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Events - 18.10.2012 - 00:00 

HSG lectures in Wattwil

“The HSG in the region” will visit Wattwil Cantonal School this Autumn Semester. From 7 November onwards, the HSG will be inviting the general public to three lectures on the social media.

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31 October 2012. Social networks, blogs and microblogs interlink people across national borders. They enable and support social and political change but also contain dangers. The lecture series “The HSG in the region” will focus on how the social media are used and what consequences they have.

Critical analysis
A sensible use of Web 2.0 can bring about many things: on the international political stage or in companies, but also in our immediate personal everyday lives. A critical analysis of the networking media is necessary. Reservations concerning, say, data protection and copyright or the borderline between public and private are sometimes appropriate. On 7 November, Prof. Dr. Christian Fieseler will therefore speak about “Power and powerlessness online – social change through social media”.

From consumer to producer
Then again, the social media have an immense innovation potential and many possibilities of participation. They support the democratisation of knowledge and information, and users change from consumers into producers with personal responsibility by generating, processing and disseminating contents. This, in turn, has an influence on purchasing behaviour, as Prof. Dr. Thomas Rudolph will explain to the audience on 13 November in his lecture on “The influence of the social media on purchasing behaviour”.

Social and political consequences of interlinkage
Social networks such as Facebook and Xing, the content community YouTube, the virtual world of Second Life and the microblog Twitter interlink people through several channels worldwide. On 20 November, the consequences of this interlinkage, particularly in the democracy movement in China, will be the focus of Prof. Dr. Daria Berg’s lecture, which will be entitled “Social media in China”.

Photo: Photocase / complize

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