(BTW, Placa de George Orwell is located in Barcelona. He went to Barcelona in 1936, and hoped to write articles about the Spanish Civil War. )

January 4-7, 2012 - Maui

Papers due June 15, 2011

Additional information about the minitrack and papers presented in previous years may be found at the website of the  social and digital inclusions in networks  minitrack. General information about the conference may be found at the HICSS primary website.

Mini-Track Chairs:

David Yates, Bentley University, dyates@bentley.edu [Primary Contact]
Karine Nahon, University of Washington, karineb@uw.edu

This mini-track calls for papers that study social and digital inclusion in networks at different levels. In the forthcoming conference, we would like to emphasize four areas: (i) connections between off-line divides and on-line divides; (ii) inequalities within and among communities; (iii) information and communication technologies for development; and (iv) inequalities between users with respect to social and digital divides. Possible levels at which to examine such areas include international, national, local, sector, communal, and individual. Both empirical and theoretical papers are invited. Building on the success of this mini-track from the past nine HICSS conferences, we invite submissions to the 2012 mini-track on social networking and communities.

Contributions may explore the following topics, but, by no means are limited to those on this list:

• Conceptualization and theory of inequalities with respect to networks, digital divides, digital spectrum and e-inclusion;
• Indigenous communities and technologies;
• ICT and development;
• Social and political inclusion, including topics related to participation;
• Socio-demographic factors such as gender, age, education, income, ethnic diversity, racial diversity, language diversity, religiosity;
• Social and governmental support – for example, the use of supportive initiatives, policy and applications to bridge gaps, or how society and community impact e-inclusion;
• Access (public, private, etc.), infrastructure factors;
• Use – skills, frequency and time, locus, autonomy of use;
• Affordability of ICTs and services; and
• What do users do online and for what purposes?
• Accessibility focusing on populations with special needs;
• Measurements indices;
• Comparative analysis of policy;
• Comparative cross-country or cross-region research; and
• Country or region specific case studies.

Important Deadlines

Abstracts: Authors may contact Minitrack Chairs for guidance and indication of appropriate content at anytime.

June 15, 2011: Authors submit Full Papers to the Peer Review System, following the Author Instructions found on the HICSS web site. All papers will be submitted in double column publication format and limited to 10 pages including diagrams and references that conform to HICSS standards. Papers undergo a double-blind review.

August 15, 2011: Acceptance/Rejection notices are sent to Authors via the Peer Review System.

September 15, 2011: Authors submit the Final Version of papers following submission instructions on the Peer Review System website

As a result, the IJoC (International Journal of Communication) dedicated a volume to network theory.

Here are the papers presented in that volume (they are fully accessible in the following links):

Prologue to the Special Section: Network Multidimensionality in the Digital Age by Manuel Castells, Peter Monge, Noshir Contractor

Introduction to the Workshop: The Promise of Network Theory by Manuel Castells

A Network Theory of Power by Manuel Castells

Fuzziness of Inclusion/Exclusion in Networks by Karine Nahon

Networks of Power, Degrees of Freedom by Yochai Benkler

Multidimensional Networks and the Dynamics of Sociomateriality: Bringing Technology Inside the Network by Noshir Contractor, Peter Monge, Paul M. Leonardi

The Flip Side of Metcalfe’s Law: Multiple and Growing Costs of Network Exclusion by Rahul Tongia, Ernest J. Wilson III

The Ever Evolving Web: The Power of Networks by Wendy Hall

Networks, Societies, Spheres: Reflections of an Actor-network Theorist by Bruno Latour

This presentation is based on two academic papers:
1. Political Blogs and Content: Homophily in the Guise of Cross-Linking
2. Fifteen Minutes of Fame: The Place of Blogs in the Life Cycle of Viral Political Information

January 4-7, 2012 - Maui

Papers due June 15, 2011

Additional information about the minitrack and papers presented in previous years may be found at the website of the  social networking and communities minitrack. General information about the conference may be found at the HICSS primary website.

Mini-Track Chairs:
Karine Nahon, University of Washington, karineb@uw.edu [Primary Contact]
Caroline Haythornthwaite, University of British Columbia

Following the success of this minitrack from the past nine HICSS conferences, we invite submissions to the 2012 mini-track on social networking and communities.

This minitrack focuses on social networks and their interrelations with communities in the context work, learning, social and/or personal life. At present, there is tremendous research interest in these topics, driven by the fact that these sociological phenomena are changing the way people work, play and socialize, and how they spend their time and money. Accordingly, billions of dollars are being spent by businesses and consumers on these technologies, and the rate of adoption has been phenomenal, while empirical and theoretical work on social and technical design, and economic and social outcomes lag behind.

We would like to attract papers that address issues of online communities of practice, inquiry and interest created in the interest of political, educational, business, social and/or gaming pursuits, and with attention to how online community building and management contribute to success in the digital economy and society. While the focus is primarily online communities, papers are also welcomed that address the interplay between online and offline means of interaction.

We call for empirical and theoretical papers that add to our understanding of the social, political, and economic landscape of communities and social networks at work, school, home, and play. Examples of the possible interdisciplinary topics of interest in these contexts include, but are not limited to the following:

• Social, political and/or economic impact of social media
• Communities as sociological phenomenon in the digital economy
• Community development and community informatics
• Design, development, and user studies of social media
• Online communities of practice, inquiry or interest
• Business models of Second Life
• E-learning: structures, implementations, and practices
• Serious leisure communities online
• Organizational behavior of communities
• Social network studies and analyses of online communities
• Mobile applications, services and use for and by online communities
• Case studies and topologies of online communities
• Case studies and analyses of the rise and fall of social network sites and online communities
• Theoretical models of virtual worlds
• Advertising in online communities and social networks
• Models for managing behavior in online communities
• Behavior in online gaming communities
• Models and cases of synergies and/or conflicts between real and virtual worlds
• Diffusion and adoption of social networking applications and practices
• Development of social networking applications and practices
• Critical perspectives on social media and local and/or virtual community
• Disruptive strategies of virtual worlds

Important Deadlines

Abstracts: Authors may contact Minitrack Chairs for guidance and indication of appropriate content at anytime.

June 15, 2011: Authors submit Full Papers to the Peer Review System, following the Author Instructions found on the HICSS web site. All papers will be submitted in double column publication format and limited to 10 pages including diagrams and references that conform to HICSS standards. Papers undergo a double-blind review.

August 15, 2011: Acceptance/Rejection notices are sent to Authors via the Peer Review System.

September 15, 2011: Authors submit the Final Version of papers following submission instructions on the Peer Review System website

Kevin is trying to assess the relationship between the blogosphere and journalists.
He looked at the A-list blogs by combining two main authority indices of blogs - Karpf's BAI index and The Truth Laid Bear.

His findings: Since 2004 until 2008 there is a steady increase of the coverage of popular political blogs in print media. He also reports on a similar phenomenon that we encountered in the retroV project - a power-law distribution (a skewed distribution) of citations of blogs. In other words, most of the articles in printed newspapers cite a small number of blogs - mainly Huffington post and DailyKos - Wallsten claims for a 80-20 distribution.
His results show that most journalist quote/or cite information from blogs and that one of the main topics in which journalist turn to bloggers to seek information is in election time on topics related to the election. Finally, he showed that liberal blogs are far likely to be cited than conservative blogs. (Frank Bannister raised an important question of whether liberal are cited more because the examined journals were more liberals in their nature).

Additionally, Wikileaks knows the rules of the game with journalists. These hundred thousands classified cables were transferred already a week ago to big news organizations like Der Spiegel in Germany and the Guardian in the U.K.. Der Spigel did not restrain itself and “mistakenly” sold early copies of the German magazine at a newsstand. At the age of the Internet, this opportunity is enough to allow leaking some of the leaks prematurely. However, the real avalanche of the leaking information started with The Guardian, which enabled users without high-level digital skills to slice the data. The Guardian customized maps application (by using Google Fusion tables), which enables investigating and analyzing the classified cables per date and country. The newspaper also allowed the users to download either all the original information or the information with metadata (tags that allow to understand easily the data) that the newspaper itself added. This indicates that the newspaper worked hard for some time in order to make this information more clear and relevant to users.

With such large and comprehensive amounts of data, journalists understand that it is not enough to summarize main events to readers, as they used to do in the past. Actually, they cannot summarize so much data, even if they wanted. Instead, they turn the data accessible and transform the readers from passive to active users that slice data, and share the information with others according to their relevant context. This is exactly the process that turns information from anonymous to viral and known to many.

This affair demonstrates that the Internet has a real ability to shutter the scope of state censorship while strengthening freedom of speech. How does that impact the traditional rules of the games and the conventional checks and balances regarding freedom of speech?  The article, “Freedom of Expression and Imaginary Freedom on the Internet: the Abolishment and Rebirth of Censorship”, examines this topic in-depth and argues that the well-known traditional model of state censorship – that is, state censorship performed by regulatory agents – lost much of its importance because of the Internet. At the same time, the Internet is not free from censorship. Alternative systems of self-regulation regarding freedom of expression appeared. For example, the New-York Times published a selection from the leaking cables while self-censoring some information that they thought is sensitive. While self-censoring appears usually to be very effective, this action of the New-York Times may be regarded as absurd, since every user can download the intact data from so many alternative sites. The deletion of the data by the New York times may act as a boomerang, since the deletions may attract the attention of users to what was deleted and therefore to what is considered “sensitive”. In other words, the deletions may help users to find the information that is sensitive.

The Wikileaks affair has powerful implication to the relationships between states and citizens, and among states. I assume that the new continuous deterrence of uncovering internal communication will cause bureaucrats to be more careful in the way they express themselves internally and externally. It will also cause countries to be more accountable to the expressions and actions of their officials. Countries must internalize the change – the world is becoming more transparent.

Our paper, Fifteen Minutes of Fame: The Place of Blogs in the Life Cycle of Viral Political Information addresses the dynamics of viral information in the blogosphere, and is interested in empirically understanding how blogs play a role in the virality process. More specifically, we developed a new methodology that creates a map of the ‘life cycle’ of blogs posting links to viral information. Our dataset focused on the linking practices of blogs to the most significant viral videos of the 2008 US presidential election. To do so, we gathered data on all blogs (n=9,765) and their posts (n=13,173) linking to 65 of the top US presidential election videos that became viral on the Internet during the period between March 2007 and June 2009. Among other things, our findings illuminated the importance of different types of blogs: elite, top-political, top-general and tail blogs. We also found that while elite and top-general blogs create political information, they drive and sustain the viral process, whereas top-political and tail blogs act as followers in the process. [I will probably write a separated post about our paper].

Below are the papers that will be presented in that conference:

The following table compares the set of values, attitudes, and styles of the net generation and baby boomers as perceived in the literature. Many of the differences highlighted in this table can serve as the genesis for potential issues and tensions as members of the net generation join organizations.

Our study targeted 160 Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Technical Officers (CTOs), and other executives. We used three different methods to collect data on reactions to a scenario highlighting the above differences: interviews, focus groups, and an online survey (see here for more information).

We identified 10 main issues which executives perceived as tensions that occur due to the entrance of net geners to the workforce. The main tension was around the issue of ‘organizational culture’. Additionally, we found that four main clusters of organizational mechanisms were used to address these tensions: project management, technology, human resources and policy. (I am not going to elaborate this part of the research and you can see more about this in the paper we wrote).

I would focus in this post on the types of management strategy applied by the executives to address what they perceived as tensions with net geners. These strategies differ in terms of the net generation’s and executives’ involvement, the decision approach of the executives, the duration and scope of the change, and the implications for resources. The next table shows this range of strategies and the percentage of executives using each. Note that because executives use multiple and mixed strategies in different situations, the sum of their responses totals to more than 100%.  We further found that some executives prefer instead of adopting one of the strategies in the table to “wait and see” and not take any actions until it is necessary.

Types of Strategies and Frequency of Use By Executives

*% refers to percent of executives’ (N=160) responses in the named strategy classification.  Since respondents can use multiple strategies, the total is >100%

The results illuminate the growing awareness of executives on the recurring nature of the tensions with members of the net generation. This growing awareness causes them to address the tensions in a more systematic way. These strategies can be also mapped along an axis corresponding to the degree of organizational structural change.

Degree of Organizational Structural Change

Two phenomena should be discussed here:

1) the priority executives give to top-down strategies as opposed to bottom-up ones.

2) the preference of executives to control either behavior or technology determinants while ignoring values and norms, which we believe form the third apex of an integral triad.

Choosing Top-Down Strategies as a Priority

Top-Down Strategies

In Top-Down strategies, executives dictate the boundaries, goals, and, to a large extent, the outcomes. The above figure illustrates the prevalence of top-down strategies for dealing with the net generation: the Coercive, Cooptation, Responsive and, to some degree, the Negotiative. Here is a quote from an executive that exemplifies the top-down approach:

“Must set very clear goals/expectations. Need to manage and micro-manage more than with previous generation of employees. Need more mentoring by senior people to train new employees on how to produce high-quality outputs.”

Management literature suggests that top-down strategies may be ineffective in dealing with changes in an organizational context especially over the long-term. This could apply to the net generation as well, which may require organizations to perform some changes on their behalf. In the long-term, top-down strategies have the potential to stimulate higher levels of resistance to attempts at control, especially in periods of change.  Conversely, creating and maintaining a cohesive organizational culture in a process that involves all stakeholders has higher chances for long-term success.  In the near term, a top-down strategy can alienate the younger employees, decreasing the chances to build a shared and common vision, mission, and organizational culture and increasing turnover. Finally, addressing challenges in a top-down manner often requires dictating behavior uncommon to the net generation members. This is an example of treating the symptoms and not the underlying cause. The net generation initially might be compliant, but the gaps in behaviors and values remain. Organizational behavior literature agrees that gaps in behavior and values in most cases create a dissonance, that later is translated into the need for change. Leaders are likely to find they need to address the same fundamental challenges again unless they are resolved at a more fundamental level.

Moving with the TVB (Technology-Values-Behavior) Triad

A “generation gap” is not a new phenomenon. The values and behavioral norms of succeeding generations have always differed in some degree from past ones. Also, it is generally accepted that information technology shapes many organizational norms, values and behavior, and the reverse is also true. Additionally, groups take technology and appropriate it to their own needs. None of this is new.

What is new is the extent, timing, speed and the closeness of this recursive relationship between information technology and the net generation’s values and behavior.   We believe that understanding and resolving the tensions arising from perceptions about the net generation can only be achieved if we use a lens that considers technology, values, and behavior as a closely coupled triad of factors affecting the perceived organizational tensions.

One of the things we observed in the data is that executives in many cases seek to control either behavior or technology determinants to resolve tensions. Decomposing this triad into separate components and trying to resolve issues by treating only one component at a time may not be effective due to the close relationship between these concepts. Moreover, in many cases executives ignore the ‘norms and values’ component, which consequently enlarge the perceived gaps between executives and net geners. We posit that this triad should be treated from a holistic point of view. One of the consequences of the information society is that these three components move together and are closely coupled.

Executives’ decomposition of the triangulation of technology, behavior, and norms also helps to explain the failure of top-down strategies, which inherently focus on regulating behavior either through rules and policy or technology. It is not a coincidence that most CIOs chose top-down strategies to address tensions resulting from their entry into the workplace. These strategies require minimum critical structural and political changes to the organization because the compromises to operational processes are typically minimal.

We also observe that executives approach the behavior of members of the net generation (and other behavior associated with use of the newer communications technologies) from the individual level and ignore the norms that emerge from social groups. For example, managers believe that they can train individuals to behave according to the company rules and this will solve the tensions they perceive.

We suggest that the new unit of analysis should be communities rather than individuals.  The technology component provides platforms for communities to be established quickly; these communities establish and reify norms and reinforce behaviors at a pace that has not been observed as prior generations entered the workforce. By choosing strategies that focus only on the individual level, ignoring the complexity of the communal values interwoven with the technology use and behavior, executives will find it difficult to enforce desired behavior for the long run.