[AISWorld] HICCS 48 Minitrack: Ethical and Social Challenges Accompanying Digital and Social Media

[Jason Thatcher]

Ethical and Social Challenges Accompanying Digital and Social Media
HICSS-48 (January 2015, Kauai)

 This mini-track addresses a broadening range of social and ethical issues that are associated with the affordances of digital and social media.  Digital and social media, as the set of technologies and services that enable the production and consumption of information by individuals, can shift the locus of gatekeeping and power in society.  This shift can enable new choices for individuals and groups to share information and knowledge.  This set of technologies changes the ways in which we work, live, and play together in communities; it supports an increasing speed and reach for information flows; it enables new ways and paths for learning and exchanging knowledge.  Many of the opportunities provided by these media are viewed as positive.  However, emerging norms for design (e.g., capturing location data; changes in algorithms without notification) and use (e.g., sharing pictures without users’ consent), have social and ethical implications—not only for users of these platforms but also for the designer and for researchers who conduct research on data drawn from such platforms.    This mini-track provides a venue for a discussion of these implications.

For this mini-track, we seek both conceptual/theoretical and empirical papers (including case studies).  Conceptual papers would address foundational concepts of ethical conduct and social changes in periods of rapid change.  For example, we would welcome papers that explore new metaphors for thinking about information exchange in communities and societies.  Empirical papers would draw on studies of digital and social media data or present case studies that illustrate the social and ethical dimensions of the use or dissemination of such data, including “big social data.”

We welcome papers in the following areas, among others:
* Designing social media platforms—design choices represent ethical decisions, whether or not the ethical and social implications are recognized or acknowledged (examples:  What stakeholders are included/excluded?  What choices do designers provide for users to protect and control their privacy and limits of sharing? Can/should design decisions include user input?  Are participatory design processes—including crowd-sourced designs—feasible?  Do we have examples of such processes?)

* Research on digital and social media—researchers have a privileged position from which to view a range of “public” data from social media.  For this mini-track, we seek papers that reveal—or suggest ways to alleviate—the potential harm that might result from research on social media data.  The consequences may be magnified when a researcher combines, for example, Twitter streams and metadata, Facebook profiles, and data from location-based services such as FourSquare.  Such “big social data” datasets can have impacts that are not simply the sum of impacts from independent individual datasets.

* Institutional transformation—digital and social media make it easier for individuals and clusters of individuals to challenge the roles of societal institutions such as law, finance, education, and government agencies.  We invite papers (including case studies) that explore the ethical implications of such challenges, the institutional responses, and the tension between individual integrity and conscience and legal and institutional rights.  Examples might include the Snowden case and the actions of the group ‘Anonymous.’  In this new environment, what are ethical guidelines for individuals and for institutions?  On what basis can one draw a line between protecting the integrity of an institution and the conscience of the individual?  In the absence of guidelines that remain stable as technologies and affordances change, can we draw on decision-making processes for help?

* Convergence of technologies, blurring of boundaries and roles—the convergence of technologies (telephone, camera, location-based services) present not only ethical challenges to designers and users of these technologies but to the social and role interactions among different categories of users.  Users in times of crises may become “citizen-journalists,” bolstered by live-streaming from their geolocated phones.  How do these actions assist or hinder the work of traditional journalists and government agencies such as the police and fire?  The capabilities of social media for the (rapid) spread and (broad) reach mean that rumors, even false ones, can trigger emotions and mobilize actions.  We encourage papers that illustrate the underlying ethical choices individuals and organizations face in the aftermath of events such as the London riots and the Boston Marathon bombing.

Important dates:
March-May:  send abstract and request feedback (optional, but encouraged) from co-chairs
June 15:  full papers due to HICSS
August 15:  Decision (accept, accept conditional on mandatory changes, reject)
September 4:  resubmission [if required]
September 10:  Final decision
September 15:  Accepted papers submitted to the publication site
September 20:  At least one author must register for the conference

Co-chairs (contact for feedback on abstracts/proposed papers)

Bob Mason (rmmason at uw.edu)
Dianne Ford (dpford at mun.ca)

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Jason Thatcher
Associate Professor in Information Systems
Department of Management
College of Business and Behavioral Science
Clemson University
Clemson, SC 29634

tel: 864-656-3751
fax: 864-656-2015
skype:  jason.bennett.thatcher
web: http://people.clemson.edu/~jthatch

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