The Proceedings of the European Conference on Social Media ECSM 2014 University of Brighton

These Proceedings represent the work of contributors to the inaugural European Conference on Social Media, ECSM 2014, hosted in its first year by the University of Brighton, UK. The Conference Chair is Asher Rospigliosi and the Programme Chair is Dr Sue Greener, both from Brighton Business School, at the University of Brighton.

The conference will be opened with a keynote address by Dr Farida Vis from the University of Sheffield in the UK who will be talking about the evolution of research on social media. David Gurteen, well known for the Gurteen Knowledge Community, will give a presentation on Towards Smarter Socially Mediated Conversations and John Traxler, Professor of Mobile Learning from Wolverhampton University in the UK will present Taking Education into Cyberspace – Chaos, Crisis and Community.

The scope of this inaugural conference was deliberately intended to be broad as we were keen to see the range of disciplines undertaking social media research. We have certainly not been disappointed – with mini tracks on e‐Participation and Democracy, Social Network Analysis, Social Media Innovation and Social Informatics. In addition tracks have evolved showing the current trend in social media research and areas include social media and marketing, the use of Facebook and social media in business – to name just a few.

With almost 200 people joining this first annual event, we look forward to ECSM becoming a valuable platform for individuals to present their research findings, display their work in progress and discuss conceptual advances in many different branches of social media. At the same time, it provides an important opportunity for members of the social media research community to come together with peers, share knowledge and exchange ideas.

With an initial submission of 266 abstracts, after the double blind, peer review process there are 76 academic papers, 14 PhD Papers and 16 Work in Progress papers in these Conference Proceedings. These papers reflect the truly global nature of research in the area with contributions from some 35 countries including Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Macau, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain,
Sweden, Turkey, UK and the USA.

Papers published in the conference proceedings will be considered for further development and publication by a number of journals, including the Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, The Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society (JICES), The International Journal of Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments and The International Journal of Web Based Communities. Additionally extended/advanced versions of papers presented in the mini track on e‐Participation and Democracy will be considered for publication in The International Journal of Electronic Governance.