Agents for Social (Media) Change

Sandip Sen, Zenefa Rahaman, Chad Crawford, Osman Yücel

Abstract: We are addicted to the Internet and spend a significant portion of our waking hours engaged to that virtual world through the "window" of our electronic devices. A large majority of these interactions occur on online social media. From advertising campaigns to political debates and from trending news topics to communications from family and social circles, social media platforms and services have become invaluable and irreplaceable tools for most of us. Our beliefs and preferences are increasingly shaped and defined by what we see and experience on social media. With this increased reliance also comes the uneasy realization that information and knowledge of value to us is being drowned out in the deluge of forwarded messages and targeted communication from paid advertisers on various social media platforms. This paper seeks to highlight the research challenges underlying the potential for intelligent agents to help stem the tide, to help us deliberate, prioritize and process information of value to us and to our communities, as well as help us reach out, connect to, share and disseminate mutually interesting knowledge with other users. We posit an agent-based ecosystem, where both individual users and organizations see the value and creative possibilities of agent-based solutions to critical problems of connectivity, relevance, varying interest profiles, context, etc.