Media Advisory: Social media pioneers to discuss future of public forums

ATTENTION: Social media pioneers to discuss future of public forums

WHAT

“The Future of the Forum: Internet Communities and the Public Interest,” a symposium organized by the Berkeley Center for New Media at the University of California, Berkeley, at which pioneers of social media will address the rapid evolution of public forums.

Participants will explore how Internet communities such as Facebook and Twitter are reconfiguring common conceptions of the public interest and civic responsibility. They will also discuss whether Internet affinity groups are fragmenting the public into increasingly narrower niches, or helping forge alliances among strangers who are radically different from each other in the “real world.”

WHEN

9 a.m. – 6 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 5

WHERE

Banatao Auditorium at Sutardja Dai Hall, on the north side of the UC Berkeley campus. Directions and a map of campus are online. http://www.berkeley.edu/map/googlemap/

WHO

Speakers will include:

• Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia
• Jim Buckmaster, CEO of craigslist
• Mitchell Kapor, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Dick Costolo, chief operating officer of Twitter Inc.
• Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn Corp.
• Laura Sydell, reporter at National Public Radio

More information about the symposium, including a full list of speakers.

DETAILS

The Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM) is hosting the event with support from craigslist and The Institute for the Future. BCNM is a research center that seeks to critically analyze and help shape developments in new media from cross-disciplinary and global perspectives with an emphasis on humanities and the public interest.