Global Social Media Design

The problem of designing social computing and social media applications across cultural boundaries is one of the most important challenges in human-computer interaction. It is tremendously difficult yet absolutely critical to successful applications. Huatong Sun's work is essential to those trying to work in this space." * Mark S. Ackerman, GH Mead Collegiate Professor of Human-Computer Interaction, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor *
The way Dr. Sun has integrated her knowledge of multiple disciplines with her longstanding and deep understanding of global aspects of design gives her insights into social media particular weight. This perspective * and this bookare both unique and extremely important." Susan M Dray, Fellow of ACM and of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Founder of SIGCHI Across Borders Initiative *
Too many social media designs have been found wanting in addressing discursive and cultural differences or in offering approaches that are critically tethered to social practice. Sun has now offered us a compelling framework to address these challenges. Immensely global in its design methodology and deeply border-traversing in its situated case studies, Global Social Media Design represents a timely and significant contribution to understanding differences and 'deficiencies' in cross-cultural design practices. It is a must read for scholars and students in rhetoric and writing studies, and cultural and media studies in search of new paradigms for productive engagement with difference in this increasingly interdependent and interconnected world." * LuMing Mao, Professor and Chair of Writing and Rhetoric Studies, University of Utah *
In Global Social Media Design, Huatong Sun relates practice theory, social justice theory, decolonialist methodology, and other strands to understand the implicit asymmetries in current design approaches, leading us to a design framework that aims to design for differences. Through careful comparative case studies of social media platforms, Sun illustrates her framework, sensitizing us to the ideological and discursive affordances in these platforms. The design insights are eye-opening and deeply needed as we design information and interactions for a global world." * Clay Spinuzzi, Professor, Department of Rhetoric and Writing, University of Texas at Austin *
This ground-breaking book by Huatong Sun introduces a postcolonial / decolonial critique to design practices. Too often, design for other cultural locales, or 'epistemic locations,' embeds and thus exports Euro-American assumptions as privileged methods. In a globalized world, these assumptions miss key criteria that would make technologies useful, or better, emancipatory. Novel, localized practices can in turn revolutionize personal technologies worldwide by shifting the parameters for meaningful design." * Eleanor Wynn, Editor Emerita, Information Technology & People; Principal Engineer (retired), Intel Corporation *