Towards a Social Science of Web 2.0 - York, UK

A 2-day event is being organised by the Social Informatics Research Unit (SIRU), Department of Sociology, University of York in collaboration with the Taylor and Francis Journal Information, Communication & Society (iCS) and the ESRC e-Society Programme.

Keynote speakers include Andrew Keen (author of 'The Cult of the Amateur') and Charles Leadbeater.

The conference will cover the full range of Web 2.0 resources that fall into the categories that include wikis, folksonomies, mashups and, especially, Social Networking Sites (SNS). So if you are involved in social scientific or cultural research on Myspace, Facebook, Bebo, YouTube, Flikr, Second Life, Del.icio.us or other similar applications then please consider coming along.

The aim of the event will be to develop critical, theoretical and empirically informed accounts of Web 2.0 not just as a business model but as a complex, ambivalent and dynamic phenomena laden with tensions and of increasing social and cultural significance. The event is intended to provide opportunities for those working on a social science of Web 2.0 to discuss their ideas and to begin to work through the processes and possible consequences of its rhetoric of ‘social participation’, ‘communal intelligence’, and ‘collaborative cultures’.

• How can social science deal with Web 2.0?
• How can Web 2.0 applications be used as research tools?
• How can we conceptualise the heterogeneous spaces of Web 2.0?
• What terminology can we find to account for Web 2.0, should we even be labelling it as such?
• How can the fast and ephemeral cultures of Web 2.0 be captured by the rather slower processes of academia and the policy process?
• Does Web 2.0 allow for methodological innovation?
• What are the implications of Web 2.0 for welfare and citizenship?
• What are the implications for privacy and surveillance?
• What are the consequences for localities, senses of belonging, and everyday connections?
• What linkages can be made between Web 2.0 and other social and cultural shifts of recent times?
• How will the inclusion of GPS and other technologies shape social behaviour?

Associated Link: See website for further details

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