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In preparation for my class on Social Media I came across two interesting courses dealing with a variety of topics which I perceive as key elements of what can be called Social Media.

Creative Networking – Burak Arikan

At the NYU artist & researcher Burak Arikan teaches a class on creative networks. He focuses on the emergence of networks within the context of art. His course consists of two parts. One part focuses on the structures of networks. What is for example swarming, distance or clustering? The second phase deals with the processes taking place in social networks.

I especially like his structured approach and the fresh graphic style for visualising the different concepts.

Creative Networking, NYU / ITP

Digital Methods Course – New Media TEMLab, University of Amsterdam& Govcom.org

Google Movie Image

The Digital Methods course is a way to try to find new research methodologies (besides the existing ones mostly originating from social sciences) linked to the specific language of new media.

On their opening page they provide a summary, if you click deeper you reach the Wiki which is constantly updated and gives hands on advice to do research.

Digital Methods Course

Getting comments on your blog, newspaper site,… is seen as an added value for your site as it will trigger conversation.

We already know that there is a downside to having comments on your site. Trolls are the most common example of bad behaviour triggered by the possibility of commenting and Godwin’s Law formulated that as a conversation online grows longer the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

Window On The Media focuses on three not so evident negative sides to comments.

1. As your audience grows in size, the total value of comments increases more slowly.

2. A larger audience automatically leads to a conversation of lesser value, relative to the number of participants.

3. To control the large number of comments on your site, you need to have good moderation. This will lead to high costs.

All is explained quite well in this graph.

Economic

Source: Window on Media