[AISWorld] CfP AMCIS 2013: Social Aspects of Social Networking

[Laurence Brooks]

19th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS'13) (http://amcis2013.aisnet.org/) Chicago, Illinois, USA August 15-17, 2013.

Mini-track title: Social Aspects of Social Networking
Track: Social-Technical Issues and Social Inclusion (SIGSI)

Mini-track Chair(s):

Laurence Brooks
Email: Laurence.Brooks at brunel.ac.uk 
School of Information Systems Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, UK 
Phone: +44 (0) 1895 266010

Roman Brandtweiner
Email: Roman.Brandtweiner at wu.ac.at
Institute of Information Management & Control, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
Phone: +43 (0) 1 313364774

Howard Rosenbaum
Email: hrosenba at indiana.edu
School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, 1320 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN  47405-1801, USA

You are invited to submit a paper to the Socio-Technical Aspects of Information Systems Mini-Track, which is part of the Social-Technical Issues and Social Inclusion (SIGSI) track at AMCIS 2013.

Description:

Social Networking, as exemplified in the 'Web 2.0 concept' by online applications such as MySpace, Facebook, 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, Windows Vista(c) business edition has Windows Meeting Space, a social collaboration technology for small groups of users built-in, while Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 has 'Groove', a collaboration software program in it, and now there are 'cloud' computing offerings, such as Google Docs and Windows Live. 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

Important Dates:

Jan 4, 2013      Paper submissions open on Bepress system (new for AMCIS)

Feb 22, 2013    Paper submissions deadline 11:59 p.m. Central Time

April 17-19, 2013   Notification of paper acceptance

May 9, 2013         Camera-ready copy of accepted papers due


Submission Site:

Instructions for authors and more information about the conference is forthcoming on the conference website at http://amcis2013.aisnet.org/.