Introduction to the Software Studies Software is deeply woven into contemporary lifeeconomically, culturally, creatively, politicallyin manners both

h obvious and nearly invisible. Simply put, it is the study of every aspect of software, from its design, its impact, and the social spaces that it creates, to investigate both the role of software in forming contemporary culture, while studying the forces which shape the development of software itself. http://www.edenweb.co.uk/blogimages/dilbert_gui.gif Beginnings - increasingly, artists, scientists, engineers, designers, scholars, in the humanities and the social sciences are finding that for the questions they face, the things they need to build, an expanded understanding of software is necessary HCI - human computer interaction UI/UX - user interface, user design software as a layer that permeates all areas of contemptorary societies need to account for the role of software and its influences how has disciplines such as architecture, design, art, sociology, political science, humanities, science/tech, changed due to software involvement? we need new methodologies those who know the most about software, are those who write the software themselves, i.e. programmers, engineers but can they translate that to society/community? increase in every people to be involved in coding/programming ex: building mobile apps as a side project but the gap is still large between people in tech and people not there are entire job industries to train people in certain software half of IT departments job is to deal with people rather than the software itself how culture affects our software is just as impt as how our software affects our culture MORE ON THIS ON THURSDAY http://www.uxarts.com/images/tire_swing_tall.jpg Types of Software Cultural software which support actions we normally associate with culture list in article creating, sharing cultural artifcats (editing music video) engaging in cultural experience (computer game) creating sharing knowledge (adding to wiki) communication (email/chat/social networking) online information ecology (like, +1, trends, mass decisions) developing tools that support the above (programming

database/library) Social search engines, blog editor, email client, social netowkrs tools for personal information management Media word, powerpoint, photoshop, illustrator, firefox, blogger, etc

Examples spotify/facebook Societal Impact Ownership? Software to manage your interactions with software. Group Discussions The boundaries between public (work) and private life Constructed and real personality Benefit and disadvantage Potential problems society can run into making decisions solely on trends digital divide who are the social/online communities actually representing the world? what are the implications of using these data for business and national security decisions cost/benefit analysis of online action shopping (impulse buy) ethical/moral detachment of reality

ex: spotify/pandora urbandaddy/trending/facebook like foursquare/facebook places groupon/living privacy http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/55-interesting-social-media-infographics/