensure everything is cool.

This process is going to kill me. Or make me stronger. Sadly I fear it will be the former before the latter.

Quick note… IRB’s been submitted. Hopefully it will take about a week, provided there are no snags.

The finals are taking far more time than expected. As such, I’m not going to get those pictures up just yet. Hopefully I’m be more out in front of things by tomorrow.

On a slightly different note, as the last post suggested, it turns out that a number of folks who are checking out the MAPSS (Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences here at the University of Chicago) program are coming across this blog. As I posted please feel free to ask me questions. Also, let me know if you are coming to the Campus Days event in April. I’ll be one of the tour guides for it. Plus a bunch of us are talking about putting together a “after hours” meet and greet with students at one of the local watering holes. I’ll make sure you know when and where.

Quickly though, here are a couple answers to be big questions:

1. Should I do MAPSS?
Short answer: yes
Long answer: if you are willing to work, it’s a great program. Arguably more intense than any single year of a PhD program. It will help sharpen your skills, focus your research, and hopefully get you into a better PhD program/get you more money when you go there.

2. Is MAPSS just a cash cow program?
The only people I have heard express that view are U of C undergrads. At least the MAP’ers who run in my circles are hanging and banging with the best Anthro/Psych PhD’s this school has to offer. One of my friends has already been accepting into the Anthro PhD program here at U of C. We’re on first name basis with some of the top Profs and researchers in the world. I know MAP’ers who are involved in top flight research and are co-presenting with Professors at conferences.

So no… I don’t think it’s a cash cow program. Nor do people like John and Jean Comaroff, Michael Siverstein, Susan Gal, Bertram Cohler, John Cacioppo, and many others.

3. Is U of C competitive?
Yes no maybe… can you repeat the question?

For MAPSS no. I think most of the competitiveness occurs on the undergraduate level. Don’t get me wrong, U of C is INTENSE. But all of the competition is with myself, not with my classmates.

Just got back from a weekend in isolation. I’m knee deep in finals. So starting tomorrow there will be new content in the form of pictures! I’ve gotten a lot of pics I’ve been meaning to share for a while. Hope you enjoy.

BTW for new MAPSS students who come across my blog on web searches, I’m happy to answer questions. Please e-mail my school account though: mattb (at) uchicago.edu

Consider this a milestone. I just had my last Language in Culture Class. I’m one final and a few response papers away from putting it to bed. Woo Hoo.

ok one class is now officially over. The giant paper is going well. I’ve submitted my thesis topic to a conference. I’m strung out and tired but makin’ progress.

2 Classes to wrap.

24×7 Chat Walkers : How artificial intelligence prostitutes commodify fantasy in online chat rooms

In this paper I examine how bots, computer programs written to mimic human behavior, are used by the adult industry to persuade individuals in online chat rooms to join pornographic websites. These bots are optimized to take advantage of the structure of cybersex interaction genres in order to fool chatters into thinking that they are talking with another human. Via a semiotic analysis of recorded interactions between humans and these machines as humans I demonstrate how bots rely on a chatter’s desire to be recruited into a voicing role (Bakhtin), based on cultural notions of sexuality, that gives them permission to transform their fantasies into a performative textual experience. In doing so I analyze how a bot’s user profile (identity) and response script (voice) are constructed to take advantage of preexisting stereotyped sexual fantasies and instantiate and propagate gender stereotypes. I explore how bots allow the adult industry to control both the production of fantasies and the living out of them as well. Finally, I consider the socioethical implications of these machines that “pretend” to be human. Through ethnographic interviews conducted with bot creators and chatters who interact with bots the paper explores how individuals in chat rooms react to bots and to chatters who mistake them for humans. I demonstrate how these dialogs can be viewed as part of a larger discourse on the ever expanding role of technology in our public and private lives.

This is my first shot at the abstract for my paper. I may be submitting to a upcomming school conference and I needed to get this together.

24×7 Chat Walkers : How artificial intelligence prostitutes are commoditizing fantasy in online chat rooms
In this paper I examine how bots, programs that are written to function as humans, are being used by the adult industry to persuade chat room participants to join pornographic websites. I demonstrate how a semiotic analysis of these interactions between humans and machines as humans reveals how identity and performative gender stereotypes influence and evolve online interactions. In particular I will explore how these bot’s user profiles and response scripts are optimized to take advantage of naïve chatters preexisting sexual fantasies, in order to fool the chatter into thinking that they are talking with another human. In order to do this I will demonstrate how the adult industry both monetizes the creation these fantasies and these human/bot online interactions. Finally, I will consider the socioethical implications of machines that “pretend” to be human. Though ethnographic interviews conducted with bot creators and chatters who interact with bots I will explore how individuals treat bots and chatters who mistake them for humans.

I’m in the midst of finals, which means that I need to write a twenty page final paper for on class. And as the title of this post suggests, I have a ways to go. So no new posts for a little while.