1. Notification norms: a sociological approach to information

2. Information without people?
Is ‘information’ just ‘data’ without people to interpret, understand, know, use?
No people, no information?
“informing” is complicated– it is subjective and may require complexity to communicate what we think of as ‘knowledge’
Ideas are ‘objects’, linguistic expressions are ‘containers’. We use communication processes to send these containers.
“Toolmaker’s Paradigm” helps to solve this problem.
George Lakoff’s criticism: cultural differences, language differences, lead to lack of understanding.
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3. Ryan’s (2006) Approach to A ‘Sociology’ of Information
“…individual and collective social actors work to move information around in ways that reflect, establish, maintain, and modify social relations and social categories.”
He is asking us to think about what differentiates a sociological analysis of info from other fields
To understand our capacity “to wield a socially-sanctioned repertoire of notification rules as a learned competence”
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4. It is not necessarily a good idea just because technology makes it possible

5. Notification
“…in general, we are never isolated possessors of information, and that the dynamics of what we do with information, how we behave as nodes in information networks, are largely socially determined.” ***diffusion, disclosure, information and economic exchange, secrecy, information flow and social structure
Less about “I cant believe its true!”
More about “I cant believe you didn’t tell me this before!”
Goffman and stigmas…when to disclose, implications of disclosure
Ackerloff…information asymmetry in economic exchange, implications of such

6. The Social Organization of Notification
Dimensions of notification contexts: nature of social relationships, content of information
“Who” “When” “How”
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7. The ‘who’ and the ‘when’

8. Medium and Communication
Warm/cold
expensive/cheap
fast/slow
Personal/impersonal…
The ‘how’
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9. Ecology of the Information Order
Knowledge as Power?
Surveillance
Other Information Asymmetries
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