B-IT hosts 2nd International Symposium in Media Informatics

Social software - often connected to older forms of computer mediated communication (CMC) and newer discussion about online communities - can be defined as software that supports activities in digital social networks. The use of new digital media tools such as blogs, wikis, tagging and other communicative or multimedia assets create new challenges for interdisciplinary research in media informatics. What are the effects when media get agency in digital networks? How can we trace and understand collective processes on the internet? What is the role of visualisation? What is the role of social software on change processes in organisations? Are there new models of labour, new processes and new forms of organisations possible? Will users be empowered or will lack of data protection and pricacy set free new genies? What is the impact of tools supporting social structures on the emancipation and appropriation? Which are the impacts on design and media? Will they help facilitating new forms of democracy, digital rights, and overcome the digital divide? Or will the hunt for digital reputation lead to cow paths where only cows walk by?

The second international symposium on perspectives in media informatics is organized jointly by the two leading collaborative research centres for media Media and cultural communication and Medienumbrüche, the Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology B-IT, Fraunhofer Society Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT and the Network of Excellence on technology enhanced professional learning PROLEARN. It brings together researchers and practitioners from media informatics, sociology, ANT, law, media theory, social software, collaborative work and learning, to discuss current trends and emergent issues of sociality in digital networks in a mixture of invited talks and round table events. The event will be accomplished by online activities and practical exercises in social software.