Social Software

Social software refers to computer network-based systems for collaboration among participants. The term primarily relates to newer applications such as wikis, weblogs, shared photo collections, collaboratively created tagging pages, and instant messaging. Generally, users create the respective content themselves, which fosters a sense of community. The introduction provides an overview of social software applications, addressing the challenges for media and communication research. The contributions cover topics such as the creation of open-source software and the impacts of weblogs, wikis, health forums, online role-playing games, instant messaging, and social software in organizational communication.