Lecture 1

Question 1

What is the broad definition of social media?

Answer 1

All mediated interaction

Question 2

What is the narrow definition of social media?

Answer 2

• Internet-based built upon we 2.0 technologies
• many-to-many
• User-generated content
• Persistent

Question 3

What is the issue with popular thought about social media?

Answer 3

• Focus on technological innovation
• Focus on specific social media applications

Question 4

Where do these issued popular thoughts about social media lead to?

Answer 4

• Little attention to underlaying characteristics of technology / application involved
• Little attention to interplay between organization/people perspective & technology perspective

Question 5

Where does reduced attention to…:
1. underlying characteristics of technology / application involved
2. interplay between people/organization vs technology perspective
… lead to?

Answer 5

• 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

Question 6

What is the definition of ‘sociamateriality’?

Answer 6

Interconnection between social and material aspect (technology, organization/work, and social)

Question 7

How is technology / the material seen in organizations?

Answer 7

is either not observed or seen as miracles / key enablers of change

Question 8

Explain what the duality of technology is (Orlikowki, 1992)

Answer 8

o Technology structures (i.e., recognizes that technological features affect humans)…
o … and is structured (i.e., recognizes human agency)

Question 9

What is technological determinism?

Answer 9

• 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

Question 10

Explain what “hard” social constructivism is?

Answer 10

• Social construction of technology
  - Technology = autonomous force
  - Technology ≠ neutral
• Technology is structured by human thought and behavior

Question 11

Explain what technological affordances are?

Answer 11

• In-between determinism & constructivism
• Affordances are perceptions of an object’s materiality

Question 12

What are the characteristics of technological affordances ?

Answer 12

• Affordances are functional
• Affordances are relational
• Affordances are contextual

Question 13

Why are affordances functional?

Answer 13

They enable and constrain action

Question 14

Why are affordances relational?

Answer 14

• 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’

Question 15

Why are affordances contextual?

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

What are the benefits of the affordances concept?

Answer 16

• 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

Question 17

What is the relation between affordances and social media?

Answer 17

• 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

Question 18

What are the organizational affordances of social media?

Answer 18

1. Visibility
2. Associations
3. Editability
4. Persistence

Question 19

Describe the organizational affordance of social media: “visibility”

Answer 19

Visibility of:
- Work behavior
- Metaknowledge
- Activity streams

Question 20

Describe the organizational affordance of social media: “associations”

Answer 20

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)

Question 21

Describe the organizational affordance of social media: “Editability “

Answer 21

a-synchronicity allows editing and revising of content: (RIT)
- Regulating personal expressions
- Information quality
- Targeting content

Question 22

Describe the organizational affordance of social media: “Persistence”

Answer 22

reviewability, permanence of content & communication: (GRS)
- Growing content
- Robust forms of communication
- Sustaining knowledge over time

Question 23

What is the most important social media affordance?

Answer 23

Visibility
- Other affordances derive from visibility