[Air-l] Definition for Social Media?

[Niels Hendriks]

Dear List-members,

in the past I have always been able to rely on the common knowledge of this
list & I wish to thank you all for this.
Once again I'm hoping for some help with this...


As we (Belgian Master course in Communication & Multimedia Design -
http://c-md.khlim.be) are working out new guidelines for Master theses,we
are in search for the/a correct definition of Social Media.

What we want to express with the term social media is the fact that in media
design we are aware of the existence of others and the collaborations we see
happening through the so-called social software. Concrete examples of social
media are online communites, social networking places, social sharing tools
(flickr),....

Although this is a nice start, we tend to feel that this is a very limited
definition as we easily end up with an endless list of possible social
practices, but not a more "abstract" definition.


Can you help us with this?



Thanks in advance,

Niels Hendriks

niels.hendriks at mda.khlim.be

http://c-md.khlim.be