Provisional Use And Abuses Online

Social Media: Uses and Abuses June 26, 2009 Outline for the Day: Location: David Wilson Library, First floor, Seminar Room 1 University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RJ PROGRAMME (as of 17th of June 2009) 10.00am

Session on Twitter (for those who want to set up on their laptop or phone) – Jennifer Jones +1

10.30am

Registration opens (Tea and Coffee)

10.50am

Housekeeping, details of event programme and structure and invitation to tweet. - Jennifer Jones

11.00am

Welcome from Department of Media and Communications/University of Leicester - Barrie Gunter

11.15pm Identity.

Social ‘Me’-dia:

Real-time Connections and Virtual

Gillian Youngs, University of Leicester Time/space experiential dimensions of social media are at the heart of taking virtual identity from the realms of fantasy to everyday reality. They point to fresh imperatives for new media literacy and engagement, and its importance for stimulating wider digital innovation and creativity. 12.00pm

PhD Panel: Jin Shang, University of Leicester Jin is a PhD student from the Department of Media and Communications. He is now researching on the development of 'digital economy' and 'digital city' in China. Jin is also involved in a university funded seminar series called 'Creative Cuppa' as project manager & operating director; and this is what he is going to focus on. Jennifer Jones, University of Leicester Jennifer Jones may only be registered as a part-time PhD student with the Media and Communication department at the University of Leicester –but she considers herself fully emerged within what the rest of the planet are calling “Social Media”. Her research aims to move away from the idea that the internet is just another object, observed from a bird eye view; that as researchers, we should start to consider the views of the self-defined user; and that the real social benefits will occur when we stop talking, and we start doing. Tia Azulay, De Montfort University

Tia Azulay's academic background in English literature has nothing to do with her success as a salesperson in South Africa (vegetable peelers, health products, timeshare, flats, retirement cottages, etc.) and probably little to do with her subsequent careers in software as a Technical Writer in Israel and Turkey, and Documentation Manager and then Head of QA for Pilat Media in the UK, but she has remained fairly faithful to Shakespeare and to poetry. She now works from home as a web consultant, creating websites and blogs for private clients, most of whom are writers. Tia's personal blog of poetry and other musings is TiaTalk (http://tiatalk.wordpress.com). Tia is a full time student of the Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media at DMU (2008/9). Each participant finishes the presentation with a question to ask audience, which can be discussed during the breakout session. 12.45pm

Breakout session (which can continue whilst lunch is being served.) PhD panel will take a group each, alongside designated facilitators (to guide conversation)

1.00pm

Lunch

1.45pm

Anti-Social Media: We’re not all friends here. Andy Miah, University of the West of

Scotland

The rhetoric of social media appeals to notion of collaboration, sharing and democratized participation. Web 2.0, open source, and syndication are all exemplary concepts of new methods of exchanging content and platform development. Moreover, their collaborative architecture extends from developers to end users. Yet, the environment of web development and the symbolic capital that accompanies the use of the Internet remains a highly competitive and monetized form. These circumstances compel us to scrutinize the rhetoric of social media and to reveal the complex financial and experiential sociologies that underpin its trajectory. In short, to fully attend to the empancipatory and subversive potential of social media, we must address ways in which processes of exclusion remain intact, despite the opening up of technology. Andy’s paper addresses such matters and investigates how the culture of participatory media can be both enabling and disabling of social collaboration. 2.30pm

Toby Moores, CEO of Sleepydog

Toby Moores, CEO of Sleepydog, visiting Professor at De Montfort University and the man who launched Amplified – an initiative to support a network of networks to generate grassroot solutions that could help solve bigger social and economical problems. Toby will be discussing his team’s latest work with institutions such as Reuters and the World Economic Forum in Davos – and in particular how they captured the demand for real-time content and conversation, and how social media is helping facilitate the voice of the informed participant. 3.15pm 3.30pm 3.45pm

Breakout Session – discussion, leading into… Tea and Coffee Web 2.0 as a tool of democratic renewal?: what lessons can be learned from the Obama campaign? Rachel Gibson, University of Manchester

Rachel will examine what the new media can do for contemporary democracy practice, focusing in particular on how far it could help to reinvigorate one of the more established of arenas of conventional politics - the election campaign. Rachel asks whether the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) (particularly the newer user-driven applications synonymous with web 2.0 era) offer the possibility for rejuvenation of formal politics. How far do they present politicians with new and meaningful ways to stimulate popular interest and participation in established politics and the representative process? To address this question I take evidence from one of the most acclaimed ecampaigns to date, that of the Democratic nominee Barack Obama's in his bid for the U.S. Presidency in 2008. She seeks to identify what lay at the heart of Obama's successful use of the new media in 2008, how genuinely democratic the effort were and how they might be of utility for British parties in 2010. 4.30pm

Panel Discussion: Leicester and Social Media Ross Grant: Leicester City Councillor, Political Blogger, Always

on Twitter Jamie Potter: Journalism and Politics graduate, confused music writer, now politicised blogger and Twitter addict. Keith Perch: Editor of the Leicester Mercury 5.10pm

Round up of tweets from the day, information about follow up.

5.20pm

Close