Social information access is defined as a stream of research that explores methods for organizing the past interactions of users in a community in order to provide future users with better access to information. Social information access covers a wide range of different technologies and strategies that operate on a different scale, which can range from a small closed corpus site to the whole Web. The 16 chapters included in this book provide a broad overview of modern research on social information access. In order to provide a balanced coverage, these chapters are organized by the main types of information access (i.e., social search, social navigation, and recommendation) and main sources of social information.

Information available through 'traditional' business and competitive resources can be complimented by information gained through social media tools. Social Information is a must-have book for competitive and business researchers in any discipline including librarians, information professionals, intelligence analysts, students and marketing personnel, and explores how more 'traditional' resources can be complimented by social media tools. The book outlines different categories of social tools, competitive and business applications of these tools, and provides example searches with screenshots. The book provides concrete search examples, as well as strategies and approaches for searching social tools that may be available today or that may emerge tomorrow. Readers will learn ways to quickly develop new search strategies as new tools and features emerge. The future of social tools and information, and the lasting impact that these tools have had on how information plays a part in our lives, our businesses and our careers is discussed. The title is structured into seven chapters, covering: the impact of social media, and the approach of the book; a brief history of business and competitive information and the rise of social tools; blogs and microblogs; video, audio and images; social search engines; and the future of social information. - The book specifically explores business and competitive information and approaches using social media tools - Written by a highly knowledgeable and long-time practitioner and researcher in the field - Provides both practical and strategic search approaches, so that the skills learned will be readily transferable to other social tools, and to social tools as they evolve

"This book provides a source for definitions, antecedents, and consequences of social informatics and the cultural aspect of technology. It addresses cultural/societal issues in social informatics technology and society, the Digital Divide, government and technology law, information security and privacy, cyber ethics, technology ethics, and the future of social informatics and technology"--Provided by publisher.

Recent research has emphasized that socially transmitted information may affect both the gene pool and the phenotypes of individuals and populations, and that an improved understanding of evolutionary issues is beneficial to those working towards the improvement of human health. In response to a growing interest across disciplines for information regarding the contribution of social behavior to a range of biological outcomes, Social Information Transmission and Human Biology connects the work of evolutionary theorists and those dealing with practical issues in human health and demographics. Combining evolutionary models with biomedical research, authors from various disciplines look at how human behavior influences health, and how reproductive fitness sheds light on the processes that shaped the evolution of human behavior. Both academic and medical researchers will find much useful insight in this text.

How data science and the analysis of networks help us solve the puzzle of unintended consequences. Social life is full of paradoxes. Our intentional actions often trigger outcomes that we did not intend or even envision. How do we explain those unintended effects and what can we do to regulate them? In Decoding the Social World, Sandra González-Bailón explains how data science and digital traces help us solve the puzzle of unintended consequences—offering the solution to a social paradox that has intrigued thinkers for centuries. Communication has always been the force that makes a collection of people more than the sum of individuals, but only now can we explain why: digital technologies have made it possible to parse the information we generate by being social in new, imaginative ways. And yet we must look at that data, González-Bailón argues, through the lens of theories that capture the nature of social life. The technologies we use, in the end, are also a manifestation of the social world we inhabit. González-Bailón discusses how the unpredictability of social life relates to communication networks, social influence, and the unintended effects that derive from individual decisions. She describes how communication generates social dynamics in aggregate (leading to episodes of “collective effervescence”) and discusses the mechanisms that underlie large-scale diffusion, when information and behavior spread “like wildfire.” She applies the theory of networks to illuminate why collective outcomes can differ drastically even when they arise from the same individual actions. By opening the black box of unintended effects, González-Bailón identifies strategies for social intervention and discusses the policy implications—and how data science and evidence-based research embolden critical thinking in a world that is constantly changing.

The wealth of information accessible on the Internet has grown exponentially since its advent. This mass of content must be systemically sifted to glean pertinent data, and the utilization of the collective intelligence of other users, or social information retrieval, is an innovative, emerging technique. Social Information Retrieval Systems: Emerging Technologies & Applications for Searching the Web Effectively provides relevant content in the areas of information retrieval systems, services, and research; covering topics such as social tagging, collaborative querying, social network analysis, subjective relevance judgments, and collaborative filtering. Answering the increasing demand for authoritative resources on Internet technologies, this Premier Reference Source will make an indispensable addition to any library collection.

Nonconscious Social Information Processing presents a research program concerned with the processing of social information. It cannot be considered a typical social psychological research program, however, because it is not aimed at explaining any specific social psychological phenomena, nor are the cognitive processes studied specific to the processing of social information. The program explores complex or ""high level"" processing of information that is not mediated by conscious awareness, and social cognition seems to be an appropriate area in which to investigate this kind of processing. The research program began with observations which suggest that nonconscious acquisition and processing of information play a major role in human development and adjustment. The first two chapters discuss these observations and present preliminary theoretical assumptions. The subsequent chapters contain reports of 34 experiments on nonconscious information processing. The book is addressed not only to personality and social psychologists, but also to cognitive psychologists concerned with information processing in general. The former may find this research relevant because most of the experiments describe some mechanisms of acquisition and utilization of social information—problems they are working on themselves. The latter may want to ignore the specific stimulus material (i.e., social information) employed in most of the experiments and focus on the general nature of the cognitive mechanisms studied.