Re-considering participation in social media designs

This short paper reports from a museum innovation project using small-scale design experiments with mobile and social technologies to explore the participative museum along the Akerselva River in Oslo. We reflect upon what insights social media requires for design to engage people in participation in public and urban settings. The paper focuses on the micro-level of engagement in these media, and asks how a focus on language, semiotic and social practices may represent new possibilities for PD processes, using these media as design tools. It suggests that perspectives from cultural studies can be adapted to stage social media-based participatory design processes to reach communities that are dispersed over time and space.