[Colloq] Computational Social Science Hiring Talk: March 26 @ 11:30am: Thom on Getting Up to Speed: Social Media as a Resource for Newcomer Acculturation

[Jessica Biron]

Getting Up to Speed: Social Media as a Resource for Newcomer Acculturation 

Jennifer Thom 





Tuesday, March 26 th 

11:30 am – 12:45 pm 

Lake Hall - 206 





Abstract: 

Newcomers are essential to the health of collaborative organizations. 

In order for newcomers to successfully adapt to their new 

surroundings, newcomers must learn about the norms, values and culture 

of the organizations they have just joined. When collaborative groups are 

distributed, this process of acculturation can change, as it moves 

online. In this talk, I describe research that examine how newcomers 

can affect the ecology of established groups and then focus on current 

work aimed at providing resources for newcomer acculturation through 

social media. Finally, I discuss ongoing work investigating the impact 

of culture on participation in social media systems. 





Biography: 

Jenn is a Research Scientist in the Collaborative User Experience 

Group at IBM Research. At IBM, her research focuses on how the culture 

of a group affects how its members collaborate and contribute to 

social systems. Jenn received her Ph.D in Communication from Cornell 

University in 2009. Her dissertation work examined how users express 

territorial behaviors in online collaborative spaces. For more 

information, see www.jennthom.com .