Understanding Social Media

How being social connects us together and the role Social Media plays in that.

– Social Capital – The Networked Audience– How students use Social Media

being social connects us together

being social connects us together

Pierre BourdieuMARXIST

Bourdieu

Economic Capital – property

Cultural Capital – socialisation, class, education

Social Capital

“Social capital is the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.”(Bourdieu, in Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 119)

Bourdieu

Groups are formed from social norms

Aimed at reproducing or establishing social relationships “implying durable obligations subjectively felt”

Produces mutual knowledge and recognition

Bourdieu

Explaining how those in power hold on to it

How social capital works to exclude

Social Capital as a civic good

“social capital is a resource based on trust and shared values, and develops from the weaving-together of people in communities”(Gaunlett on Coleman 2011)

Social Capital enhancing economic capital

“If you burn social capital to get a few more people into your community, what good is that? Ask yourself seriously whether you’re being humble and honest” – Chris Brogan

Whuffie

Granovetter / Putnam

Granovetter (1973): ‘Weak ties’ indispensible to individuals’ opportunities and their integration into communities. (P1378)

Putnam (2000): ‘bridging’ social capital can generate reciprocity. “Distant acquaintances in different circles” (P23)

http://blog.ouseful.info/2011/06/11/a-map-of-my-twitter-follower-network/

How my twitter followers follow each other – who is influential?

http://ouseful.open.ac.uk/twitter/friendviz.html?q=daveharte&typ=q

Recent mentions of @daveharte on twitter

How people are connected to each other

http://apps.asterisq.com/mentionmap/#user-daveharte

Social Capital and the web

Our networks as a resource

You have to give a bit to get something out

Measuring Social Capital online

“It might be more accurate to characterize the individual activities of ranking, rating or social networking, then, as moments of experiential re-structuring”

Alison Hearn 2010

Klout

The Networked Audience

“individuals conceptualise an imagined audience evoked through their tweets”

Marwick/Boyd (2010)

Clay Shirky Cognitive Surplus

Someone working alone, with really cheap tools, has a reasonable hope of carving out enough of the cognitive surplus, enough of the desire to participate, enough of the collective goodwill of the citizens, to create a resource you couldn't have imagined existing even five years ago.”

Clay Shirky Cognitive Surplus

“More is different”

Resistance

MAC / Rodarte

Make-up inspired by Mexico

Nail Polish named after Juarez – known for the disappearance of hundreds of women who have been raped and murdered.

Beauty bloggers get a bit upset

Collaborated to respond simultaneously on a single topic

Consumers as networked activists

MAC / Rodarte

Blogs

Free platforms (wordpress.com)

Link to others with similar interests

Create conversations

The media is listening

Gap

New logo

Some people didn’t like it

Said so on twitter #gaplogo

Soon, everyone didn’t like it….

Got changed back

Gap

Twitter hashtags #

Connecting the highly networked and the less highly networked

Simple, text-based

Coolest networking tool out there

Habitat

Habitat

United Break Guitars

Students

Some things we learned from studying Media students

How are students using social media to network with the media industry?

Questionnaire

320 respondents (from about 400 possible respondents)

Undergraduate Year 1 41.7%

Undergraduate Year 2 24.7%

Undergraduate Year 3 24%

Post graduate 9.6%

95% use Facebook daily

59% use YouTube daily

1st years don’t use Twitter much

LinkedIn

Use is progressive:

1st years: 94% did not use it at all

2nd years: 80.9%

3rd years: 60.6% of 3rd Years and

Postgraduates: 44.8%

Which platform to use?

Why use them?

Do you moderate your profile?

Connecting with industry

Finding Placements

24% had been successful in finding placements or paid work, fairly equally split between years

Qualitative Research

Personal versus Professional

‘ I tend to use Facebook for the more social side of it, and Twitter for the more professional side of it. My profile on Twitter and Facebook are really different’ (1st Year)

Online Etiquette

‘if there’s an opportunity for a placement or a job, that you do that formally through email or writing in to them, that you don’t send an in-box message and say, hi, do you remember me and can I have that placement or whatever, because that isn’t considered the done thing.’ (MA student)

Negative posts

‘He slagged him off quite a lot, said he was addicted to drugs and stuff, which was all untrue. He then spoke to someone at Radio 1, to try and get some work experience. They saw that he was on Twitter, went on that, saw a link to his blog, went on that, read the blog and basically told him where to go’. (2nd Year)

Creating rather than Consuming

‘if you’re interesting then people will follow you, and if you’re not, no one will care’. (3rd Year)

‘it’s quite novel for people in industry at the moment to see how we’re emerging as the sort of digital native, that are used to this platform and know how to interact with people on it.’ (2nd Year)

Bonding and Bridging Social Capital

Bonding social capital - Facebook:

‘really useful for Uni stuff, because everybody uses it, so even if they don’t text you back, they will look on Facebook. It’s easier to talk as a group rather than individuals.’ (2nd Year)

http://socialmediatutorials.co.uk

Summary

The social web is about relationships, not technology or apps or websites.

We need to invest time into maintaining those relationships (building our ‘Social Capital’)

It’s terrifying, exciting and moving very very quickly

Students are savvy and strategic

Questions