International Journal of Information Management 29 (2009) 248

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International Journal of Information Management

Introduction to special section

Social aspects of social networking

The social networking landscape has attracted considerable may be changing as younger users become more comfortable with
media attention. Reports of exponential adoption and use of social online personal disclosure. Their ndings pose some interesting
networking sites has been replaced by stories concerning the prob- challenges for both the development of social networking appli-
lems and dangers of digitally networked individuals operating in a cations and also desirable future Internet behaviour.
global village (Albrechtslund, 2008; Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Gross, The nal paper by Karma Sherif and Jaeki Song moves the focus
Acquisti, & Heinz, 2005). One instance of an organisation mis- away from social networking applications and looks at social drivers
judging the limits of digital decency was the high-prole failure of information sharing in the most ubiquitous electronic commu-
of Facebooks advertising tool, Beacon, which attracted a storm nication channel currently availableemail. They propose and test
of user protest over the inappropriate transfer of personal infor- a formal model that indicates how self-perceptions of social sta-
mation and claims of privacy invasion (Blakely, 2007; Sweney tus relate to the use of email, especially in the acquisition of social
and Gosden, 2006). Similarly, national newspapers throughout the resources. Discussing the ndings in the light of social cognitive
world have chronicled accounts of public institutions using per- theory, the authors provide insights that help shape our thinking
sonal information published on social networking sites to discipline about the future of social computing.
people. For example, Oxford University used Facebook to iden- We hope this special section will generate a more critical
tify and ne graduating students for disorderly conduct (Pavia, interest in the development of the social aspects of the grow-
2009) while police in New Zealand published CCTV footage on ing social media landscape. In particular, longitudinal studies of
Facebook to identify and catch a suspected burglar (Topping, emerging behaviours in social computing and rich cases of applica-
2009). These are two specic examples of a broader trend in tion integration are needed to help structure the understanding of
privacy abuses typied by reputational damage, unwanted expo- policy-makers, interaction designers and users of social computing.
sure and cyber-bullying. All these activities have highlighted
an urgent need for greater research, and understanding about References
this emerging but important area (Parameswaran & Whinston,
2007). Albrechtslund, A. (2008). Online social networking as participatory surveillance. First
Monday, 13(3).
In this special section, we have three papers that provide compli- Blakely, R. (2007). Facebook prodded into privacy U-turn. in The Times. http://
mentary studies on the nature of self-disclosure in social networks. business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry sectors/media/article2966861
Two of the papers provide accounts of the problems associated with .ece Accessed, March 26, 2009.
Boyd, D., & Ellison, N. (2007). Social network sites: Denition, history, and scholar-
privacy in online social networks while the third considers social ship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1). Retrieved on April 7,
assertiveness in email use. 2008, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html
The rst paper by Stefan Weiss examines a privacy threat Gross, R., Acquisti, A., & Heinz, H. J. (2005). Information revelation and privacy in
online social networks. In Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Workshop on Privacy in
model for data portability in social networks. Attention is particu-
the Electronic Society.
larly focused on the technical conundrum facing social networking Parameswaran, M., & Whinston, A. B. (2007). Research issues in social computing.
providers: the need to institute controls to protect users against Journal of the Association of Information Systems, 8(6), 336350.
the potential misuse of personally identiable information will- Pavia, W. (2009). Oxford University nes students with the aid of Face-
book. in The Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life and style/education/
ingly published on their sites while also maintaining sufcient article3768282.ece Accessed March 26, 2009.
openness to support online social networking and application Sweney, M., & Gosden, E. (2006). Facebookers protest over privacy. in The Guardian.
portability. Using structural surveys with technology experts in http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/sep/08/news.newmedia
Accessed January 28, 2008.
social network applications, Weiss identies a series of tailored Topping, A. (2009). Warning to criminals: police may be watching you on Facebook.
privacy-preserving requirements. From this, a privacy threat model in The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2009/jan/14/facebook-
is proposed that helps frame our understanding of informa- arrest-new-zealand Accessed March 26, 2009.
tion privacy in an age of network portability and application
integration. Melissa Cole , Laurence Brooks
In the second paper, Geoff Dick and Zaineb DeSouza consider Department of Information Systems and Computing,
the motivations of children to disclose information in social net- Brunel University, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, United Kingdom
working sites. Unlike adults, younger users display different degrees
Tel.:
+44 1895 266024.
of openness, trust and innocence towards sharing personal infor-
mation. While this causes concern in some quarters, the authors E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Cole)
conducted a survey to determine whether the concept of privacy

0268-4012/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2009.03.008