Zeynep Tufekci
Everyone's all Atwitter: The Promise and Peril of Social Media

Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Building 3 Auditorium - 11:00 AM
(Coffee at 10:30 AM)

Social media are everywhere. Half of all American adults use a social media platform and most organizations have also jumped into the fray with Twitter accounts, Facebook groups and corporate blogs. As people go about their daily rhythms, communicating with their friends and family, they also find themselves broadcasting to the whole world. Intimate discussions are interspersed with public announcements, and grave topics may be interrupted with frivolous musings or other concerns --and, of course, vice versa. Many previously separate layers of communication --person-to-person, person-to-organization, organization-to-organization have collapsed into a single, semi-flat, quasi-public, rapid-flow stream. What the emergence of this quasi-public sphere means for 21st century sociality and public life is far from resolved. This talk will explore people's use of social media and discuss some of the new challenges and opportunities this presents for organizations.

Zeynep Tufekci is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She studies how social media interact with the way people socialize, work, play and engage with the world in the 21st century. Her work has been featured in a variety of media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post and Science.

Web Page:
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~zeynep/
http://http://www.technosociology.org

IS&T Colloquium Committee Host: Helen-Nicole Kostis

Sign language interpreter upon request: 301-286-8313
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