Special Issue On: Sustainable Knowledge Society and the Role of Social Media
Submission Due Date
3/1/2013

Guest Editor
Mustafa Zihni Tunca

Introduction
A commonly accepted definition of knowledge society is: "a formal association of people that creates, shares, and uses knowledge for the prosperity and well-being of its people with similar interests.” The individuals in a knowledge society try to make effective use of their combined knowledge about their areas of interest and in the process, contribute to this knowledge.

As reported by UNESCO, in emerging knowledge societies, there is a virtuous circle in which the progress of knowledge and technological innovation produce more knowledge in the long term. Although information is a knowledge-generating tool, it is not knowledge itself. In this context, information is simply a commodity, and excessive amount of information does not always provide the sustainability of knowledge.

The emergence of low-cost and highly accessible information and communication technologies (ICTs) has changed the way knowledge societies reach information resources. Nevertheless, in terms of sustainable development, the significance of such technologies goes well beyond the hyping of the Internet to link global economy and knowledge society, because knowledge has always been a factor of production and a driver of economic and social development.

In the past decade, the social web has been more popular than first-generation Internet sites that cannot provide dynamic and interactive applications. The term, “social media” represents an interactive online media experience to the users to easily participate and contribute, which is crucially important for developing a sustainable knowledge society. It involves mass collaboration, where people voluntarily participate and exchange knowledge. Social media radically changes the existing knowledge management paradigm by taking knowledge and making it highly iterative. It creates content as a social object. As a result, social media helps people in knowledge societies to be able to move easily through the flow of information, and to develop cognitive and critical thinking skills to distinguish between “useful” and “useless” information.

Objective
The aim of this special issue is to help both researchers and practitioners to develop a critical understanding of the role of social media on establishing sustainable knowledge societies. The special issue will bring together work from a range of disciplines to promote a multi-disciplinary perspective to develop practical and theoretical solutions to improve the economic, social, environmental, technological, educational, and administrative sustainability.

Recommended Topics
Topics to be discussed in this special issue include (but are not limited to) the following:

Digital divide
E-business, E-commerce, E-government, and E-services
Emerging and transition economies, developing and less developed countries
Globalization
Information and communication technologies
Innovation and entrepreneurship
Knowledge management
Knowledge societies
Management information systems
Social media
Sustainable development



Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit papers for this special theme issue on Sustainable Knowledge Society and the Role of Social Media on or before March 1, 2013. All submissions must be original and may not be under review by another publication. INTERESTED AUTHORS SHOULD CONSULT THE JOURNAL’S GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS at http://www.igi-global.com/Files/AuthorEditor/guidelinessubmission.pdf. All submitted papers will be reviewed on a double-blind, peer review basis. Papers must follow APA style for reference citations.

All submissions and inquiries should be directed to the attention of:
Dr. Mustafa Z. Tunca
Guest Editor
E-mails: mustafatunca@sdu.edu.tr and drtunca@hotmail.com