Technology mediated social participation is now a way of life for millions of people as they text family and friends via cell phones, track leaders and celebrities on Twitter, update their Facebook page to tell others about their activities, and interact with numerous web portals. Use of these technologies spans a broad range of users, from kids under ten years old to retirees.
This proposal will develop an intellectual framework and research agenda for studying and facilitating social participation for national priorities, such as health care, education, energy, disaster response, community safety, and environmental protection. Two workshops will cover six topics that will spur research challenges: (a) theoretical integration (b) social capital, social intelligence, and effective action, (c) sharable infrastructure, ethics, and protections, (d) design to motivate, (e) graduate training and (f) the unique challenges for government use of social media. The primary output of the workshops will be a report that specifies challenges and outcomes for each of the topic areas.
