Cogprints

A New Account of Personalization and Effective Communication

Galbi, Dr. Douglas (2001) A New Account of Personalization and Effective Communication. [Departmental Technical Report] (Unpublished)

Full text available as:

[img]
Preview
PDF
503Kb

Abstract

To contribute to understanding of information economies of daily life, this paper explores over the past millennium given names of a large number of persons. Analysts have long both condemned and praised mass media as a source of common culture, national unity, or shared symbolic experiences. Names, however, indicate a large decline in shared symbolic experience over the past two centuries, a decline that the growth of mass media does not appear to have affected significantly. Study of names also shows that action and personal relationships, along with time horizon, are central aspects of effective communication across a large population. The observed preference for personalization over the past two centuries and the importance of action and personal relationships to effective communication are aspects of information economies that are likely to have continuing significance for industry developments, economic statistics, and public policy.

Item Type:Departmental Technical Report
Keywords:power laws, symbolic economy, names
Subjects:Linguistics > Historical Linguistics
Computer Science > Statistical Models
Psychology > Behavioral Analysis
ID Code:3287
Deposited By: Galbi, Dr. Douglas
Deposited On:30 Nov 2003
Last Modified:11 Mar 2011 08:55

References in Article

Select the SEEK icon to attempt to find the referenced article. If it does not appear to be in cogprints you will be forwarded to the paracite service. Poorly formated references will probably not work.

Abramovitz, Moses and Paul A. David, “Reinterpreting Economic Growth: Parables and Realities,” American Economic Review Vol. 63, No. 2 (May 1973) pp. 428-39.

Adamic, Lada A. and Bernardo A. Huberman, “The Nature of Markets in the World Wide Web,” Quarterly Journal of Electronic Commerce, 1 (2000), p. 5-12 [online at

http://www.parc.xerox.com/istl/groups/iea/abstracts/ECommerce/webmarkets.html ].

Alexa Research, Internet Trends Report: 1999 Review, Issues 4Q99 (Feb. 1, 2000).

Aston, Margaret, The fifteenth century: the prospect of Europe (London: Thames & Hudson, 1968).

Bardsley, Charles W, Curiosities of Puritan nomenclature (London: Chatto and Windus, 1880).

Bell, Daniel, The Coming of Post Industrial Society, reprinted with new forward (New York: Basic Books, 1973/1999).

Beniger, James R., The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1986).

Benkler, Yochai, “Communications Infrastructure Regulation and the Distribution of Control Over Content,” Telecommunications Policy, Vol. 22, No. 3 (1998) pp. 183-96.

Benkler, Yochai, “From Consumers to Users: Shifting the Deeper Structures of Regulation Towards Sustainable Commons and User Access,” Federal Communications Law Journal, Vol. 52, No. 3 (2000) pp. 561-79 [online at http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v52/no3/benkler1.pdf ].

Benkler, Yochai, “The Battle Over the Institutional Ecosystem in the Digital Environment,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Feb. 2001) pp. 84-90 [online at http://www.law.nyu.edu/benklery/CACM.pdf ].

Bishop, George W., Charles H. Dow and the Dow theory (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1960).

Bishop, George W., Charles H. Dow: economist; a selection of his writings on business cycles, edited, with comments, by George W. Bishop, Jr. (Princeton, NJ: Dow Jones Books, 1967).

Bossy, John, The English Catholic community, 1570-1850 (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1975).

Bourdieu, Pierre, [Ce que parler veut dire] Language and symbolic power, ed. and intro. by John B. Thompson, trans. by Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).

Britnell, Richard H. and Bruce M.S. Campbell (eds.), A Commercialising Economy: England 1086 to c.1300 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995).

Brown, John Seely and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2000) [chapters available online at http://www.slofi.com/].

Castells, Manuel, and Yuko Aoyama, “Paths towards the informational society: Employment structure in G-7 countries, 1920-90” International Labour Review, Vol. 133, 1994 No. 1, pp. 5-33.

Chung, Kee H. and Raymond A.K. Cox, “A Stochastic Model of Superstardom: An Application of the Yule Distribution,” The Review of Economics and Statistics 76 (November 1994) pp. 771-75.

Clark, Cecily, “Clark’s First Three Laws of Applied Anthroponymics,” in Jackson, Peter, Words, names, and history: selected writings of Cecily Clark (Suffolk; Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer, 1995a).

Clark, Cecily, “Willelmus rex? vel alius Willelmus?” in Jackson, Peter, Words, names, and history: selected writings of Cecily Clark (Suffolk; Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer, 1995b).

Clark, Cecily, “Onomastics,” in Hogg, Richard M., gen. ed., The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. I , The Beginning to 1066 (Cambridge University Press, 1992a).

Clark, Cecily, “Onomastics,” in Hogg, Richard M., gen. ed., The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. II, 1066-1476 (Cambridge University Press, 1992b).

Compaine, Benjamin M., “The Myths of Encroaching Global Media Ownership,” paper presented at the Association for Education in Jounalism & Mass Communication Convention, August 2001 [online at http://www1.primushost.com/~bcompain/WOTM/media_myths.htm ].

Compaine, Benjamin M., “Mergers, Divestitures and the Internet: Is Ownership of the Media Industry Becoming too Concentrated?” paper presented at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, Sept. 26, 1999 [online at http://www1.primushost.com/~bcompain/tprc99.htm ].

Cover, Thomas M. and Joy A. Thomas, Elements of information theory (New York: Wiley, 1991).

Cressy, David, Birth, Marriage, and Death (Oxford University Press: 1997).

David, Paul A. , “Understanding Digital Technology’s Evolution and the Path of Measured Productivity Growth: Present and Future in the Mirror of the Past,” in Brynjolfsson, Erik and Brian Kahin (eds), Understanding the Digital Economy (MIT Press: 2000) [online at http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-table-of-contents.tcl?isbn=0262024748 ].

Davidson, Donald, “Is truth a goal of inquiry? Discussion with Rorty” in Zeglen, Urszula M., Donald Davidson: Truth, meaning and knowledge (London and New York: Routledge, 1999).

Dupâquier, Jacques, Alain Bideau, and Marie-Elizabeth Ducreux, Le Prénom Mode et Histoire (Éditions de l’École des Haute Études en Science Sociales: Paris, 1980).

Elias, Peter, “Two Famous Papers,” IRE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. IT-4, No. 3 (Sept. 1958).

Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press: 1980).

Federal Communications Commission [FCC], Review of the Commissions Regulations Governing Television Broadcasting, MM Docket No. 91-221, 87-8, Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making (rel. Jan. 17, 1995) 10 FCC Rcd 3524.

Gabaix, Xavier, “Zipf’s Law for Cities: An Explanation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Aug. 1999, pp. 739-67.

Galbi, Douglas A., “E-Government: Developing State Communications in a Free Media Environment” iMP (Feb., 2001a) [online at http:/www.cisp.org/imp/february_2001/02_01galbi.htm and http://www.galbithink.org].

Galbi, Douglas A., “Some Economics of Personal Activity and Implications for the Digital Economy,” First Monday, Vol. 6, No. 7 (July 2, 2001b) [online at http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue6_7/galbi/ and http://www.galbithink.org].

Gell-Mann, Murray, The Quark and the Jaguar (New York, NY: Freeman, 1994).

Habermas, Jügen, The structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry into a category of bourgeois society, trans. by Thomas Burger with Frederick Lawrence, orig. Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1962/1989).

Haltiwanger, John and Ron S. Jarmin, “Measuring the Digital Economy,” in Brynjolfsson, Erik and Brian Kahin (eds), Understanding the Digital Economy (MIT Press: 2000) [online at http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-table-of-contents.tcl?isbn=0262024748 ].

Haydon, Colin, Anti-Catholicism in eighteenth-century England, c.1714-80: a political and social study (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993).

Hiebert, Ray Eldon, Donald F. Ungurait, and Thomas W. Bohn, Mass Media, An Introduction to Modern Communications (New York: David McKay Co., 1999).

Hillerbrand, Hans J., “The Spread of the Protestant Reformation of the Sixteenth Century: A Historical Case Study in the Transfer of Ideas,” The South Atlantic Quarterly LXVII (Spring 1968) pp. 265-86.

Hindley, Charles, Curiosities of Street Literature, reprinted with new foreword by Michael Hughes (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1871/1970).

Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno, The Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming, orig. title Dialektik der Aufklärung (New York: Herder and Herder, 1944/1972).

Irwin, Roger, “What is FUD?” (1998) [online at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Hills/9267/fuddef.html ].

Jackson, Peter, Words, names, and history: selected writings of Cecily Clark (Suffolk; Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer, 1995).

Jephson, Henry, The Platform: Its Rise and Progress, 2 vols.(London: Frank Cass, 1892 /1968).

Jussawalla, Meheroo, Donald M. Lamberton, and Neil D. Karunaratne, The Cost of Thinking: Information Economies of Ten Pacific Countries (Ablex Pub. Corp.: Norwood, N.J., 1988).

Kálmán, Béla, The World of Names: A Study of Hungarian Onomatology (Akadémiai Kiadó: Budapest, 1978).

Landefeld, J. Steven and Barbara M. Fraumeni, “Measuring the New Economy,” Survey of Current Business, March 2001, pp. 23-40 [online at http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/papers.htm ].

Laslett, Peter, Karla Costerveen, and Richard M. Smith eds., Bastardy and its comparative history : studies in the history of illegitimacy and marital noncomformism in Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, North America, Jamaica, and Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980).

Lessig, Lawrence, “The Regulation of Social Meaning,” University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 62 (Summer 1995) pp. 943-1045.

Lieberson, Stanley, A Matter of Taste (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 2000).

Livi-Bacci, Massimo, The Population History of Europe, trans. by Cynthia De Nardi Ipsen and Carl Ipsen (Oxford and Maldon, MA: Blackwell, 2000).

Lizard, MR, “In Praise of the Shattered Society” [online at http:www.mrlizard.com/fragments.html ].

Lockwood, Robert P., ed., Anti-Catholicism in American Culture (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2000).

Luhmann, Niklas, Ecological communication, translated by John Bednarz, Jr., orig. Ökologische Kommunikation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

Luhmann, Niklas, Observations on Modernity, trans. by William Whobrey, orig. Beobachtungen der Moderne (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1998).

Lyman, Peter and Hal R. Varian, "How Much Information", 2000 [online at http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info ].

Mandelbrot, Benoit, B., The fractal geometry of nature (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1983).

Machlup, Fritz, The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1962).

Mayor, Mike, “Personalized TV – The Shows Are Out There,” CRM Daily.com, June 7, 2001 [online at http://www.crmdaily.com/perl/story/11082.html ].

McChesney, Robert W., “Global Media, Neoliberalism, and Imperialism,” Monthly Review, Vol. 52, No. 10 (March, 2001) [online at http://www.monthlyreview.org/301rwm.htm ].

McGrath, Campbell, American Noise (Hopewell, NJ: The Ecco Press, 1993).

McGrath, Campbell, Spring Comes to Chicago (Hopewell, NY: The Ecco Press, 1996).

McKenna, Regis, Real time: preparing for the age of the never satisfied customer (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997).

McKenna, Regis, Relationship marketing: successful strategies for the age of the customer (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Pub., 1991).

Meier, Richard L., A Communications Theory of Urban Growth (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1962).

Michaëlsson, Karl, Études sur Les Noms de Personne Francais d’apres Les Rôles de Taille Parisiens (Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri: Uppsala, 1927).

Nadel, Mark S., “The Consumer Product Selection Process in an Internet Age: Obstacles to Maximum Effectiveness and Policy Options,” Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Fall 2000) pp. 181-262.

Neal, Daniel, The History of the Puritans, new ed. in 3 vols. (London: Thomas Tegg and Son, 1837).

Netanel, Neil Weinstock, “Book Review: Cyberspace 2.0,” Texas Law Review 79 (2000) pp. 447-91.

Odlyzko, Andrew, “Content is Not King,” First Monday, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Feb. 5, 2001) [online at http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue6_2/odlyzko/ ].

OECD, Regulation and Competition Issues in Broadcasting in the Light of Convergence, Competition Policy Roundtables No. 21 (October 1998) DAFFE/CLP(99)1 [online at http://www.oecd.org/daf/clp/Roundtables/broad00.htm ].

OECD, The Digital Divide: Enhancing Access to ICTs , Paris 7 December 2000 [documents online at http://www.oecd.org/dsti/sti/it/ ].

Office of National Statistics, UK [ONS], Birth Statistics, Series FM no. 28 (London: Stationery Office, 1999).

Ong, Walter J., S.J., The Presence of the Word (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967).

Pearson, A.F. Scott, Thomas Cartwright and Elizabethan Puritanism 1535-1603 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925).

Pool, Ithiel de Sola et. al., Communications flows: a census in the United States and Japan (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1984).

Porat, Marc Uri, with Michael R. Rubin, The Information Economy, U.S. Department of Commerce/Office of Telecommunications Special Publication 77-12 (1977)

Pastore, Michael, “Internet Playing Field Tilts Further Toward Big Names,” CyberAtlas, June 4, 2001 [online at http://cyberatlas.internet.com/big_picture/traffic_patterns/article/0,,5931_777851,00.html

Quah, Danny, “The Weightless Economy in Economic Development,” in Pohjola, Matti, Productivity, and Economic Growth: International Evidence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) [draft online at http://econ.lse.ac.uk/staff/dquah/dp0417.html ].

Roppen, Johann, “The problem of no-effects of media concentration,” substantially revised version of paper delivered at 13’th Nordic Conference on Media Research, Jyväsklyä, Finland, 9-12 Aug 1997 [online at http://www.hivolda.no/amf/tilsette/roppen/noeffect.html ].

Rubin, Michael Rogers and Mary Taylor Huber with Elizabeth Lloyd Taylor, The knowledge industry in the United States, 1960-1980 (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1986).

Schement, Jorge Reina, “Porat, Bell, and the Information Society Reconsidered: The Growth of Information Work in the Early Twentieth Century,” Information Processing & Management Vol. 26, No. 4 (1990) pp. 449-465.

Seltén, Bo, The Anglo-Saxon Heritage in Middle English Personal Names: East Anglia 1100-1399 (Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1972).

Shales, Tom, “TV’s Sinking New Worth,” Washington Post, 31 July 1991, p. B1.

Shalit, Ruth, “The name game,” Salon.com, Nov. 30, 1999 [online at http:/www.salon.com/media/col/shal/1999/11/30/naming ].

Shirky, Clay, “RIP the consumer, 1900-1999” [online at http://www.shirky.com/writings/consumer.html ].

Shirky, Clay, “Clay Shirky Explains Internet Evolution,” Slashdot interview (2001) [online at http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/13/1420210&mode=thread ].

Simon, Herbert, “On a Class of Skew Distribution Functions,” Biometrika, XLII (1955), pp. 425-40.

Smith, Daniel Scott, “Child-Naming Patterns, Kinship Ties, and Change in Family Attitudes in Hingham, Massachusetts, 1641 to 1880,” Journal of Social History, XVIII (1985) pp. 541-66.

Snooks, Graeme Donald, “The dynamic role of the market in the Anglo-Norman economy and beyond, 1086-1300,” in Britnell, Richard H. and Bruce M.S. Campbell (eds.), A Commercialising Economy: England 1086 to c.1300 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995).

Solow, Robert, “Technical Change and the aggregate production function,” Review of Economics and Statistics 39 (1957) pp. 312-20.

Stenton, Frank M., “Personal Names in Place-Names,” reprinted from Mawer, Allen and Frank M. Stenton, Introduction to the Survey of English Place Names (Cambridge, 1924) pp. 165 ff, in Stenton, Mary Doris, ed., Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England: Being the Collected Papers of Frank Merry Stenton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970).

Stiglitz, Joseph E., "The Contributions of the Economics of Information to

Twentieth Century Economics", The Quarterly Journal of Economics, v. 115, n. 4

(Nov. 2000) 1441-77.

Sunstein, Cass, Republic.com (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).

Theil, Henri, Economics and Information Theory (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1967).

US Dept. of Commerce, Falling Through the Net: Reports and Statistics on the Digital Divide, 1995-2000 [online at http://digitaldivide.gov/reports.htm ].

Vogel, Harold L., Entertain Industry Economics, 5’th ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Webster, Frank, Theories of the information society (London and New York : Routledge, 1995).

Webster, James G., and Patricia F. Phalen, The Mass Audience: Rediscovering the Dominant Model (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997).

Wessel, David, “How Technology Tailors Price Tags,” Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2001.

Wilson, Stephen, The Means of Naming: A social and cultural history of personal naming in western Europe (London: UCL Press, 1998).

Withycombe, E.G., The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 3’rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945/1977).

Wrigley, E.A. and R.S. Schofield, The population history of England, 1541-1871: a reconstruction, with contributions by Ronald Lee and Jim Oeppen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1981).

Zelinsky, Wilbur, “Cultural Variation in Personal Name Patterns in the Eastern United States,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, LX (1970) pp. 743-69.

Metadata

Repository Staff Only: item control page