The Digital & Social Media track of the Hawai'i International Conference on System Science (HICS) is a convening platform for researchers to share and discuss their cutting-edge research on digital and social media. Defined in a broad sense, digital media are digitized content (text, graphics, audio/video) that can be archived and transmitted over multiple networks such as cable, satellite, telecommunications, and broadband networks to a variety of digital devices from mainframe systems to individual smart phones. Social media describes the collection of web and mobile-based technologies that mediate human and social communication via social networks and that enable individuals, groups and communities to gather, communicate and share information, to collaborate or to play. Digital and social media research are closely related, as both address basic communications processes (defined as the sharing of meaning) and increasingly critical as the role of networks and other digital technologies become an anchor for change in societies. The track includes nine mini-tracks on a variety of topics.
