[AISWorld] CFP: Social Networking and Communities @ HICSS-54 (Hawaii; deadline July 15)

[Ravi Vatrapu]

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 CFP: HICSS-54: Social Networking and Communities (Digital and Social Media)
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      54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)
               January 5-8, 2021, Grand Wailea, Maui, Hawaii
     PAPERS DUE: July 15, 2020 (see http://hicss.hawaii.edu/authors/) 

We call for papers that investigate social networks and communities supported and/or complemented by social media and other social technologies for work, learning, socializing, or economic or political processes. Papers may address theory, design, practices, use or evaluation of social technologies. "Social networks and communities" refers broadly to social phenomena that may range from fully virtual to geographically based communities, and includes communities of inquiry, interest, or practice; epistemic communities and networked advocacy; as well as other collective phenomena emerging within networks of individuals. 

We solicit papers that examine relationships between social phenomena and technologies, including how social phenomena are embedded or emerge within technological settings, how communities use technologies to further their goals, or how technologies otherwise influence or are appropriated by social phenomena and entities. Individual actors as the unit of analysis may also be included provided that communities and technologies are explicitly involved in the analysis; e.g., how individuals relate to communities via technologies. We are particularly interested in papers that explore new models, theories and methods rather than re-applying and repeating established results. 

In order to leverage the interdisciplinary nature of HICSS and enable dialogue between social and technological disciplines, papers may be motivated by a broad range of theory-driven or data-driven perspectives and methods, including for example but not limited to social network analysis, content analysis, ethnographic investigations, and agent-based simulations. We particularly encourage papers that: • advance our understanding of social network growth, formation, structure and outcomes through social media; • explore how socio-technical affordances relate to social media use and outcomes; • interrogate entanglements of technology and culture in community settings; • examine how information and misinformation spread in social media and networks, and how algorithms, bots, and social media design affect this spread; • evaluate design of social media technologies and practices for effective community development and maintenance; and • develop theories, models and principles of social media design, use and outcomes. 

Papers that examine how social networking and media are used to take collective action on Covid-19 concerns or mitigate the impact of "social distancing" will be of particular interest this year. 

ABOUT HICSS 
The Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, in its 54th year, is one of the longstanding scientific conferences and is highly ranked among information systems conferences. Diverse disciplines unified by a focus on information technologies are woven together in a matrix structure of tracks and themes. By attending HICSS you are not only reaching the audience of your track and mini-track; you also have the opportunity to learn about what is happening in related fields and meet leaders in those fields. Other mini-tracks within the Digital and Social Media track are particularly relevant: see https://hicss.hawaii.edu/tracks-54/digital-and-social-media/#social-networking-and-communities-minitrack and related pages for this and other minitracks. 

Minitrack Co-Chairs:
Dan Suthers (Primary Contact)
Professor, Information and Computer Sciences
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Honolulu, Hawaii
+1(808) 956-3890
Email: suthers at hawaii.edu
Twitter: @dan_suthers

Ravi Vatrapu
Loretta Rogers Research Chair in Digital Enterprise
Professor of Computational Social Science
Ted Rogers School of Management
Ryerson University 
Toronto, Canada
Email: vatrapu at ryerson.ca
Twitter: @vatrapu