738 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 39 Mustafa Sagsan Near East University, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Tunç Medeni Middle East Technical University, Turkey Understanding “Knowledge Management (KM) Paradigms” from Social Media Perspective: An Empirical Study on Discussion Group for KM at Professional Networking Site ABSTRACT This paper aims at studying a discussion group/forum at one Professional Networking site (LinkedIn) for understanding and exemplifying “KM paradigms” such as humanist paradigm, inter/intra orga- nizational paradigm, technological paradigm, and socio-technical paradigms from the perspective of social media. Discourse and content analysis techniques based on qualitative research methodology are used in this study in order to understand the perception of the current status and future direction of knowledge management discipline through these expert comments that include storytelling, and which are based on the experience of actors. The focus is on determining new offered term/label instead of knowledge management of these discourses for deining the knowledge management discipline or science accurately. As a result, the differences of perceptions among members that represent different (such as academics/educators and practitioners’) backgrounds are also aimed to be identiied. At the end, we hope to exemplify how existing information is shared and new knowledge is developed with respect to a speciically selected, related topic, Knowledge management, among the members of a Professional Networking site. The results can also be useful for other related studies on social networks and their social and professional impacts. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-168-9.ch039