INFO506 has been an enlightening and eye-opening experience for me this session. It has encouraged me, through various readings, to consider the often unspoken aspect of social media for professionals. Coming from an educational background the majority of my experience for social media was sending through photographs or events to our social media member who then took care of the legalities of posting and what we posted. Since completing this subject, I have begun to get an understanding of the politics of social media, the challenges and the opportunities that it provides for us.
Social media has developed rapidly over the last decade and as a result society has been given more autonomy over what happens to and for them. Despite large governmental organisations having online presence, there are more “everyday” people who utilise social media. This has resulted in the larger organisations trying to manipulate society into their way of thinking using a top down model whilst society now has access to a much wider range of information to disprove or question their governments through a bottom up model (Gruzd, Jacobson, Wellman & Mai, 2017). This has given the opportunity of having more control over knowing what is happening, not only in our back yards but all across the world which gives us more insight when making important decisions such as voting.
These challenges not just specific for political parties but now is the case for schools, hospitals and police. They are being forced to be transparent in their decision making because it gets plastered across social media as soon as they make a questionable decision. These organisations utilise social media in the hopes to create more transparency and accountability to help ensure that the public feels safe and supported by them (Bonsón, Torres, Royo & Flores, 2012). This is a great concept expect that most of these platforms are only used in a way to give one way communication (Schwerdtfeger, 2013, March 17). They will either turn off comments or not monitor them once their piece of information has been shared. This can create resentment in the 72% of Americans (Pew Research Centre, 2019) who utilise social media who may feel like their voices aren’t being heard.
One major opportunity that social media allows to organisations is the ability to interact with their target audience in the comfort of their own homes. For example a high school library often is not the first place students would choose to hang out in at lunch times. However, if the library was running events or activities to become a more central place, they would need to get their information out to patrons. This can be done through social media. Through creating an online presence using a platform that students use. With 79% of all Australians using Facebook or Youtube and 62% using Instagram (Digital 2019 in Australia, 2019), it can be said that through using one of these platforms to access patrons they would have a large chance of success of getting their message out there. Through strategic social media posts to advertise games clubs, movie events or competitions, the library would greatly improve the number of students who access and use the library (Orzechowski, 2017, January 10). Through this, the library would be able to help more students realise how the service could assist them and continue to increase users.
This opportunity, despite it being so great comes with challenges. In order to run a successful social media page, the person running it needs to ensure that they are trained in the correct social media policies as well as stay up to date on new platforms and services they provide (Business.gov.au, 2018). This can be costly and time consuming which can detract from the services that the organisation provides. Working on social media when you work in an environment dealing with children and young adults under 18 is extremely sensitive. You need to ensure that the person maintaining the account understands the restrictions around what is appropriate to post and ensures that the site is fully compliant with privacy restrictions. For example, for the Department of Education NSW, the social media member must only keep students photos on their device for up to 24 hours and they must be deleted after that point (Social Media Policy, 2018). Due to the high amount of staff turnover in schools, this could be extremely costly to ensure that a staff member is consistently trained. If the school puts someone in this position that isn’t familiar with social media policies and schools, they could post something confidential that would open the school up to lawsuits.
At the beginning of this subject, I had no idea about any of the policies or the history of social media. Throughout this session, I have learnt about the policies and procedures that are put in place to protect me whilst using social media as well as the many advantages and disadvantages of social media.
References
Bonsón, E., Torres, L., Royo, S., & Flores, F. (2012). Local e-government 2.0: Social media and corporate transparency in municipalities. Government information quarterly, 29(2), 123-132.
Business.gov.au (2018). Benefits of social media for business. Retrieved from https://www.business.gov.au/marketing/social-media/benefits-of-social-media
Digital 2019 in Australia. (2019). Retrieved 21 December 2019, from https://wearesocial.com/au/digital-2019-australia?mc_cid=2627112634&mc_eid=632bbf90f7
Gruzd, A., Jacobson, J., Wellman, B., & Mai, P. H. (2017). Social media and society: Introduction to the special issue. American Behavioral Scientist, 61(7), 647-652. doi:10.1177/0002764217717567
Orzechowski, V. (2017, January 10). #NoFilter: Social media content ideas for libraries [blog post]. LITA Blog. Retrieved from http://litablog.org/2017/01/nofilter-social-media-content-ideas-for-libraries/
Pew Research Centre. (2019). Social media fact sheet. Retrieved from https://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/social-media/
Schwerdtfeger, P. (2013, March 17). What is Web 2.0? What is Social Media? What comes next?? . Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iStkxcK6_vY&feature=youtu.be
Social Media Policy, Social Media Policy (2018). Retrieved from https://policies.education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/associated-documents/social-media-procedures.pdf
