4th Int'l AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media
May 23-26, 2010, George Washington University, Washington, DC
Michael Kearns
Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania
Behavioral Experiments in Strategic Networks
Abstract: For four years now, we have been conducting "medium-scale" experiments in how human subjects behave in strategic and economic settings mediated by an underlying social network structure. We have explored a wide range of networks inspired by generative models from the literature, and a diverse set of collective strategic problems, including biased voting, graph coloring, consensus, and networked trading. These experiments have yielded a wealth of both specific findings and emerging general themes about how populations of human subjects interact in strategic networks. I will review these findings and themes, with an emphasis on the many more questions they raise than answer.Keynote: Bob Kraut
Carnegie Mellon University
Designing Online Communities from Theory
Abstract: Online communities are the fastest-growing portion of the Internet and provide members with information, social support, and entertainment. While a minority, such as Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook and the Apache Server project are highly successful, many others fail. To be successful, online communities must overcome challenges common in almost all groups, organizations and voluntary associations – solving problems of start-up, recruitment, socialization, commitment, contribution, coordination and regulation of behavior. The social sciences can tell us a lot about how to create thriving online communities. Social science theories can inform choices about how to get a community started, integrate newcomers, encourage commitment, regulate behavior when there are conflicts, motivate contributions, and coordinate those contributions to maximize benefits for the community.
This talk focuses on ways to build members’ commitment to online communities, based on theories of social identity and interpersonal bonds. It provides an overview of the relevant theory, describes results of a 6-month field experiment in which an existing site was redesigned based on principles derived from social identity and interpersonal-bond theories, and describes the results of an agent-based model that examines how different approaches to moderating the content in a group influence social identity and interpersonal bonds.
Special Session on Social Science Research in Social Media
Analyzing Words to Reveal Personality and Social Processes
James Pennebaker
Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin
Got Facebook? Exploring What's Social About Social Media
S. Craig Watkins
Department of Radio, Television, and Film, University of Texas, Austin
Researching interaction patterns in social media: Methods for examining communication processes in online dating and social network sites
Nicole Ellison
Dept of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media, Michigan State University
Panel on US Government and Social Media
- Macon Phillips
White House, Head of New Media
- Don Burke
CIA Directorate of Science and Technology, Intellipedia Project
- Haym Hirsh
National Science Foundation IIS Division Director