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The (R)Evolution of Social Media in Software Engineering

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The (R)Evolution of Social Media in Software Engineering The (R)Evolution of Social Media in Software Engineering Margaret-Anne Storey Leif Singer Brendan Cleary University of Victoria University of Victoria University of Victoria Victoria, BC, Canada Victoria, BC, Canada Victoria, BC, Canada [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Fernando Figueira Filho Alexey Zagalsky Universidade Federal do Rio University of Victoria Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil Victoria, BC, Canada [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT 1. INTRODUCTION Software developers rely on media to communicate, learn, A few years after the term \software engineering" was collaborate, and coordinate with others. Recently, social coined at a 1968 NATO conference [49], Weinberg media has dramatically changed the landscape of software published his acclaimed book on the \Psychology of engineering, challenging some old assumptions about how Computer Programming." [78] Weinberg emphasizes that developers learn and work with one another. We see the although programming is an activity that can be rise of the social programmer who actively participates in performed alone, it relies on extensive social activities as online communities and openly contributes to the creation developers will often have to ask others for help. of a large body of crowdsourced socio-technical content. The need to collaborate and interact with others has In this paper, we examine the past, present, and future only increased over time. Even solitary developers need to roles of social media in software engineering. We provide a interact directly or indirectly with others to learn, to review of research that examines the use of different media understand requirements and to seek feedback on their channels in software engineering from 1968 to the present creations. In addition to face-to-face communication, day. We also provide preliminary results from a large developers use many channels to interact. Communication survey with developers that actively use social media to media, such as the telephone, email, chat, bug tracking understand how they communicate and collaborate, and to tools, and code hosting sites, play a pivotal role in gain insights into the challenges they face. We find that collaborative software engineering activities, thus helping while this particular population values social media, to shape and form co-located and distributed online traditional channels, such as face-to-face communication, communities. However, media channels have different are still considered crucial. We synthesize findings from affordances for communication, coordination, collaboration our historical review and survey to propose a roadmap for and knowledge flow. future research on this topic. Finally, we discuss In just the past decade, the world has seen a massive implications for research methods as we argue that social and widespread adoption of social media|media which media is poised to bring about a paradigm shift in software supports many-to-many communication through social engineering research. networks. The speed and scale of adoption of social media such as Facebook and Twitter is unprecedented in the Categories and Subject Descriptors history of technology adoption [12]. These tools alone have had a profound and disruptive impact on many domains, H.5.3 [Group and Organization Interfaces]: Computer- most notably journalism and politics. Likewise, GitHub1 supported collaborative work (a social coding site) and Stack Overflow2 (a question and answer Website) have become part of the standard toolset General Terms for many software engineers in just the last few years. In this paper, we consider the impacts of social media Human Factors on software engineering activities. We propose that social media in software engineering is contributing to a paradigm Keywords shift in three significant ways: Social Media, Software Engineering, Collaboration. 1. The rise of the social programmer that actively participates in online development communities; Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or 2. A rapid increase in the creation and diffusion of classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed technologies and crowdsourced content; and forPermission profit or commercial to make digital advantage or and hard that copies copies of bear all this or notice part andof this the full work citation for on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM 3. The formation of ecosystems around content, mustpersonal be honored. or classroom Abstracting use with is granted credit is withoutpermitted. fee To providedcopy otherwise, that copiesor republish, are tonot post made on servers or distributed or to redistribute for profit to lists,or commercial requires prior advantage specific permission and that and/orcopies a technology, media, and developers. fee.bear Request this notice permissions and the from full [email protected]. citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to Copyrightrepublish, is to held post by on the servers author/owner(s). or to redistribute Publication to rights lists, licensed requires to prior ACM. specific permission and/or a fee. FOSE’14, May 31 – June 7, 2014, Hyderabad, India 1https://github.com ACMFOSE 978-1-4503-2865-4/14/05’14, May 31 – June 7, 2014, Hyderabad, India 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2593882.2593887Copyright 2014 ACM 978-1-4503-2865-4/14/05 ...$15.00. http://stackoverflow.com 100 This paper showcases a research roadmap that outlines such as radio, TV, newspapers and websites, support opportunities and challenges arising from the use of social one-to-many spectator style communication, often leading media in software engineering. We include a history of to hierarchical structures in organizations and society. media use in software engineering, from the very first days Postman, who also studied media extensively, refers to a of software engineering in the late 1960s, to the present day media ecology and suggests we undertake \the study of use of social media, preceded by a conceptual background environments: their structure, content and impact on on the role of media in communities. The paper concludes people." [58] Thus, Postman reminds us that when media is with a discussion on the impact social media is having on studied, it is important to consider the full landscape of software engineering research directions and methods. the channels used, their underlying context and the impacts on all stakeholders. 2. BACKGROUND 2.2 Social Media and Participatory Cultures In this section, we provide background on communities The development of the World Wide Web and cheap of practice and the role media plays in shaping those access to Internet communication (e.g., email and online communities. We then examine how social media has chat) has greatly impacted communities of practice. The contributed to a participatory culture within communities biggest changes have occurred in the past 5 - 10 years with of practice. Finally, we discuss communities of practice in the creation of a different kind of media: social media. software engineering. They support enhanced communications that spread faster 2.1 Role of Media in Communities of Practice and with wider reach. Social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) are cheaper and easier to use than traditional According to Wenger [79], communities of practice mass media, with many social media channels supporting a arise when \groups of people who share a concern or a many-to-many distribution mechanism. There are fewer passion for something they do and learn how to do it better barriers to participation, and merely interacting with the as they interact regularly." media is an implicit form of participation (e.g., clicking on Communities of practice support ongoing learning [37] a link reinforces the value of that link). Social media often for core and peripheral members, and act as a \living result in increased transparency, they are self-reinforcing in curriculum for the apprentice" with long term members in terms of participation and bring with them new forms of the community sharing practices, resources and tools with value. Social media are recognized as a disruptive force in each other and with newcomers. People outside the many domains [1] and they have been increasingly adopted community recognize that the community exists and value in corporate settings. the skills and relationships members have. Social scientists Jenkins et al. [30] observed that social media bring about study communities of practice to discern how people learn a participatory culture with the following attributes: from one another and to understand successful relationships and practices. Such insights can be helpful in • Low barriers to artistic expression and engagement building new communities and sharing work practices. • Strong support for creating and sharing one's creations Media play an essential role in supporting with others communication, collaboration and coordination activities • Informal mentorship|what is known by the within a community of practice. McLuhan proposed that experienced is passed along to novices media shapes society and culture|he defines media as • Members believe their contributions matter \ways of communicating that are extensions of a human • Members feel some degree of social connection and care being's senses." [46] He describes a history of media what others think about their creations starting with the tribal era, where speech shared in a group was a unifying act leading to enthusiasm
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