IS 332 - Social Media (3 Credits)

Prerequisite: IS 200 (or BUS 325 and CIS 101 )
Social media, and more generally, social computing, bring people together in virtual spaces to facilitate various kinds of technology-mediated social participation, such as connecting, discussing, artifact and information sharing, and recommending. Understanding the applications and platforms that are available today-such as social networking, virtual communities, artifact and knowledge-sharing sites, mobile and location-based technologies/services, video, blogs, wikis, etc.-is critical for recognizing emergent trends in this rapidly changing space. Topics examined include the impact of social media and modern communication tools on areas such as commerce, entertainment, networking and relationship building/maintenance, community action, sustainability, national security, emergency management, healthcare, citizen science, and education. Students discuss phenomena such as crowdsourcing, recommender systems, and collaboratories. To better understand the social aspects of online interaction, core behavioral concepts, including group and community formation and identification, social network theory, individual motivations, and trust, in addition to basic media theories such as social presence and media richness are discussed. Designed for IS majors, everyone must create an online community, using either off-the-shelf tools or by creating an original one.