The use of social networking websites is growing rapidly and it is predicted that social networking websites will continue to grow in all areas including the use of social media software in the workplace. According to the latest Facebook statistics available, there are more than 400 million active users with 50% of all users logging on each day. There are more than 3 million active pages on Facebook with 1.5 million local businesses with active pages. Hence, businesses are discovering Facebook and many organizations such as IBM, Best Buy, Microsoft, and others have created internal social media websites based on the success of Facebook.
Today, the most popular social media websites for business professionals are LinkedIn and Facebook. While Facebook has its roots in universities, LinkedIn was created as a professionals’ networking site. According to its statistics, it has 65 million members in 200 countries with nearly half of members living in the United States. There are LinkedIn members representing all Fortune 500 companies.
With the surge of social media use across multiple age groups and growing acceptance of both internal and external use of social media in the workplace a question arises: How is social media changing the culture of the workplace?
In the following annotated bibliography, I reviewed six articles with the intent of providing a basic review of the studies emerging related to use of social media websites in the workplace. Of course, six articles do not provide a total or comprehensive overview of the subject, but it does provide a glimpse of the current research related to the topic. Namely, more and more people are using technology-based communications such as cell phones, e-mail, instant messaging as well as social media websites as part of their daily workplace interactions. With this in mind, it is important to learn about how the use of technology and more specifically social media networking is changing the dynamics of the workplace environment.
Annotated Bibliography
Agarwal, S., & Mital, M. (2009). An Exploratory study of Indian university students' use of social networking web sites: implications for the workplace. Business Quarterly, 105-110.
Agarwal and Mital’s purpose in this study was to show how university students use social network websites (SNW) and to initiate a discussion about how future professionals might use SNWs in the workplace.
Agarwal and Mital used a 5-point Likert-type scale in a 15-item survey in a 29 respondent pilot study and again with 427 business student at an Indian University. Approximately 67% of the respondents were male, while 33% were female. The authors recognize that this exploratory study was skewed due to an unbalanced percentage of men versus women who participated in the study. Also, since it was taken in India where women have specific cultural and gender roles, their use of SNWs may not represent the larger global audience who use SNWs.
The results indicated that students use Social Network Websites for both leisure and serious deliberations. Agarwal and Mital suggest that the use of SNWs indicate “a gradual merging of cultural boundaries, with a future possibility of emergence of a new virtual social and professional culture” ( p. 107).
Some major findings in this survey included that there are significant differences in the use of SNWs based on psychographic characteristics such as socialization and degree of trust, as well as demographic characteristics such as age, gender and Internet use. It suggests that respondents are open and ready to adopt a virtual professional culture, which Agarwal and Mital claim would be beneficial to a cross-cultural organization. Overall, Agarwal and Mital suggest that the survey results indicate that future employees gain knowledge through the responsible use of the Internet and networking can make employees more productive and valuable in a global economy.
Agarwal and Mital’s work provides information that is useful in helping to answer my research question “How is social media changing the culture of the workplace?”
DiMicco, JM, Millen DR, Geyer W., Dugan C. "Research on the use of social software in the workplace." Workshop on Social Networking in Organizations, Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2008), November 2008.
This paper provides an overview of research on the use of social software in the workplace using an internal social media site called Beehive, which is located behind the firewalls of IBM. The primary agenda is related to understanding adoption, usage patterns, motivations, and impact (1). The key findings of this research are related to the motivations of social networking use and its impact on the workplace (1). The primary conclusion of the authors is that there is “initial evidence that a social network site inside an enterprise can play an important role in helping employees maintain and develop connections within the company, support networking and career goals, and potentially increase employee social capital” ( p. 3).
Building on previous research, the authors asked: why are people using the site? What are their goals? (1) To answer these questions, they conducted in-depth interviews to understand users’ motivations and thoughts about usage. Using both qualitative analysis and quantitative overview of the site, the researchers looked for replicated information.
Two keys factors rose to the top. Users of Beehive connected with co-workers they did not know as opposed to how most people use Facebook, which is to contact people they do know. The second factor was that Beehive users revealed more about their personal lives than found on studies related to external social networking sites (2).
After summarizing interview transcripts and considering users’ value and benefits statements, three motivation themes emerged. Users of Beehive use it to: 1) share personal information with co-workers; 2) career advancement; and 3) to try to convince other to support ideas and projects (2).
The authors state that in their latest analysis of Beehive users that employees experience greater social capital with greater use of the Beehive site. For example, someone using Beehive for meeting new contacts report a greater interest in making these types of contacts in the future
As a secondary purpose, internal social networking software can support company goals such as the creation of rich employee profiles to enable better work assignments and collaboration.
The authors conclude that there is initial evidence that supports the idea that an internal social networking site such as Beehive can play important roles for employees to create and maintain relationships within a company, support networking and career goals, and potential increase employee social capital (3).
This directly relates to my question “How is social media changing the culture of the workplace?” As more and more people use social media software both internally and externally, to connect with co-workers, family, and friends, it becomes vital to understand how social media sites change relationships, enhance or hinder our communications, and how it alters the workplace environment. Very good
DiMicco, J.M. and Millen, D.R., People sensemaking and relationship building. In Proc Sensemaking Workshop, CHI '08 (2008).
The premise of this position workshop paper is to show that social networking websites are used for people sense making. The authors describe people sense making as a process that people go through to make interpretations about how to perceive other people in an effort to interact and communicate with them.
The authors used both qualitative methods and quantitative methods to determine their findings. As part of this methodology, the authors interviewed participants in Beehive, an intranet sites at IBM and they also utilized page views on content pages. The evidence indicated that people use both Internet sites such as Facebook and intranet sites such as Beehive to gather information about both people they know and people they do not know personally.
The authors conclude that the main strengths of social networking sites are that they can support the act of people sense making. This is important to my research question, “How is social media changing the culture of the workplace?” Both internal and external social media sites help users in the workplace create meaningful models to enable them to determine which people they want to contact and perhaps work with in the future.
DiMicco, J., Millen, D. R., Geyer, W., Dugan, C., Brownholtz, B., and Muller, M. 2008. Motivations for social networking at work. CSCW '08. ACM, New York, NY, 711-720.
This paper is part of the growing body of works by the authors that is built upon previous research related to Beehive, an internal social network site for IBM employees, and research related to external sites such as Facebook. DiMicco, Millen, Geyer, Dugan, Brownholtz and Muller answer three questions. 1) Whom do employees connect with? 2) What are employees’ motivations for using the site? 3) What type of content is shared on the site?
The research methodology used by the authors is qualitative interviews and quantitative analysis of usage logs. They used qualitative interviews with active users of Beehive. They cross-analyzed the information obtained with quantitative analysis of usage logs to help verify qualitative information.
Three main themes related to motivation emerged from the research. The three themes were named caring, climbing, and campaigning. Caring users tend to share hobbies and outside interests through lists and about-you profile information. They also share personal photographs and express themselves on a more personal level (p. 718). Climbing users tend to focus on their skills and background through the use of photos and status messages reflective of their work projects and current work responsibilities (p. 718). Campaigning users write lists to express their thoughts about different professional topics and describe work projects. Campaigners also use their status reports to indicate their goals and a desire for contact from others to talk about their work projects and goals ( p. 718).
This research points to many benefits for companies, since it is important for companies to provide internal communication tools such as social software tools. The authors point out the changes in the business/workplace culture is for the most part that companies and employees accept the use of social media software. The authors point out that social network tools help bridge generational differences and boundaries. The research also shows that a high percentage of users are managers and senior level employees; thus, this helps to bridge the internal communications gaps between non-ranking employees and managers. Another important feature for companies using an internal social media network such as Beehive is that the information about employees is available to the company. This is a new information source and offers new opportunities to understanding the workforce. This could benefit the company in many ways including helping employees to communicate about work projects without limitations to time.
Skeels, M., Grudin, J, (2009) “When social networks cross boundaries: a case study of workplace use of Facebook and LinkenIn.” Proceedings of GROUP 2009, May 2009.
Skeels and Grudin focus their research on two major Internet social media network sites called Facebook and LinkedIn. By using a broad survey and interviews, Skeels and Grudin find many social and work uses for social media networks. They anticipate a rapid uptake by business organizations in the use of both external and internal social media network sites.
This research project was focused on employees of Microsoft. The value of Skeels and Grudin’s work for my research question “How is social media changing the culture of the workplace?” is related to their work related to the tensions affecting use of social media networks in the workplace. In interviews and free text surveys, four issues came up repeatedly. 1) the legitimacy of any workplace use of social networking software, tensions from mixing personal and professional personas, lack of delineation of hierarchy, status, and power boundaries and the risk of inappropriate communication across the firewall ( p.6)
Some respondents felt that use of social networking sites were a “productivity killer” ( p.6) There is controversy in the workplace about this issue.
Some of the tensions respondents discussed were related to crossing the boundaries of work and personal life. Most issues were resolved by “controlling” content on their sites. Other tensions include the fear of revealing confidential company information on external social media sites.
Skeels and Grudin found that the interest in social networking sites by companies is high. Many employers feel it has potential for work-related uses, while others are on the fence.
This research is useful in answering my questions “How is social media changing the culture of the workplace?” because it addresses the use of external social media networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. It addresses the uses and the tensions felt by the new technology as it is integrated into the workplace.
Wu, A., DiMicco, J.M., Millen, D.R. (2010) “Detecting professional versus personal closeness using an enterprise social network site.” Proceedings of CHI 2010, April 2010.
Anna Wu joins forces with IBM researchers DiMicco and Millen in this current research just presented April 14, 2010. Building on the prior research of DiMicco and Millen along with other IBM research team members, the authors present an “analysis of the behavior of employees on a company-internal social network site to determine if relationship closeness can be predicted from employees’ social network sites interactions” (p. 1) They used a regression model with 25 factors. This particular project was desired to introduce a model for predicting professional and personal relationship closeness based on social network site behavior.
The authors acknowledge that since they only studied one social media site, Beehive, that there are limitations and it can not be likened to the same results as research related to external sites such as Facebook.
The authors discuss “relationship multiplexity,” (p. 1) which is important since the workplace often serves as both a place of employment and as a place for friendships that go beyond the corporate walls.
This research is an additional facet that relates to my research question related to how social media networks are changing the culture of the workplace. Wu, DiMicco and Millen explore the two questions: 1) How does behavior on a company-internal social network site reflect the relationships between a company’s employees? The authors believe that by answering this initial question that it will help broaden the scope of research by measuring the strength of ties in social media by adding a new context, the workplace, to the existing findings on external sites (p. 2)
The second question is “What are the strongest behavioral predictors of professional versus personal closeness in the workplace?” This question is designed to help create a mechanism for detecting the professional versus personal facets of workplace relationships. The authors also provide an understanding how professional and personal closeness predicts weak and strong ties as it relates to work ( p. 3) .
Conclusions
In summary, social media networking research definitely shows that there is an acceptance of social media networking in the workplace as well as in the general population (Agarwal and Mital 2009, DiMicco, Millen, Geyer and Dugan 2008, Brownholtz and Muller 2008, Skeels and Grudin 2009, Wu, DiMicco and Millen 2010)
The quality of the research reviewed is solid. All of the researchers relied on both qualitative and quantitative research to cross-analyse the information. The work of DiMicco and Millen provides a basis of continuous long term research since it is related to an ongoing, growing internal network called Beehive. The fact that DiMicco and Millen’s work is related to a real global organization lends credibility to the research as well as the fact that it is longitudinal study.
The literature provides solid groundwork for further study related to how social media networks are changing the culture of the workplace. Some of the highlights of the research include how social networks play an important role for employees as they develop work place connection, promote career goals and create social capital as well as the benefits to the organization with the development of rich detailed personal profiles created within the social networks.
The implications of this limited literature review related to “How is social media changing the culture of the workplace?” are strong. This overview of the initial evidence points that a social network site inside an enterprise, such a Beehive at IBM, can play an important role in helping employees at all levels to maintain and develop workplace connections, support networking and career goals and creation of value perceived social capital (DiMicco, Geyer, Dugan 2008). DiMicco, et al, states that in their latest analysis of Beehive users that employees experience greater social capital with greater use of the Beehive site. For example, someone using Beehive for meeting new contacts report a greater interest in making these types of contacts in the future (DiMicco, Geyer, Dugan 2008).
As a secondary purpose, internal social networking software can support company goals such as the creation of rich employee profiles to enable better work assignments and collaboration (DiMicco, Geyer, Dugan 2008).
The research presented lays the groundwork for future research for both internal and external use of social media networking sites. Some future questions researchers have proposed include:
1) “Which design features of social network sites support the maintenance of relations? 2) What types of social software best support organizational goals of innovation, group formation, and expertise location? 3) Does the use of social software in the workplace change the nature of relationships in the workplace? 4) Is there evidence of social media creating less work flow because of time spent using social software?” (DiMicco, Geyer, Dugan 2008)
It is apparent that social network sites are popular both internally in a workplace as with the use of Beehive at IBM and of course, Facebook and LinkedIn are popular external social media sites (Skeels and Grudin 2009). The literature points out that the human relationships created both internally and externally on social media sites are fraught with complex issues related to professional and personal use (Skeels and Grudin 2009, Wu, DiMicco and Millen 2010). It is apparent that the culture of the workplace is changing. At one time, people worked in smaller geographic areas, used paper documents and personal sharing was done in person around the water cooler, in the break room, or around a lunch table. Today, work collaboration and socializing is done both in person and digitally via the Internet or the Corporate Intranet. With this in mind, it is apparent that social media networking is affecting the culture of the workplace. Therefore, it is imperative that research continues to help both individuals and organization create better workplace environments both virtually and in the real world.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Media: A look back and forward
While I have been part of media since the late 1970s, I have witnessed the evolution of ideas, norms and tools of the media. My first introduction to media occurred in elementary school when I was a Girl Scout reporter and I handwrote a column called the “Girl Scout News”. It was a thrill to see my byline and my story in “print.” At the time, I earned my Girl Scout badge for “The Scribe”. Over the years, I learned how to transform my writing from hand to typewriter to word processor to linotype to Compugraphic to personal computer.
By the time Apple came out with its first computer I was a journalist banging out copy on a Royal typewriter and even quite journalism when I was forced to input more than 1000 inches of copy into the Radio Shack TR-80. (It has one line of copy running across a monitor and you transferred it via a modem.) At this time, I still only had taken a few classes at the community college and did not have a college education. In 1987, it was a thrill to have FAX machines. Just think, I didn’t have to drive to get a contract signed. It could be signed and faxed. However , thermal papers did dissolved over time.
In the 1990s, I went back to school and embraced creative writing and instructional technology. I learned how to use a variety of programs and even did an analysis on what it would take to convert a television station to digital. I saw it coming---this digital age.
By the late 1990s, I was continuing my education and learning as much as I could about software, HTML and other programming codes in hope of changing my career path online. It would take until about 2005 before I had enough skills and understanding to embrace the entire digital concept.
As a journalist, I saw the decline of print, so I have studied online media, video, social media and other online techniques. Much of what I have learned is through my classes with Richard Beach. (Thanks!)
I am an avid fan of Facebook and I use it regularly to interact with classmates, co-workers, unknown friends and business acquaintances. I even have created groups that I would deem successful. For example, I created “You Know You’re From Philomath, Oregon if”…within about six weeks it had about 700 members. (the town has about 4,000 populations, so I think this is great.) I have also created other groups for business. One such group is “My Referral Network.”
I use Facebook as a networking tool, so my persona is professional in nature. However, I know many people who have “fake” profiles, so they can be whomever they choose to be online. I don’t have a problem with this unless they are attempting to scam someone out of time, money or emotions.
For business, I have created and manage several business pages including: Wink’s Old Town Grill, Warm Mineral Springs, Help-U-Sell Corporate and others.
From my research, I have found that more and more people use Facebook for both social and business purposes. It is still in the infancy stage, so there is a lot of work to be done in researching how people use it. (I have written a paper on this topic, which I will share with you.)
As for using Facebook to teach, I do. I use Facebook to teach my students about a variety of things. For example, corporations can use Facebook or Facebook-like social media to collaborate. I can point at media trends to my students and also encourage them to become virtual community leaders with groups and other pages. It is also quite interesting to see how social norms change online. For example, remember when you met someone and you were not interested in pursuing the relationship, you just said, “Let’s be friends.” Everyone knew what that meant. Today, people can say, “Let’s just be Facebook friends.” What does that mean? I would think it is a big slap in the face in the virtual world to be relegated to being on someone’s list (probably hidden) on Facebook. Something to think about!
I also do train Realtors how to use Facebook as a tool for their business. Of course, the goal is to move the prospect off of Facebook into a sale funnel, but to get social media to work for you, it’s important to offer fresh, relevant content to keep the folks coming back for more before moving them to the funnel.
I see Facebook as a tool for communication. It is engaging, addictive and a fun way to keep up in this very busy world.
By the time Apple came out with its first computer I was a journalist banging out copy on a Royal typewriter and even quite journalism when I was forced to input more than 1000 inches of copy into the Radio Shack TR-80. (It has one line of copy running across a monitor and you transferred it via a modem.) At this time, I still only had taken a few classes at the community college and did not have a college education. In 1987, it was a thrill to have FAX machines. Just think, I didn’t have to drive to get a contract signed. It could be signed and faxed. However , thermal papers did dissolved over time.
In the 1990s, I went back to school and embraced creative writing and instructional technology. I learned how to use a variety of programs and even did an analysis on what it would take to convert a television station to digital. I saw it coming---this digital age.
By the late 1990s, I was continuing my education and learning as much as I could about software, HTML and other programming codes in hope of changing my career path online. It would take until about 2005 before I had enough skills and understanding to embrace the entire digital concept.
As a journalist, I saw the decline of print, so I have studied online media, video, social media and other online techniques. Much of what I have learned is through my classes with Richard Beach. (Thanks!)
I am an avid fan of Facebook and I use it regularly to interact with classmates, co-workers, unknown friends and business acquaintances. I even have created groups that I would deem successful. For example, I created “You Know You’re From Philomath, Oregon if”…within about six weeks it had about 700 members. (the town has about 4,000 populations, so I think this is great.) I have also created other groups for business. One such group is “My Referral Network.”
I use Facebook as a networking tool, so my persona is professional in nature. However, I know many people who have “fake” profiles, so they can be whomever they choose to be online. I don’t have a problem with this unless they are attempting to scam someone out of time, money or emotions.
For business, I have created and manage several business pages including: Wink’s Old Town Grill, Warm Mineral Springs, Help-U-Sell Corporate and others.
From my research, I have found that more and more people use Facebook for both social and business purposes. It is still in the infancy stage, so there is a lot of work to be done in researching how people use it. (I have written a paper on this topic, which I will share with you.)
As for using Facebook to teach, I do. I use Facebook to teach my students about a variety of things. For example, corporations can use Facebook or Facebook-like social media to collaborate. I can point at media trends to my students and also encourage them to become virtual community leaders with groups and other pages. It is also quite interesting to see how social norms change online. For example, remember when you met someone and you were not interested in pursuing the relationship, you just said, “Let’s be friends.” Everyone knew what that meant. Today, people can say, “Let’s just be Facebook friends.” What does that mean? I would think it is a big slap in the face in the virtual world to be relegated to being on someone’s list (probably hidden) on Facebook. Something to think about!
I also do train Realtors how to use Facebook as a tool for their business. Of course, the goal is to move the prospect off of Facebook into a sale funnel, but to get social media to work for you, it’s important to offer fresh, relevant content to keep the folks coming back for more before moving them to the funnel.
I see Facebook as a tool for communication. It is engaging, addictive and a fun way to keep up in this very busy world.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Feminist Theory and Discourse Theory Assignment for The Social Network
The Social Network is based on the true story of how founder Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook with his friends. The opening scene of the movie sets up the movie with a conversation between Zuckerberg and his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend. From a Feminist Criticism reponse, it would appear that woman portrayed as the girlfriend is beneath Zuckerberg in status and reflects the male character as narsacistic, inept and socially incapable of having a normal relationship. Since The Social Network is a movie told from a male perspective, the role of women in this movie seem to be one of sexual stereotypes. The woman is used as a device to show Zuckerberg’s personality. In fact, no woman in the film has a fully developed character, but each woman offers a part of a woman. The school girl ex-friend is the unobtainable romanctic partner, another woman is portrayed as easy and as a groupie nut case who later sets fire to the bed of one of Zuckerberg’s friends.
This movie trailer shows the trailer for “The Social Network” based on the story of Facebook origins. Listen to the conversation between the girl and the guy.
How women are portrayed as “the bitch” and compared to “farm animals” in the movie “The Social Network”
Women portrayed as groupies in “The Social Network”
“The Social Network” portraying women as takers.
For students:
Watch the clips above and answer the following questions about the women portrayed in each clip.
1) What role do the female characters play in the scene. How is the women portrayed? In your point of view, is it positive or negative? Does YOUR gender determine how you feel about this female character? Do you think that the female roles reflect a true picture of what a woman is?
2) How does the female character reinforce stereotypes?
3) How does the female character distort how woman are in your experience.
Watch the clips again, this time reflect on the following:
1) As you know, discourses are ways of knowing and thinking. How does each clip serve to support or perpetuate the idea that women are sexual objects?
2) Identify the discourse operating in the clips related to women.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Buy Me! Buy Me! Media Literacy: Product Placement Assignment
Media Literacy
Product placement in film
Part 1
1) Watch the following clips for this assignment or choose a favorite movie to review for this assignment. Apply the above three questions to each clip viewed.
2) Product placement clips. Watch all of these before you write your responses. Watch all of these clips for product placement. Now from films you have recently watch on your own, what do you think?
Part II
1) When watching a film/movie/television program, do you notice the use of “props” ? If so, what do you recall about the use of food products, technology, clothing?
2) Explain your emotional responses to seeing products in a film/movie/television program. Does the use of product placement bother you? Does it take away from your overall experience of the film/movie/television program?
3) Do you notice the use of cigarettes or alcohol in film/movies/television shows? Can you name some specific instances of use in one of your favorite films/movies/television shows?
4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDsqySu0vMA
5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la4HAl4W1ZQ
6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqv3sUzPg2A
7) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36wUmJGzvA
8) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeVQwomIgjs
9) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HpIZrOH4zc
Product placement in film
Part 1
1) Watch the following clips for this assignment or choose a favorite movie to review for this assignment. Apply the above three questions to each clip viewed.
2) Product placement clips. Watch all of these before you write your responses. Watch all of these clips for product placement. Now from films you have recently watch on your own, what do you think?
Part II
1) When watching a film/movie/television program, do you notice the use of “props” ? If so, what do you recall about the use of food products, technology, clothing?
2) Explain your emotional responses to seeing products in a film/movie/television program. Does the use of product placement bother you? Does it take away from your overall experience of the film/movie/television program?
3) Do you notice the use of cigarettes or alcohol in film/movies/television shows? Can you name some specific instances of use in one of your favorite films/movies/television shows?
4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDsqySu0vMA
5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la4HAl4W1ZQ
6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqv3sUzPg2A
7) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36wUmJGzvA
8) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeVQwomIgjs
9) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HpIZrOH4zc
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