In an increasingly networked world, the concept of community has taken on new meanings and inspired the development of a wide range of technologies aimed at forging connections, improving communication, and enabling coordination among groups of people. Today, such terms as virtual community, blogging, podcasting, and smart mobs have become commonplace, yet each represents a complex system of hardware, software, and people, shaped by perceptions, norms, rules, and habits, and occurring within varied social and cultural settings.
The Communities and Technologies biennial international conference serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating research on the complex connections between communities – both physical and virtual – and information and communication technologies. Researchers studying aspects of this interaction between communities and technologies, regardless of disciplinary background, are providing original contributions to International Conferences on Communities and Technologies.
