This conference is supported by awards from the UMass RLA Program and the National Science Foundation (SES 0903886). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Massachusetts or the National Science Foundation.
An Interdisciplinary Conference Hosted By the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Digital Traces
An Exploratorium for Understanding & Enabling Social Networks
Abstract
Recent advances provide comprehensive digital traces of social actions, interactions, and transactions. These data provide an unprecedented Exploratorium to model the socio-technical motivations for creating, maintaining, dissolving, and reconstituting knowledge and social networks. Using examples from research in a wide range of activities such as disaster response, digital media and learning, public health and massively multiplayer online games (WoW - the World of Warcraft), Contractor will propose how YouTube can serve as a testbed to help advance our understanding of the emergence of social and knowledge networks.
Comments
Reconfiguration idea
I was really really impressed with the idea of reconfiguration. As a researcher in Data mining and concentrated on Relational Data, I was truly caught by the reconfiguration of new emerging technologies in our life. Thanks for the wonderful presentation.
Digital Divide
I was thinking that YouTube may not exacerbate the digital divide; it my be user-friendly enough to narrow the gaps by bring more and better information to a more diverse audience.
different divide
In access, you may be right. But in content-creation, there's both a financial gap (cost of a decent digital camera or webcam) and a skills gap (still isn't THAT self-evident how one creates a mashup, for instance).