HSPH’s Center for Health Communication and the Office of Communications have launched a lunchtime seminar series on New Media, Social Networking, and Public Health, featuring guest speakers from the commercial media and nonprofit sectors.

The series will examine the implications for public health of profound changes that currently are underway in the media marketplace, including: the shift from unidirectional, expert-controlled  messaging to consumer-initiated and interactive communication; the explosive growth of social networking; and the massive proliferation of media sources.The series will explore questions such as: How can on-line social networking be leveraged to build grassroots engagement, promote policy advocacy, and build social environments that are supportive of healthy behavior change?  In an environment of user-generated media and blogs, how do public health authorities maintain “control” of “reliable” public health messages?

Facebook: Connecting for a Cause

Date:
March 9, 2009

Speaker:
Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster and Plaxo, and served as founding president of Facebook. In 2007, he co-founded Causes, a Facebook application that leverages social networks to promote altruism and social action. Parker is a managing partner of The Founders Fund, a venture capital fund.

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Fat World: Public Health's Got Game

Date:
November 13, 2008

Speaker:
Ian Bogost, leading videogame researcher, designer, and entrepreneur. He is a founding partner of Persuasive Games (a leading videogame studio), and is a professor at Georgia Tech.   

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Date: 
October 27, 2008

Speaker:
Nicco Mele, founder and President of EchoDitto, a leading Internet strategy consulting company.  He is currently a Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics.  Nicco played a lead role in Gov. Howard Dean's pioneering use of the Internet in his run for the White House.

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