I mainly read economics journals, but I’ve just discovered the nerdy-sounding Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. It’s an open-access online journal and the latest issue has some papers that look very interesting, for example:

Every Blog Has Its Day: Politically Interested Internet Users’ Perceptions of Blog Credibility: This study employs an online survey to examine U.S. politically-interested Internet users’ perceptions of the credibility of blogs. The article focuses on the influence of blog reliance compared to motivations for visiting blogs in determining blog credibility. The study found that blogs were judged as moderately credible, but as more credible than any mainstream media or online source. Both reliance and motivations predicted blog credibility after controlling for demographics and political variables. Reliance proved a consistently stronger predictor than blog motivations. Also, information-seeking motives predicted credibility better than entertainment ones.

The Creative Commons and Copyright Protection in the Digital Era: Uses of Creative Commons Licenses: As digital technology thrusts complexity upon copyright law, conflict has escalated between copyright holders desperate to institute a vigorous enforcement mechanism against copying in order to protect their ownership and others who underscore the importance of public interests in accessing and using copyrighted works. This study explores whether Creative Commons (CC) licenses are a viable solution for copyright protection in the digital era. Through a mixed-methods approach involving a web-based survey of CC licensors, a content analysis of CC-licensed works, and interviews, the study characterizes CC licensors, the ways that CC licensors produce creative works, the private interests that CC licenses serve, and the public interests that CC licenses serve. The findings suggest that the Creative Commons can alleviate some of the problems caused by the copyright conflict.

Social Network Profiles as Taste Performances: This study examines how a social network profile’s lists of interests—music, books, movies, television shows, etc.—can function as an expressive arena for taste performance. By composing interest tokens around a theme, profile users craft their “taste statements.” First, socioeconomic and aesthetic influences on taste are considered, and the expressivity of interest tokens is analyzed using a semiotic framework. Then, a grounded theory approach is taken to identify four types of taste statements—those that convey prestige, differentiation, authenticity, and theatrical persona. The semantics of taste and taste statements are further investigated through a statistical analysis of 127,477 profiles collected from the MySpace social network site between November 2006 and January 2007. The major findings of the analysis include statistical evidence for prestige and differentiation taste statements and an interpretation of the taste semantics underlying the MySpace community—its motifs, paradigms, and demographic structures.