What's So "Social" About "Social Media?" (Podcamp Montreal Topic)

It’s all good and well to label things “social media” but those of us who are social scientists need to speak up about some of the insight we can share.
If social scientists and social media peeps make no effort at talking with one another, social media will suffer and social scientists will be shut out of something important.
Actually, social media might provide one of the most useful vantage points to look at diverse social issues, these days. And participants social media could really benefit from some basic social analysis.
Let’s talk about this.

Will be participating in this year’s Podcamp Montreal. Last year’s event had a rather big impact on me. (It’s at #pcmtl08 that I “came out of the closet” as a geek!) At that time, I presented on “Social Acamedia” (Slides, Audio). Been meaning to do a slidecast but never got a round tuit.

My purpose, this year, is in a way to follow up on this blogpost of mine (from the same period) about “The Need for Social Science in Social Web/Marketing/Media.”

As it’s a BarCamp-style unconference, I’ll do this in a very casual way. I might actually not use slides or anything like that. And I guess I could use my time for a discussion, more than anything else. I’ll be missing much of the event because I’m teaching on Saturday. So my session comes in a very different context from last year’s, when I was able to participate in all sorts of things surrounding #pcmtl.

Yup. Come to think of it, a conversation makes more sense, as I’ll be getting condensed insight from what happens before. I still might start with a 15 minute spiel, but I really should spend as much time as possible just discussing these issues with people. Isabelle Lopez did a workshop-style session last year and that was quite useful.

The context for this year’s session is quite specific. I’ve been reorienting myself as an “informal ethnographer.” I eventually started my own podcast on ethnography, I’ve been doing presentations and workshops both on social media and on social analysis of online stuff, I was even able to participate in the creation of material for a graduate course about the “Social Web”…

Should be fun.

3 thoughts on “What's So "Social" About "Social Media?" (Podcamp Montreal Topic)”

    1. Tell me about it! Hadn’t thought about things like that when I accepted to teach on Saturdays. I still think it’s a good time to teach, but it’s sad for #pcmtl. Since it’ll be the second class meeting, I really wouldn’t cancel it for PodCamp. Maybe if it had been later in the semester, I could have gotten students to do peer-teaching… See you there!

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