Lecture 1 Flashcards
What is the broad definition of social media?
All mediated interaction
What is the narrow definition of social media?
- Internet-based built upon we 2.0 technologies
- many-to-many
- User-generated content
- Persistent
What is the issue with popular thought about social media?
- Focus on technological innovation
- Focus on specific social media applications
Where do these issued popular thoughts about social media lead to?
- Little attention to underlaying characteristics of technology / application involved
- Little attention to interplay between organization/people perspective & technology perspective
Where does reduced attention to…:
1. underlying characteristics of technology / application involved
2. interplay between people/organization vs technology perspective
… lead to?
- Inability to explain or predict the success of technological innovation (including social media applications)
- An overly deterministic (often dystopian or utopian view) on the outcomes of technology use
What is the definition of ‘sociamateriality’?
Interconnection between social and material aspect (technology, organization/work, and social)
How is technology / the material seen in organizations?
is either not observed or seen as miracles / key enablers of change
Explain what the duality of technology is (Orlikowki, 1992)
o Technology structures (i.e., recognizes that technological features affect humans)…
o … and is structured (i.e., recognizes human agency)
What is technological determinism?
- Technology gives structure to human thought and behavior
- Technology determines social change
- Technology = autonomous force
- Technology ≠ neutral - Central idea of a passive user who is subjected to the technology
Explain what “hard” social constructivism is?
- Social construction of technology
- Technology = autonomous force
- Technology ≠ neutral - Technology is structured by human thought and behavior
Explain what technological affordances are?
- In-between determinism & constructivism
- Affordances are perceptions of an object’s materiality
What are the characteristics of technological affordances ?
- Affordances are functional
- Affordances are relational
- Affordances are contextual
Why are affordances functional?
They enable and constrain action
Why are affordances relational?
- Need to be ‘perceived’ to become active
- The perception depends on the actor who perceives and uses the technology
- Not always immediately and completely visible to the user -> oftentimes technological affordances only become visible after ‘being in use’
Why are affordances contextual?
- Which affordances are perceived, depend on social, cultural and economic context
- Organization, team, colleagues
- The context provides concepts and rules that affect how affordances are perceived and used
- Thus, technological affordances are learnt by socialization
What are the benefits of the affordances concept?
- Avoids determinism – constructivism debate as it acknowledges both perspectives
- Describes interaction – not an organizational theory, nor a technological theory
- Focuses on functionality rather than on features
What is the relation between affordances and social media?
- Changes in the way we work cannot be attributed solely to social media
- In order to understand the role of social media in new ways of working we need to look at their affordances, and the context in which they are appropriated
What are the organizational affordances of social media?
- Visibility
- Associations
- Editability
- Persistence
Describe the organizational affordance of social media: “visibility”
Visibility of:
- Work behavior
- Metaknowledge
- Activity streams
Describe the organizational affordance of social media: “associations”
Associations (between content, persons, content-person)
- Other CMC also afford associations’, however;
- Social media differ from other forms of CMC
- These technologies oftentimes gave algorithms that present or make associations without the actor’s intervention (e.g., recommendations)
Describe the organizational affordance of social media: “Editability “
a-synchronicity allows editing and revising of content: (RIT)
- Regulating personal expressions
- Information quality
- Targeting content
Describe the organizational affordance of social media: “Persistence”
reviewability, permanence of content & communication: (GRS)
- Growing content
- Robust forms of communication
- Sustaining knowledge over time
What is the most important social media affordance?
Visibility
- Other affordances derive from visibility
