Content

Speaker

Michael Sugarman (Digital Public Infrastructure Initiative, UMass Amherst)

Abstract

Throughout the history of the Internet, passionate hobbyists and layperson technologists have built software and run social spaces for communities and interest groups they belong to. Today’s reliance on large, centralized social media platforms runs against that norm, and many groups feel underserved by them. How can we return to a social Internet built and powered by everyday people, not mega-corporations and investment capital?

Michael Sugarman is developing social media software for community-centered music discovery backed by ethnographic and historical research, codesign methodologies, and research here at iDPI. During this workshop, he’ll introduce how codesign methodology and readily available open source software can be used to develop social media with and for the people who use it. The workshop will comprise a short introductory lecture, hands-on experience with user testing, and ample time for questions and answers.

Note: this will not be a workshop focused on any actual technology or code, but one focused on the “social” in social media.

Hosted by the Digital Public Infrastructure Initiative and Public Interest Technology at UMass