***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/ ***** Does Cuss Sundstein have any evidence that this actually happens? Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________ On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, Reifman, Alan wrote: > Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 12:50:42 -0600 > From: "Reifman, Alan" <[log in to unmask]> > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: new book: "why societies need dissent" > > ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/ ***** > > I have just finished reading the book "Why Societies Need Dissent" by University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein, and I would like to recommend it to people on the SOCNET discussion list. Sunstein talks extensively about information cascades (a term I first came across in Duncan Watts's "Six Degrees") and about a variant he calls "reputational cascades." The idea is that a consensus on some issue can spread rapidly through a network, stifling dissent, and thus depriving society of potentially useful information and arguments. > > ********************************************************** > Alan Reifman, Ph. D., Associate Professor > Dept of Human Dev't and Family Studies > College of Human Sciences > Texas Tech University > Lubbock, TX 79409-1162 > (806) 742-3000 > http://www.hs.ttu.edu/hdfs/Faculty/reifman.htm > > _____________________________________________________________________ > SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social > network researchers (http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/). To unsubscribe, send > an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line > UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message. > _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.