As you might have noticed from the new (temporary) banner, changes are afoot here at Contech.

I started this blog as a primarily internal resource for people blogging at thesocietypages.org. Whenever people asked me questions about things like blogging clients or adding images to posts, I’d write up a post on Contech instead of just replying individually. However, I always secretly wanted to do a little more with this blog as well…

So from now on, all the “how-to” posts will now live at thesocietypages.org/howto. Contech is, as the blog description says, now about putting “social media in social contexts.”

What does that mean? Technology and the internet are obviously huge factors in our lives today. Most importantly, in our opinion, they are huge factors in our social lives. New “social media” and technologies like blogs, wikis and social networking sites have the potential to radically impact and transform the way we communicate, the relationships we form, and the knowledge we have about the world. The web is full of sites filled with daydreaming and speculation about the social causes and consequences of new technologies. Our aim is to bring social science research and theory to bear on these new developments. What does empirical data about social media technologies tell us? And in the absence of hard data, we think we can offer at least slightly more informed daydreaming and speculation. 🙂

I’m going to have company! Jessie Daniels and Chris Toulouse will both be writing for Contech. Chris specializes in teaching with technology & Jessie studies the convergence of race, gender and digital media. Over time, we hope to have others join in as well!1

So pardon the mess for a little bit, but the new Contech will be up and running very soon!

Footnotes

  1. Take that as an invitation, social scientists interested in blogging about technology! Email contech (at) thesocietypages.org for more information! [↩]