Paper Reading # 7 - Grassroots Heritage in the Crisis Context: A Social Media Probes Approach to Studying Heritage in a Participatory Age

Reference
Sophia B. Lu
April 10-15, 2010, Atlanta, GA

Summary

This paper talks about how social media technologies have taken a bigger role in understanding cultural heritage. Historic events produce memories that are valuable to remember and share with others in future generations. As technology evolves, people are finding new ways to capture and share memories about everyday life.  The author points out that she focuses on social and cultural significance. Lu uses a HCI design she calls "social media probes" to improve engagement of participants.
Discussion
This paper is probably the most boring paper I have read in this class. Throughout the paper, the author Lu seems to go back to the same points. Lu points out that the way people are capturing memories through social media affects the heritage, and she is proposing ways to improve this. As I was reading this I kept telling myself, "Oh yeah!, Facebook is already capable of that". Then I thought well maybe her research was before Facebook's popularity exploded but nope her research was amidst Facebook's growing popularity.