Professional Reflection on “Social Networking for Information Professionals”

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This university semester, I completed the class ‘Social Networking for Information Professionals’ (INF506). Going into the subject, I felt confident about my success, primarily because of my personal experience with social media, both personally and semi-professionally, managing a self-made brand online. However, I was also incredibly interested in how the application of my current skills would transfer to a much more professional setting, with my budding career as an information professional.

 

Finding My Professional Online Identity

Because of my prior experience, which includes founding and running a blog and brand, I felt incredibly comfortable approaching this class’s second assessment piece, in which we had to create our own professional blog. However, during the proofreading stage of completing Assignment 2, I realised how much I had truly benefited from this course.

My first Online Learning Journal post, Can Social Media Participation Enhance LGBTQ+ Youth Well-Being?: A Journal Article Analysis (Lilley, 2021a), is still incredibly embedded in a clear academic style of writing. However, as I wrote more posts to complete this assignment, my ‘blogging’ voice came through. I didn’t realise that I would struggle to find a comfortable balance between my causal blog-style of writing and my more professional, academic writing. But I feel as though I truly developed this, which can be seen in my later blog posts (see If the Future of Information is DNA, Where Do Public Libraries Fit? (Lilley, 2021b)).

I found this difficulty interesting, as it is something that I have also found reflected in my previous use of Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. While I have previously accessed professional information and sources using these platforms, I have always felt it difficult to engage and find my ‘voice’ interacting with such content. Perhaps this is partly due to my current novice role as an information professional (I have only recently gained paid employment within the discipline and am yet to commence working). But perhaps it is also because there is, at least for myself, a disconnect between my online ‘professional self’, my online ‘personal self’ and the brands that I run online.

This is not an original concept; professional literature has been exploring what it means to build a “professional identity” online that is separate, and largely different, from any personal identity that may already exist (Benson & Morgan, 2015; Davis, 2016). One study looked at almost 200 academics and their social media profiles finding that professionals typically fall into three key “fragments” (Jordan, 2019). These fragments are primarily personal, semi-professional and primarily professional, and tend to differ based on what platform they are presenting on (although many users were found to have several accounts on the same platform to clearly determine these different identities). This just further illustrates to me that many professionals find it most effective to create separate personal and professional online identities.

Based on this knowledge and the experience I gained throughout the duration of this course, I feel that it is likely the best course for me to create separate ‘professional’ accounts for these platforms I wish to engage with as an information professional, to fully embrace what online communities have to offer information professionals.

 

Growing Alongside Other Professionals Online

In addition to this exploration of how I present as a professional online, I also gained a strong sense of what I feel is the most important benefit of social media use as a professional – the ability to grow and expand knowledge via collaboration.

This is a point that really grabbed me while I was reading the non-fiction book by John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed (Green, 2021). Within this book, Green talks about the classic book The Great Gatsby and how the story has stood the test of time because of different perceptions of the story and its key themes being applied to widely different circumstances throughout time. At this point, I began drawing parallels with how information professionals utilize social media to do much the same thing.

Many professionals can approach the same topic and, with their various perspectives and experience, finding different applications or approaches to the same idea. This is something that I found demonstrated throughout the course, with many students approaching the same Online Learning Journal Tasks with very different outcomes. For example, I came across two fellow students (Flack, 2021; Williams, 2021) who completed the same Online Journal Task, “Information Trends”, as I had also completed. Despite our similar background as INF506 students, all three of us chose a different combination of trends to discuss in our posts. And even when we did overlap on the trends we felt should be further discussed, we came to different conclusions of how it impacted information professionals. By reading these posts, I found ideas and concepts that I had not initially had on my own, despite completing the same task.

This phenomenon is also demonstrated on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, where many professionals may respond to the same comment or shared article with widely varying approaches. And because of the way social media allows discussion to build and grow, quite often these different professionals (who may otherwise not interact, whether due to different professional spaces of geographic location) build off each other and create entirely new ideas. In this way, I see the primary benefit of social media is as a tool that facilitates the basis of knowledge evolution, in which people build off each other’s ideas and/or knowledge to create something that would not have been possible as a single person.

 

In conclusion, I have learnt a lot throughout this course, from the readings I completed to the ideas and concepts I was exposed to – not just by the course material itself, but also from discussions and shared knowledge from my fellow students. The primary lessons I gained from the course, both of which will be incredibly beneficial within my professional journey were that; an online professional identity is something to grow and develop, and quite often with vastly differ from other personal identities on social media, and that social media is a tool that can encourage and facilitate rapid growth of knowledge and expansion of ideas if we choose to engage with it.

 

References.

Benson, V. & Morgan, S. (2015). Implication of Social Media Use in Personal and Professional Settings, IGI Global. doi: 10.4018/978-1-4666-7401-1

Davis, J. S. (2016). Building a Professional Teaching Identity on Social Media: A Digital Constellation of Selves. SensePublishers.

Flack, M. (2021). OLJ Task 13: Information Trends. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/csurtc/2021/05/09/olj-task-13-information-trends/

Green, J. (2021). The Anthropocene Reviewed [Audiobook]. Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.

Jordan, K. (2019). Imagined audiences, acceptable identity fragments and merging the personal and professional: How academic online identity is expressed through different social media platforms. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(2), 165-178. doi: 10.1080/17439884.2020.1707222

Lilley, R. (2021a). Can Social Media Participation Enhance LGBTQ+ Youth Well-Being?: A Journal Article Analysis. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/yareadingguide/2020/03/06/journal-analysis/

Lilley, R. (2021b). If the Future of Information is DNA, Where Do Public Libraries Fit?. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/yareadingguide/2021/05/05/if-the-future-of-information-is-dna-where-do-public-libraries-fit/

Williams, K. (2021). OLJ 13: Information Trends. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/kerianne/2021/05/15/olj-13-information-trends/comment-page-1/#comment-7

The Intertwining of Social Media and Cultural Diversity

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How does social media impact, differ or alter cultural diversity? There have been previous concerns that global media, including globalised social media, may have a homogenising effect on global culture, in addition to contributing to the marginalisation of minority cultures (Johnson & Callahan, 2013). I want to share some of the things professional research has found when looking at how cultural identities and social media intertwine.

 

Social Media Changing Cultural Identity

Research professionals understand that globalisation – in which all cultures may have access to information and knowledge from all over the globe (Arnett, 2002) – is something that is having a significant consequence of the transformation of identity. According to Arnett, globalisation can impact identity in various ways, largely due to the comparisons drawn between oneself and the social environment they are exposed to. With social media platforms forming a type of communication that has extensive reach across oceans and continents, is it possible that Facebook could alter an entire culture?

Simple differences in social media interactions, compared with offline interactions, could likely contribute to the change in behaviours and languages within cultures. A study examining various media consumption and usage in Spanish speakers found that social media differed in that the frequency of primary-language usage on social media platforms was significantly lower compared to other communication avenues (Velázquez, 2017). The study likely attributed this to the perception of group-inclusiveness and self-preservation, particularly within English-dominant environments online.

How these changes in behaviour will impact the long-term evolution of cultural identity is currently unknown and underresearched.

 

Social Media Magnifying Minority Cultures

There is also professional literature exploring how social media can be utilised specifically for magnifying minority cultures, in ways that weren’t previously available. This is a concept that has been highlighted by various cultures. A study looking at the use of Snapchat within religious cultures, specifically the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, concluded that “Minority cultures can use social media to enhance minority values and behaviors in ways not envisioned by mainstream social media use” (Callahan, Church, King & Elinzano, 2019, p.1).

This is also a primary concept depicted in a paper published by Johnson and Callahan (2013), in which they state that “New media have the ability to extend cultural perspectives of minority cultures that have historically been marginalised by geographical disadvantages” (p.319). The paper in question explored social media interaction within Garifuna culture, finding further evidence supporting that social media platforms are able to create spaces for extending minority cultures. For example, excerpts within the paper express that while social media exposes the minority culture to “mainstream” content from larger westernised cultures, it also provided a space in which they could access content from others within their own culture which they would not otherwise have come across. Because of this ability to create culture-specific spaces, feelings of marginalisation can actually be eased.

 

Is Minority Discrimination Perpetuated by Social Media Use?

On social media platforms, all information is more pervasive, most constant, and overall just more. And this includes the distribution of racism and other cultural or minority discrimination. Keum and Miller (2017) discuss how, compared with offline racism, racism perpetuated by social media can be much more pervasive and permanent. In the worst situations, this type of online content can even become “viral”, subjecting minorities to a barrage of online hate and cruelty (Keum & Miller, 2017). They found that not only do individuals feel the effects of personal racist attacks online, but they also carry the burden of vicarious exposure as well.

In addition, one of the first research studies looking at the mental health effects of social media discrimination on cultural minorities found that there is a significant effect on depression and general anxiety symptoms for male Hispanics when they face social media discrimination (Cano et al., 2020). It is not a stretch, based on this research, that there may be significant discomfort and hesitation for some individuals from minority cultures when accessing social media platforms – something that Caucasian users largely do not face.

 

Social Media & Cultural Diversity: An Information Professional Perspective

As information professionals, a thorough and ongoing understanding of how social media can impact or be different for those in various cultures and identities is crucial in making sure that our professional use of platforms is utilized effectively, thoughtfully and respectfully for everyone who may engage with our content. It is important to understand when we, as professionals, facilitate programs and workshops for digital and social media literacy with patrons that may have a different cultural background from our own. Additionally, it is just as critical to recognise the interactions between social media and cultural differences that are still unknown. Working in a country like Australia we are surrounded by multiculturalism and should not assume that our patrons have the same background we have. It is in our best interest to be aware and respectful of how these intersectional facets affect our interaction with others.

 

References.

Arnett, J. J. (2002). The psychology of globalisation. The American Psychologist, 57(10), 774-783. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.57.10.774

Barker, V. & Ota, H. (2011). Mixi Diary versus Facebook photos: Social networking site use among Japanese and Caucasian American females. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 40(1), 39-63. doi: 10.1080/17475759.2011.558321

Callahan, C., Church, S. H., King, J., & Elinzano, M. (2019). Snapchat usage among minority populations. Journal of Media & Religion, 18(1), 1-12. doi: 10.1080/15348423.2019.1639404

Cano, M. A., Schwartz, S. J., MacKinnon, D. P., Keum, B. T. H., Prado, G., Marsiglia, F. F., … Dios, M. A. (2020). Exposure to ethnic discrimination in social media and symptoms of anxiety and depression among Hispanic emerging adult: Examining the moderating role of gender. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 77, 571-586. doi: 10.1002/jclp.23050

Johnson, J. L. & Callahan, C. (2013). Minority cultures and social media: Magnifying Garifuna. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 42(4), 319-339. doi: 10.1080/17475759.2013.842608

Keum, B. T. & Miller, M. J. (2017). Racism in digital era: Development and initial validation of the perceived online racism scale (PORS v1.0). Journal of Counselling Psychology, 64(3), 310-324. doi: 10.1037/cou0000205

Velázquez, I. I. (2017). Reported literacy, media consumption and social media use as measures of relevance of Spanish as a heritage language. The International Journal of Bilingualism, 21(1)m 21-33. doi: 10.1177/1367006915596377

If the Future of Information is DNA, Where Do Public Libraries Fit?

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The future of information studies, including public libraries, is infinitely vast, particularly when considering the rapid evolution of information technology. But would you have ever considered that the future of public libraries involved DNA? A blog post on The Conversation explored how this could be a very real possibility (de Groot, 2018).

At the heart of this article is the idea of what should information organisations store? This in itself is an incredibly complex question, creating an overarching discussion about what the purpose of a public library is. It highlights, as well, all the complexities that need to be considered – such as ensuring that storage methods stand up to the rapid evolution of technologies, that information is managed in a way that allows that it will still be searchable and accessible and the information that is decidedly stored is worth the resources that will be needed to preserve it. The article highlights that these are discussions that are already occurring in other disciplines, specifically in scientific industries where a lot of progress is being made. However, libraries have also been traditionally a keeper and protector of memories and history, so where do we fit into the conversation?

The article then goes on to discuss how DNA could quite possibly be the future of information storage, which in itself is incredibly interesting and I encourage readers to explore this more. However, I want to take a step back and talk about where public libraries will fit in a world of ever-increasing and changing knowledge and information formats.

While public libraries in Australia do not have any primary goals of storage and archiving information (these are responsibilities held by other information institutions), it does include the following in ALIA’s ‘National strategy and action plan’ (ALIA, 2019):

  • Supporting literacy and lifelong learning
  • Informed and connected citizens
  • Digital inclusion
  • Stronger and more creative communities
  • Economic and workforce development

To facilitate and fulfil any one of these strategic priorities, public libraries need information professionals that are familiar with and understand any new technologies, including storage and retrieval of information, in order to both support and teach patrons in the evolving digital sphere. If nanotechnology and DNA are utilised in the future of information storage, information professionals and public library organisations need to be able to assist the larger community to navigate and utilise that technology.

This in itself is something that could pose a huge problem, especially with an ongoing resignation of public libraries working on tight budgets and limited resources. Therein lies the question of whether governments will support public libraries and staff to support the broader community with the ongoing evolution of technology, or whether public libraries will struggle to ensure information professionals are trained and knowledgeable with these changes, thus leaving a negative impact on their patrons.

 

 

References.

Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). (2019). ALIA Australian Public Library Alliance
National strategy and action plan 2019-2022. Retrieved from https://read.alia.org.au/alia-australian-public-library-alliance-national-strategy-and-action-plan-2019-2022

de Groot, J. (2018, January 5) The libraries of the future will be made of DNA. [blog post]. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/the-libraries-of-the-future-will-be-made-of-dna-86274

How Digital Shifts Impact Information Policy for Information Organisations

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The video ‘Digital Transformation Video by Erik Qualman’ (Equalman, 2019) presents a short and visual overview of some of the contemporary shifts occurring in the online sphere. In this article, we will examine five of these shifts and have a look at how this evolution of digital society impacts information organisations, most specifically how it impacts the need and development of information policies.

 

 

World Population vs Social Media Population

Qualman’s video suggests that some social media platforms – Facebook, Youtube, WhatsApp – have much higher populations than even the most populated countries. This can make organisational accounts on these platforms seem daunting and complex. Not only must information professionals consider the vast range of platform users who may interact with their content and their behaviour, but it is also crucial to consider how the content may be digested by such a diverse audience. The overwhelming audience on such platforms also leads to many obstacles such as virality of content (Huang, Shen, Meng, Chang & He, 2019) and cancel culture (Veil & Waymer, 2021).

 

2 in 3 People Get News Via Social Media

As information professionals a shift in how society consumes information can impact us in two ways. It can create huge obstacles for us, as critical and trustworthy sources of information to be heard amongst the ‘noise’ of fake news and misinformation. It can also have a negative effect on how the information we provide, particularly on organisational social media platforms, is viewed with trust or skepticism, inside an untrustworthy information climate.

 

“What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube”

Based on a book published by Qualman himself (Qualman, 2013), this statement seems to be referring to the ongoing issues with digital privacy, or the lack thereof. There is an astounding amount of professional literature and discussion about how social media privacy issues impact information policies. Just the utilization of social media may lead to unintended access or automatic collection of patron information (Zimmer, 2013). Further issues and discussions arise when considering patron research (Mannheimer, Young & Rossmann, 2016) and patron perception of privacy risks (Fox & Royne, 2018).

 

80% of Mobile Consumption is Video

Based on the above statement and a large portion of literature that suggests video content can drive much higher online engagement (Gruss et al., 2020) it makes sense that information organisations should also feature video content online. Because of this, it is crucial to ensure that information policies consider and outline appropriate ways of implementing such media. Potential issues to consider include that video media reflects language and mission statements of the organisation and that privacy of individuals possibly featured in videos is maintained.

 

Shrinking Attention Spans

The preference for information that is quicker and easier to digest, particularly on social media platforms, is something that should push informational professionals about how they present accurate but engaging content. There is also a possibility that this can further shift which platforms and media types organisations online, in general, should be considered in a professional sense. While Facebook and Twitter are the primary social media platforms being utilised by organisations (Yellow, 2020), other platforms highlighting content in short-length video formats – such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube – may become more viable and effective.

 

 

References.

Equalman. (2019, January 9). Digital transformation video by Erik Qualman [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k_G_h41ZaQ

Fox, A. K. & Royne, M. B. (2018). Private information in a social world: Assessing consumers’ fear and understanding of social media privacy. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 26(1-2), 72-89. doi: 10.1080/10696679.2017.1389242

Gruss, R., Abrahams, A., Song, Y., Berry, D., & Al-Daihani, S. M. (2020). Community building as an effective user engagement strategy: A case study in academic libraries. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 71(2), 208-220. doi:10.1002/asi.24218

Huang, H., Shen, H., Meng, Z., Chang, H., & He, H. (2019). Community-based influence maximization for viral marketing. Applied Intelligence, 49(6), 2137-2150. doi: 10.1007/s10489-018-1387-8

Mannheimer, S., Young, S. W. H., & Rossmann, D. (2016). On the ethics of social network research in libraries. Journal of Information Communication, & Ethics in Society. 14(2), 139-151. doi: 10.1108/JICES-05-2015-0013

Pew Research Centre. (2017). News use across social media platforms 2017. Retrieved from https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2017/09/13163032/PJ_17.08.23_socialMediaUpdate_FINAL.pdf

Qualman, E. (2013). What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube. Equalman Studios.

Veil, S. R., & Waymer, D. (2021). Crisis narrative and the paradox of erasure: Making room for dialectic tension in a cancel culture. Public Relations Review, 47(3). doi: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2021.102046

Yellow. (2020a). Yellow Social Media Report 2020: Part One – Consumers. Retrieved from https://www.yellow.com.au/social-media-report/#download-report

Zimmer, M. (2013). Patron privacy in the 2.0 era: Avoiding the Faustian bargain of library 2.0. Journal of Information Ethics, 22(1), 44-59. doi: 10.3172/JIE.22.1.44

Investigating the Twitter Presence of Information Organisations

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Social media presence is becoming an increasingly important and efficient tool for communicating, marketing, and client interaction for all organisations, including information organisations (Yellow, 2020). While Facebook is the most accessed and utilised social media tool, micro-blogging platform, Twitter, is becoming more proliferate with organisations (Yellow, 2020).

This is why I have decided that this week we will do a quick exploration of two very prominent information organisations and their Twitter online presence.

The two organisations chosen for this exploration are the Library of Congress (LOC) – based in Washington DC, United States and currently the largest library in the world (LOC, n.d.) – and the National Archives of Australia – an Australian federal agency that collates and preserves records of Australian government decisions. These are very similar organisations in the information and collections they preserve – largely government records and historical research and documents – and their primary patron audience – researchers and those interested in national history. But does their Twitter media profiles reflect this and do they continue this similarity in content and reach?

Overall, the two profiles present very similar content. Both LOC and NAA publish information regarding organisation events and highlighting parts of their collection, often in line with various historical events or points of interest. In addition, both accounts publish primarily original content, with the only retweets found on either account being posts that either mention the organisation or were posted by more specific branches/accounts of the overall organisation (for example, LOC retweeted the Law Library of Congress).

 

 

Something that I found interesting was that, while both accounts often share historical information and collection items (something that is relevant to the audiences identified earlier), the way in which they link back to their own collections differs. As seen in the screenshots below, LOC links these types of posts back to their digital collection, using an embedded URL. This is something that makes it incredibly easy for users to engage and follow up with if the content is of interest. While NAA also provides collection information about what they shared, they don’t provide any similarly easy follow-up for users. This is despite the fact that the reference information provided does in fact correspond with items available in their digital collection.

 

 

While it is difficult to determine how much of the higher engagement garnered by LOC’s tweet is based on this particular element (other factors could include LOC overall higher follower count and audience, more interest in the actual content posted, more engagement due to the use of hashtags), it is something to certainly consider.

So, based on this quick exploration, are these two information organisations succeeding with their Twitter accounts?

This is something that is incredibly difficult to quantify – what does success on a social media site even look like. At face value, it appears that overall the engagement is quite low n both accounts, especially considering the number of followers and reach on each account – 1.2 million accounts currently follow the Library of Congress’ Twitter account, 23.5 thousand follow the National Archives of Australia. However, perhaps Twitter interaction isn’t the most valuable measure of success for these accounts. Other information that the public can not discern that are likely more useful includes the impressions or views that each posts garner, as well as the click-through rates to the organisations’ main websites and collections from these social media publications.

 

References.

Yellow. (2020a). Yellow Social Media Report 2020: Part One – Consumers. Retrieved from https://www.yellow.com.au/social-media-report/#download-report

Library of Congress (LOC). (n.d.). About the library. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/about/

Mobile Digital Spaces and Their Functionality

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Last week we explored the way information organisations design their digital spaces. This week I want to dive into a similar concept, the functionality of mobile digital spaces. It is incredibly common in modern society to access websites and online spaces with your mobile device, with the average number of internet-accessing devices in Australian households recorded as 3.3 in 2019 (Yellow, 2020). Whether it is with a smartphone or a tablet device, modern websites need to provide some type of functionality for mobile device access.

Similar to our exploration last week, I have provided a table below comparing and contrasting three different websites – Book Riot, bec&books and Libro.FM – I accessed using my smartphone. Highlighted in the table are several key features unique to their mobile displays.

*Note: For transparency, I would like readers to be aware that bec&books is my own personal website. This will not impact my opinions below.

 

Online experience on mobile devices comparison table. Features are as follows: Pleasing aesthetic (present on Book Riot, Bec&books and Libro.FM), natural layout (present on bec&books and libro.FM, not present on book riot), Placement of side widgets etc. natural and unconfusing (present on libro.fm, not present on book riot and bec&books), Unobtrusive advertisement placement (present on libro.fm, not present on book riot and bec&books), accessibility features (present on bec&books, not present on book riot and libro.fm), easy-to-use website navigation and menus (present on book riot, bec&books and libro.fm)

Online experience on mobile devices comparison table

 

For this exploration, I have identified six features that seemed relevant to the user experience website design, specifically mobile website design. These features have been identified based on my own experience as a mobile website user, as well as an owner and developer of a website with mobile functions.

The first three features – pleasing aesthetic, natural layout, and placement of widgets – can all intertwine and be considered hand-in-hand. Overall, these three features refer to the visual aspects of the mobile website and how that impacts user experience. By “natural layout” we are referring to the placement of things being where we expect them to be. Placement of side widgets – embedded elements that are often shown on the side of a desktop website – was included because when converting to mobile websites, these elements can often become confusing and lost in the layout.

 

 

Advertisements can be a large manufacturer of profit for websites but sometimes they can become obstructive for users, affecting their overall experience.

 

 

It is important to consider what accessibility features were available on each website as well, as this is something that could make some mobile websites completely inaccessible for some users. The table itself refers to easy-to-find accessibility features embedded on the website, however, I did also examine how the websites converted with the Simplified Reader function available on Google Chrome.

 

 

The final feature was that the main menu was easy to find and easy to access and use. This was the one thing that all three websites did incredibly well. This is unsurprising because this is likely the primary navigation tools for the majority of users.

 

 

 

So why is this relevant to information professionals? Well, as discussed previously, an important part of contemporary information organisations is ensuring accessible online spaces. And if the mobile version of these spaces is largely ignored we, as professionals, would be doing a huge disservice to our patrons and organisation users.

 

 

References.

Yellow. (2020a). Yellow Social Media Report 2020: Part One – Consumers. Retrieved from https://www.yellow.com.au/social-media-report/#download-report

Exploring the Client Experience in Digital Information Spaces

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Providing spaces for patrons is a crucial part of public library service. The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) highlights this, ensuring that an emphasis is made that in modern society this includes both the physical library spaces we first think of, but also the online spaces provided by the organisation as well (I & J Management Services, 2016).

For these spaces to be beneficial, however, they need to be designed well. What does this mean? Countless elements come into play – from ease of access to aesthetics and the information provided in these spaces (Bell, 2018). In this article, we take a quick but practical exploration of these elements.

Below is a table highlighting three chosen organisations and their primary digital spaces. The table gives an outline of how three elements of the client experience – community-orientated language, multimedia use and time of day –  were implemented on these platforms.

Online client experience table. Results are as follows: Use of community-orientated language on Powerhouse Museum platform: "No significant language type noted across platform". Use of community-orientated language on New York Public Library platform: "Majority of language is first-person and community-centred". Use of community-orientated language on National Library of Australia: "No significant language type, language differs between blog posts". Use of multi-media (e.g. images or video) element on Powerhouse Museum: "Multimedia utilised on every single post viewed". Use of multi-media (e.g. images or video) element on New York Public Library: "Large amount of imagery used". Use of multi-media (e.g. images or video) element on National Library of Australia: "Large amount of multimedia utilised". Posting new information/content at an intentional time of day element on Powerhouse Museum: "No notable scheduling of posts, however majority of posts published within business hours (10am to 5pm). Posting new information/content at an intentional time of day element on New York Public Library: "Time of posts unknown". Posting new information/content at an intentional time of day element on National Library of Australia: "Time of posts unknown".

Comparison table of three information organisations against elements of online client experience.

 

The three elements of client experience used in the above table were identified through a case study on academic libraries and their Facebook posts (Gruss, Abrahams, Song, Berry & Al-Daihani, 2020), however, each element has proven successful in various other digital environments according to experts (Kanuri, Chen & Sridhar, 2018; Klassen et al., 2018; Kumar & Kumar, 2020).

Gruss and colleagues (2020) found that using community-orientated language – defined as language that is unique to the brand, as well as directly related to the community they serve – can elicit an increased online interaction. Despite this, however, the three organisations we looked at largely don’t utilise this tool. New York Public Library (NYPL) was the outlier, with a large amount of language in its content relaying community-centredness, e.g. “…we want to ensure they know how important our libraries are to our communities” (NYPL, 2021).

Screenshot from New York Public Library website. Example of community-centred languge. Excerpt: "Your library and your community need your help. New York City leaders are finalizing NYC’s budget—and we want to ensure they know how important our libraries are to our communities, especially as we continue to combat the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and look to the future."

An example of community-centred language utilized on the NYPL website.

 

Utilizing multimedia- images, video, audio files – is another element that research has found provides an significant increase in client interaction (Gruss et al., 2020). This element, which is incredibly easy to implement on online platforms, is something that was notable across all three platforms that we explored (see images below).

 

 

The final element of client experience explored was posting content at an intentional time of day. The study conducted by Gruss and colleagues (2020) found that posts during the morning were much more effective when analysing user interaction. However, this is something that was only possible to explore with Powerhouse Museum, as their Facebook page was the chosen platform.

This brings to mind the consideration of whether this particular element is applicable to all digital spaces, or is it just relevant to social media platforms, which is what our primary resource focused on? A more thorough exploration of relevant literature, and perhaps more research in general, would be needed.

 

 

References.

Bell, S. (2018). Design thinking + user experience = better-designed libraries. Information Outlook (Online), 22(4), 4-6.

Gruss, R., Abrahams, A., Song, Y., Berry, D., & Al-Daihani, S. M. (2020). Community building as an effective user engagement strategy: A case study in academic libraries. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 71(2), 208-220. doi:10.1002/asi.24218

Kanuri, V. K., Chen, Y., & Sridhar, S. (2018). Scheduling content on social media: Theory, evidence, an application. Journal of Marketing, 1-20. doi: 10.1177/00222429

Klassen, K. M., Borleis, E. S., Brennan, L., Reid, M., McCaffery, T. A., & Lim, M. (2018). What people “like”: Analysis of social media strategies used by food industry brands, lifestyle brands, and health promotion organizations on Facebook and Instagram. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 20(6). doi: 10.2196/10227

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Can Social Media Participation Enhance LGBTQ+ Youth Well-Being?: A Journal Article Analysis

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Research exploring social media and its impact on youth well-being is vast and largely mixed, with study results suggesting that social media participation can be both beneficial and harmful. One study, however, explored how social media interaction effects LGBTQ+ youth in a very specific way (Craig, Eaton, McInroy, Leung & Krishnan, 2021). This study proved to be extensive – a large sample size (n = 6,178) of youth aged between 14 and 29 years old made up the study, with over three-quarters identifying with non-heterosexual and/or gender fluid identities.

Using a Social Media Benefits Scale, the study explored the multidimensional benefits social media interaction may have for LGBTQ+ youth, including emotional support and development, general education, entertainment, and identity-specific information. Results established that beneficial elements were present for LGBTQ+ youth, however, they did differ between platforms and social media ‘types’. The study also found that younger youth were more likely to use social media for beneficial factors, compared with their older peers.

This study posed itself as an incredibly insightful and overarching exploration into the topic, in particular with the way that it determined both similarities and differences between various social media platforms and the benefits they may elicit for LGBTQ+ youth. In particular, this study identified the age differences alongside differences in social media benefits.

For example, youth aged 14-18 were significantly less likely to find general educational benefits in social media use, rather they reaped benefits in social media that provided entertainment. They were also the most likely audience to benefit from LGBTQ+ information on social media. It is logical that younger LGBTQ+ youth are seeking out and exploring information regarding their sexual orientations and gender identity, compared to older youth who have since established some understanding regarding these concepts.

This was a trend presented throughout the study, with younger adolescents presenting as more likely to use social media for emotional support and entertainment as well, with evidence that this use of social media decreases as age increased. While there is no data within this study to support the hypothesis, it would seem logical that this may be partially due to LGBTQ+ youth making more offline connections, discovering resources and internalising knowledge as they become older.

Overall, this is an important avenue to investigate, with evidence suggesting that LGBTQ+ youth spend significantly more time online than their peers (Steinke et al., 2017). It is critical to not look at such an article in isolation, however. While this study highlights many of the beneficiaries of social media use within the LGBTQ+ youth population, it does not explore what detrimental components may also impact such participation.

 

References

Craig, S. L., Eaten, A. D., McInroy, L. B., Leung, V. W. Y., & Krishnan, S. (2021). Can social media participation enhance LGBTQ+ youth well-being? Development of the social media benefits scale. Social Media + Society, 7(1), 1-13. doi: 10.1177/2056305121988931

Steinke, J., Root-Bowman, M., Estabrook, S., Levine, D. S., & Kantor, L. M. (2017). Meeting the needs of sexual and gender minority youth: Formative research on potential digital health interventions. Journal of Adolescent Health, 43, 139-146. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.11.023