I'm conducting some research this summer in the San Francisco Bay area, on social media and localization -- if you might be interested, read on!
Are you employed in the field of social media or Web 2.0? Interested in participating in an ethnographic study about new media design and international users?
This is a study being conducted by Jordan Kraemer (jkraemer@uci.edu), a graduate student in anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, and is titled New Media in Design and Practice: Social Media Companies in Transnational Circuits. Tom Boellstorff is the faculty sponsor (tboellst@uci.edu).
You are eligible to participate if you are at least 18 years of age or older, are employed at a social media or technology company, speak English, and are in some way involved with the design, planning, or maintenance of social media (social networking services, blogging/microblogging, social bookmarking, or other media related to Web 2.0).
The research procedures involve an audio-taped interview that will last approximately 30-45 minutes at a location convenient to you, and an optional follow-up interview (1-2 hours). Your identity will be kept confidential.
There are no direct benefits from participation in the study. However, this study may explain the connection between international users, who are not often the target audience of new social media products, and design practices in the United States. This study will contribute more broadly to understanding the social impact of new technology.
Contact Information:
University of California, Irvine
Lead Researcher: Jordan Kraemer, graduate student, department of anthropology
jkraemer@uci.edu
Faculty Sponsor: Tom Boellstorff, Associate Professor of Anthropology
(949) 824-9944 | tboellst@uci.edu
Hey Jordan--you might be interested in the Web Ecology Project in Cambridge, MA. They launched last spring and focus on understanding how content and communities move through the virtual space of social media & web 2.0 (an area I'm working in currently vis-a-vis web 2.0 & human rights). Here's a link to their statement of purpose: http://www.webecologyproject.org/2009/08/reimagining-internet-studies/. They also have a number of reports at their site that they've completed since June '09. And if you're interested in how social media and human rights are interacting, check out "The Documentalist" at http://crlgrn.wordpress.com for a number of groups and platforms that are discussed there. Hope you're getting lots of responses to your call for participants!