Call for Papers: mini-track title - Social Aspects of Social Networking

 

Track: Social Issues in IS

 

16th Americas Conference on Information Systems

12-15 AUGUST 2010

 

Mini-track Chair(s):

 

Laurence Brooks

Email: Laurence.Brooks@brunel.ac.uk

School of Information Systems Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, UK

Phone: +44 (0) 1895 266010

 

Melissa Cole

Email: Melissa.Cole@brunel.ac.uk

School of Information Systems Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, UK

Phone: +44 (0) 1895 266024

 

You are invited to submit a paper to the Socio-Technical Aspects of Information Systems Mini-Track, which is part of the Social Issues in IS track at AMCIS 2010.

 

Description:

 

Social Networking, as exemplified in the ‘Web 2.0 concept’ by online applications such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster, Gather, 43 Things, etc., have been making headlines in the national newspapers (Lanchester, 2006), not only for their high profile acquisition by major media companies, but also for their ability to potentially create a whole new revenue stream, create a new exploitation route or even influence the outcome of the US presidential nomination race (Stelter, 2008). However, the interesting question is whether these are the future of the Internet (as the Web 2.0 badge implies), or merely the latest ‘dot.com’ bomb (as has also been implied in some parts of the media, eg. Wood, 2005). What is it about these systems that appear to have caught the current zeitgeist? Are they just another of the fleeting fancies that the media have hyped, or are there more substantial factors supporting the creation of these networks? Equally can the huge networks (such as MySpace and Facebook) really be sustained in the longer term, and how might they be appropriated by industry, for example the possible rise of Enterprise 2.0 and its implications for future forms of social networks.

 

At the desktop end of the spectrum, versions of Windows Vista© have Windows Meeting Space, a social collaboration technology for small groups of users built-in, the online Microsoft Office Live Meeting enables collaboration from different locations, across corporate boundaries, and on different networks over the Internet, while Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 has ‘Groove’, a collaboration software program in it. Will these elements become ubiquitous and facilitate, constrain or alter the development and sustenance of business social networks. How are organisations coping with the tensions of collaboration versus gossip; privacy versus publication? How will these considerations affect the future form and direction of Internet research and development? How does our understanding of the past help us to understand what might happen in the future?

 

While the technology is important, as without this the whole phenomena would not exist, the interesting and challenging element of social networking is what people do with it, ie. the social aspect. This track aims to bring together related articles (theoretical and empirical papers, including survey and case/field study research papers) that address the concept of social networking and related phenomena.

 

 

Suggested topics:

 

•             Analysis of social networking patterns and trends

•             Business value and the strategic impact of social networks

•             Frameworks and models of best practice for developing/sustaining/integrating social networking systems

•             Enterprise 2.0 business models and case studies

•             Issues of privacy and trust; information credibility

•             Management of the ‘chatter’ of multiple social networking channels (ie. the new ‘information overload’)

•             Mobile social networking

•             New and alternative approaches to social networking systems

•             Positivist, interpretivist and critical approaches to social networking

•             User adoption and diffusion of social networks

 

Papers Due:                       26 February 2010 (11:59 PM PST)