Farnaz Irannejad Bisafar will present the CSCW paper entitled A Sociotechnical Study of a Community-based Rewards Program: Insights on Building Social, Financial and Human Capital on Tuesday (Nov 6), 9 AM. The abstract is below:
Individual empowerment is defined as an increased sense of confidence and control over one’s life. Empowerment is critical in low-income communities and can be facilitated through the development of social, financial and human capital. We present a qualitative study of a community program that seeks to empower low-income neighborhood residents through a mobile application that connects them to local resources. Our findings highlight how the application and offline socio-organizational mechanisms worked in tandem to create gateways for capital building—sparking connections (to people and opportunities) that residents leveraged with varying motivations and outcomes. We also discuss how the interplay of newly developed financial, social, and human capital contributed to residents’ sense of empowerment and impacted their families. We contribute to CSCW by extending an existing community informatics framework, characterizing the value of sociotechnical systems that holistically build social, financial, and human capital amongst neighborhood residents.
Farnaz also participated in CSCW’s Doctoral Colloquium on Saturday and Sunday (Nov 3-4). She presented her doctoral research entitled Catalyzing Youth Civic Engagement Through Innovations in Social Computing. Check out the abstract below:
Social computing platforms (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) offer ways for youth activist groups to engage in civic action. However, it is challenging for youth activists to collaboratively leverage their networks and strategically engage in collective action online. Therefore, tools are needed to help these groups to better understand and leverage the resources available to them online for creating public engagement around issues of their interest. In my thesis, I want to explore how interactive social network visualizations can help youth activist groups to identify as a group online and to enhance their collective efficacy at engaging in collective action online.