On April 4 and 5, KAIST Graduate School of Culture Technology (GSCT) hosted International Workshop on Social Media and Culture 2014 in Room 102 of KAIST GSCT Building (N2). The workshop is an annual event with a different theme each year. This year, it was held under the theme “Perspectives on Social Media and Our Culture,” whereas it was held under the theme “Perspectives on Socio-Cultural Complexity” last year.

 

The workshop was designed with the objective to witness how the social media and information science are integrated into our culture. With such aim, the workshop consisted of two main sessions: open forum on the first day and committee meeting on the second day.

 

Open forum continued for approximately 8 hours, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. After the opening talk, 15 social media and computing experts from different countries, such as Spain, Germany, and Taiwan, gave lectures. Each speaker made a 20-minute presentation regarding his research about recent trends in social computing. The forum had a wide range of presentation topics, from bid data research to online social dynamics and well-being. Participants were free to discuss the topics with the lecturers during the lecture or during coffee breaks and lunch break in between the lectures. After the lectures, the forum had a group activity session and wrapped up with concluding remarks by the chair of the organizing committee, Professor Mee Young Cha from GSCT. Registration for the open forum were made online at the official website of the workshop (http://ct.kaist.ac.kr/iwsc2014).

 

On the next day, the 15 invited speakers had the committee meeting, where they discussed the workshop theme and shared their views towards social computing. While the committee meeting was not open to the public, the open forum encouraged participation from students.  

 

International Workshop on Social Media and Culture 2014 was held under the supervision of Postgraduate Organization of Content Science and Brain Korea 21 Program for Leading Universities and Students (BK 21 PLUS).