This place is getting weird.

For some background on this work, check this older diary here

     The target audience for the survey was lurkers on the site, a group I’d been curious about but found little way to connect to.  The survey asked specifically for their input (as opposed the general user base), and I received over 100 replies from self=identified lurkers.   The results of the survey may reflect Daily Kos as a whole, but personally I’d only advocate it’s use for exploration of an entire community who resides here as well but may be heard from a bit less often.  
     Further narrowing  the field of participants, he survey was done at night (posted around midnight 11/28  ), and the majority of surveys were taken before 6:00 A.M. eastern time.  If from North America, this is either a late night/early morning crowd.  

   Friday night, I went to go see Sweeney Todd.  I was expecting (hoping) to be exposed to some awful, disgusting images up on the screen.  I got my way before the movie started when in between movie previews, I was shown the latest in propaganda/music hackery.  The supremely mediocre rock band has somehow made a music video which also functions as revisionist history, a recruitment tool, and the most disturbing piece of  moving image I've seen this year.  

Take a Gander:

No way this won't make you uncomfortable.

I'm an Anthropology/Media Studies student at S.U.N.Y. Purchase working on a long term project involving the Daily Kos community.  I'm hoping to engage as many niches (genres?) of the site's readers/participants as possible.  I've been attending local meetings for progressive causes (Daily Kos and otherwise) to meet and interact with everyone here on a more face-to-face level, but I know there's a huge audience here who might not write diary entires, and probably even more whom refrain from even commenting.  I'm asking for your help.

Lifted from Raw Story

http://rawstory.com/...

There's a report airing on cbs news claiming that Blackwater, and in fact all security firms in Iraq have been notified that "Immunity from Iraqi law is about to end".  The only catch is, the law must be ratified first.  

There's a new political site (birth date this morning I believe) catered towards easing the ability to correctly identify with the candidate who most agrees with your political opinion.  

http://glassbooth.org/

A collaboration between the "Rock the Vote" and ontheissues.org , The site consists of two short surveys.  One ranks issues and their importance to you, the next a set of questions placing you on the spectrum of positions on those issues.  

Turns out I'm 100% in agreement with Kucinich.  

Though simple in it's design, the site lays bare any disconnect between your "actual" politics, and those you choose to support for the sake of electibility.  

I'm a Senior at S.U.N.Y. Purchase beginning a semi long-term project on activist web communities.  My majors are Media Studies and Anthropology, and the study should reflect both those inclinations.  I'm looking to speak to people who use Daily Kos in particular, and in fact I've done this in the past.  See:
Here

In particular, I'm interested in the idea of the nation, and how individuals/groups engage this idea to cause change.  I know, broad, but hey, I'm just starting.   But the startling thing about this community is that it seems to contradict major anthropological theory regarding the "nation".   In particular, Benedict Anderson's "Imagined communities" .  See:
here

There's more....

I'm a student at the State University of New York at Purchase, and I'm in the middle of a long-term ethnographic study of online communities, specifically activist/political ones.  I'm a long-time lurker of the site, (at least 3 years at this point) so I'm fairly familiar with the inner-politics of the site itself.  I'm looking for a handful of people who would be willing to have a brief conversation either through an instant messanging service, telephone, or if you just so happen to live in the general Westchester NY area, an in person meeting.