Social Media & Cultural Diversity In Information Organisations

This blog post brings to light the complex nature of cultural diversity in the realm of social media in an organisational setting. Join me as I explore the benefits and pitfall of this complex web and offer suggestions of how to successfully navigate this dynamic landscape.

We learn cultural messages through social learning. This process, known as “cultural learning,” involves the social learning capacities that enable cumulative cultural evolution (Zhong, 2022). To understand how we adapt to technology, like social media, we need to explore the cultural learning process that influences our usage and behaviour (Zhong, 2022). Cultural learning allows individuals to quickly adapt to cultural settings within technological domains (Zhong, 2022).  Relying on cultural learning helps people adjust more swiftly to evolving technological contexts than if they were solely relying on their individual learning experiences and existing knowledge. This concept would be highly beneficial when using social media in an information organisation when your target audience comes from diverse cultural backgrounds. For example, using technology and social media effectively helps individuals enhance their awareness and understanding of multicultural citizenship education (Kumi-Yeboah & Smith, 2016).

According to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) (2009), electronic resources and multilingual/multicultural access are crucial in the digital age, allowing multicultural communities to engage with their own languages and access diverse content, fostering cultural preservation and exchange. Libraries, embracing Web 2.0 technologies, enable users to create and share content, participate in social networking, and utilise tools like blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking to tailor information to specific cultural needs. IFLA (2009) list other online communication tools, such as SMS and VoIP, to enhance interactions making information accessible and comprehensible for linguistically diverse communities, ultimately promoting cultural diversity and inclusivity in the digital realm. The tools listed above are quite old in the world of the information landscape and today we have countless resources to further enhance cultural diversity and inclusivity. Social media is a great example of this, with platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. All these platforms allow for sharing of diverse cultural content in innovative ways. NSW Department of Education (2022) agrees with IFLA’s beliefs that social media allows users to learn about themselves and diverse groups of people. This is important for people to feel a sense of belonging and develop an appreciation for different perspectives.

Unfortunately, with the good also comes the bad. There is a dark side to social media and cultural diversity. Social media is a platform where hate speech and negativity can be a common occurrence. Kennedy’s (2020) study on the negative impact of social media on indigenous people highlighted some disturbing facts including:

• 80% of participants witnessed hate speech at least once a week.
• Digital media, including social media, is seen as a new platform for the exercise of colonial violence, contributing to intergenerational trauma in Indigenous communities.
• Negative content that poses the most significant concerns from an Indigenous perspective includes direct threats of violence, racism, white supremacy, and challenges to Indigenous identity.
• Negativity on social media is reported as a daily occurrence for most participants, indicating a pervasive issue.

These finding are alarming and information organisations must be aware of the potential risks of such negative behaviour occurring on their social media platforms. Luckily, there are a number of strategies information organisations can follow to minimise the risk of such adverse behaviours occurring on their social media platforms. There are a number of guides available for information organisations to follow to avoid such catastrophes. Here are a few of the main steps organisations can take according to Hursh (2021):

1. Create a social media policy for staff:

• Emphasise transparency and personal responsibility in online identity and opinions
• Specifies authorised staff for official library accounts and outlines account management procedures.
• Designates responsibility for social media strategy development and implementation.
• Prohibits inappropriate content and safeguards patron privacy.
• Defines moderation roles, scenarios for customer service responses, and criteria for post/comment removal.

2. Create a social media policy for your community:

• Library welcomes participation on all social media platforms.
• Users are encouraged to keep postings and comments appropriate for all audiences.
• Library reserves the right to remove inappropriate content. Inappropriate content includes obscene material, hate speech, personal attacks, threats, private information, potentially defamatory statements, plagiarised material, and unrelated commercial, political, or religious messages.
• Library reserves the right to ban or block users violating the policy.
• The library is not responsible for content posted by others on its social media platforms.

We must be aware of the different ways individual cultures communicate and interact with social media platforms. Different cultures have diverse cultural norms that impact communication styles. Libraries must recognise these differences in order to develop an effective communication strategy in the social media space (Mon, 2015). A study by Sheldon et al. (2017) demonstrated different behaviours of students from two separate cultural groups, Croatian and American, when using Instagram. Although motivation for using Instagram did not vary between the two cultural groups the way they used the platform did. Croatian students lean towards collective behaviour on Instagram, emphasising social interaction. In contrast, American students tend to focus on individualistic trends, prioritising self-promotion and documentation. Young & Rossmann (2017) asked a great question, “who is your community?” Young & Rossmann (2017) believe that it is much easier to communicate with someone you know rather than a stranger. This can be related to interactions with diverse cultures on social media as it is important to know how different cultures communicate and their motivations for specific behaviours on social media sites. Once you know the behavioural differences between cultures you can target dialogue that appeals to specific groups of people.

I have covered a number of areas including the benefits and pitfalls of cultural diversity in social media including its ability to bring communities together or tear them apart. It is important to remember information organisations have the power to safeguard against the negative aspects by creating thorough social media policies to reduce the risk of unsavoury outcomes. Information professionals have the power to pave the way for a more inclusive and respectful digital community.

References

Hursh, A. (2021, February 8). How To Create a Library Social Media Policy for Your Staff and Your Community That Encourages Interaction and Keeps Everyone Safe. Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion. https://superlibrarymarketing.com/2021/02/08/socialmediapolicy/

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) (2009). Multicultural Communities: Guidelines for Library Services 3rd ed, 2009. https://repository.ifla.org/bitstream/123456789/462/1/multicultural-communities-en.pdf

Kennedy, T. (2020, November). Indigenous Peoples’ Experiences of Harmful Content on Social Media. Macquarie University. https://research-management.mq.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/135775224/MQU_HarmfulContentonSocialMedia_report_201202.pdf

Kumi-Yeboah, A., & Smith, P. (2016). Critical Multicultural Citizenship Education among Black Immigrant Youth: Factors and Challenges. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 18(1), 158–182. https://doi.org/10.18251/ijme.v18i1.1079

Mon, L. (2015). Social Media and Library Services (1st ed.). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-02292-0

NSW Department of Education (2022). What are the benefits of social media? Digital Citizenship. https://www.digitalcitizenship.nsw.edu.au/articles/what-are-the-benefits-of-social-media

Sheldon, P., Rauschnabel, P. A., Antony, M. G., & Car, S. (2017). A cross-cultural comparison of Croatian and American social network sites: Exploring cultural differences in motives for Instagram use. Computers in Human Behavior, 75, 643–651. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.06.009

Young, S. W. H., & Rossmann, D. (Eds.). (2017). Using social media to build library communities : a LITA guide. Rowman & Littlefield.

Zhong, B. (2022). Social media communication: trends and theories. John Wiley & Sons, Inc