Since four years, we have been studying social aspects of ther Internet. We believe that constant monitoring and social reflection about changes brought about by the development of new technologies is necessary, regardless of fluctuations on global markets, the booms and busts of dotcoms. We therefore want to participate in the shaping of the Polish sociology of the Internet.
We try to not only observe, but participate in worldwide research on the Internet. In 2002, we participated in the Webshop program, a summer school organised by University of Maryland, together with University of Stanford, with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). In the summer of 2003, we took part in the Summer Doctoral Program at the Oxford Internet Institute in Great Britain. In October of the same year, we both presented papers during the Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR) conference in Toronto: AOIR 4.0: Broadening the Band

Papers written together

In 2002, we jointly wrote, in Polish, a paper titled "Search Engines and their Role in Shaping the Internet", in which we show that Internet search engines are not neutral tools, but filters of information. Their role can be compared with the gatekeeper function present in mass media and we argue that they have a strong influence on the shape and perceptions of the space of the Internet. [PDF, 230kb, in Polish].

Justyna Hofmokl

Justyna Hofmokl. portret z profilu

I received an MA in sociology from the Department of Sociology at the University of Warsaw. In my fourth year, I decided to write my thesis on a subject not very popular in Poland at that time - the Internet. Two years ago I started my doctoral studies at the Graduate School for Social Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences. My doctoral thesis concerns the problem of defining the Internet and its content as common goods. I am interested, among other things, in the ongoing processes of limiting access to content considered an intellectual property and parallel ways of increasing the so called public domain and the commons.

Papers

My abovementioned MA thesis, titled "The emergence and development of the Internet: an institutional analysis" was written under the guidance of doctor Piotr Chmielewski, a wonderful man and great scientist. The paper has been awarded, in 2001, with a second degree Florian Znaniecki award for outstanding MA theses in sociology. A paper based on my MA research has been published by the Polish journal "Studia Socjologiczne" nr 4/2002. [PDF, 260kb, in Polish]

In October 2003, my article, titled "The Advantages of Skipping the Intermediary" was published in a post-conference publication by the MOST organization. The paper concerned initiatives supporting growth of the public domain online. [PDF, 125kb, in English]

An article on similar issues was published under the title "Common above private" in the September issue of a bulletin published by NASK, organization administering the Polish net domain.

At the fourth yearly conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR), I presented part of my doctoral thesis, titled "The Internet - new commons?", on which I am currently still working.

Alek Tarkowski

Alek Tarkowski. portret z profilu

I have graduated from the Collegium of the Interdepartmental Individual Studies in the Humanities (Collegium MISH) at the University of Warsaw. I have defended my MA thesis - a case study of antigloballist demonstrations in Seattle in 1999, seen as an exampled of a global social movement with a network structure and intensively rellying on new media - at the Department of Sociology, University of Warsaw. Since two years, I am a doctoral student at the Department of Sociology of the Central-European University and the Center for Social Studies in Warsaw. I am a Junior Fellow at the Marshall McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, Canada, where I've concluded an eight month scholarship, which I devoted to my doctoral thesis research.

Papers

My review of "Zatruta Studnia" ("Poisoned Well"), a book by Polish technology and science writer Edwin Bendyk, appeared in April 2004 at the webpage of the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies.

In October 2003, I presented a text titled "The Politics of Magic Pixie Dust. Socio-technical Effects of Open-Sourcing Netscape Communicator Code" during the fourth yearly conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR). A case study of turning the Netscape browser software into open source code, conducted from the theoretical perspective of Actor Network Theory (ANT), was a starting point for an analysis of open source as a social movement. [PDF, 230kb, English]

My text, titled "Informacja chce być wolna. Fenomen open source" (Information Wants to Be Free. The Open Source Phenomenon), which contains key facts about the open source movement and an answer to the question, whether open source is a social movement, has been published in the 11 issue of the Polish journal "Zeszyty artystyczne" (Winter 2003).

A text titled "Heterogeneous Engineers of the Internet. How Inventors Weaved Together Internet Technologies, Social Values and Blueprints for New Social Institutions" has been included in a post-conference volume published after the second summit of the MOST Think Tank in Vilnus, Lithuania.[PDF, 205kb, English]

My review of Manuel Castells' book "The Internet Galaxy. Reflection on the Internet, Business and Society", titled "Wyszukiwarka Castellsa" (Castells' Search Engine) has been published in issue no.1, 2002 of the Polish sociological quarterly, Kultura i Społeczeństwo. [PDF, 111kb, Polish]