From this journal I selected a research paper called "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship" (boyd, Ellison, 2007). The paper is a meta-analysis of the history of Social Network Services (SNS) from the late 90:s to the publishing date for the article (2007). In the article the various different SNSs that became popular during this period of time (such as Facebook, Myspace, Lunarstorm etc) are presented. The different networks individual stories are told, and their rise (and sometimes fall) are analysed. The paper also discuss the topics of privacy on a SNS, and the different user-groups these sites can attract. The contents of this paper has been widely cited (2704 citations according to Google Scholar), and is both relevant and logical. Various sources are cited, there is a clear red line that is followed, the data is both qualitative and quantitative. To sum it all up, the paper is a very useful and substantial presentation of the history of SNSs, and the research done in the field. It's still mainly relevant, though much has happened in the field since 2007, so a new meta-analysis will probably be conducted in a few years.
Bertrand Russell:
- Sense-data is Russell's word for the different input we receive through our senses when we interact with something. For example: the table he uses as an example is an unknown object, that appears (in every meaning of the word) like a table, but it's also appears different depending on which person are interacting with it, and how. The table is experienced differently depending on the persons senses being able to pick up the tables attributes (such as look, smell, touch etc.). This "information of the senses" Russell refers to as sense-data.
- Russell is referring to the unique information you can know about an object, without having any specific knowledge of the object itself. He uses the man with the iron mask as an example. We know a lot about him, but we have no knowledge whatsoever of who it actually was. So our information about him is just "propositions", that we can know without any knowledge of the specific man. With "statement" Russell means that when we make a statement, we make some description an object composed by particulars that we are acquainted with. For example, when we make a statement about Julius Caesar, we have no knowledge of the person himself (we did not know him) but we know for example that he was "assassinated on the Ides of March".
- A definite description is a description of a singular object containing propositions. Russell means that "a so-and-so" is ambiguous description, while the phrase "the so-and-so" refers to a single, specific object. For example "a man that lived 1000-1050 A.D is ambiguous, while "the man with the iron mask lived 1502-1560 A.D is a description of a specific person, not a random one.
- Russell disagrees with the notion that a "priori" is a type of mental knowledge. He opposes the ideas of Hegel, meaning that we cannot prove that "the universe as a whole forms a single harmonious system". This is because we cannot bind propositions to these unknown things, unless we know all the thing's relations to all the other things in the universe. This we don't, and Russell means that this prevents us from knowing "the characters of those parts of the universe that are remote from our experience"
