Where and whence the [R]evolution

Where and whence(!) the (R)evolution?
Three key principles at the heart of social

Jim Macnamara PhD, FPRIA, FAMI, CPM, FAMEC
Professor of Public Communication
University of Technology Sydney

Professor Jim Macnamara PhD, FAMI, CPM, FPRIA, FAMEC

Social media impact
Canterbury earthquake

Japanese tsunami

Queensland floods


The changing mediascape
 2.27 billion internet users

 1.5 billion+ social network users

 955 million active Facebook users (May 2012)

 4 billion videos a day on YouTube

 400 million blogs

 340 million tweets every day via Twitter

 19 million articles posted on Wikipedia in 2011


The changing mediascape


Web 2.0 and social media
 ‘Web 2.0’ coined by Tim O’Reilly in 2005
 “... a set of principles and practices” (Tim O’Reilly, 2005)
 “It’s an attitude, not a technology ... an underlying philosophy
of relinquishing control” (Richard MacManus, 2005)
 “... it’s not about the technology ... It’s about relinquishing
control ... openness, trust and authenticity” (Peter Merholz, 2005)
 “participatory culture” (Henry Jenkins, 2006)
 “... open-source, interactive and user-controlled online
applications expanding the experiences, knowledge and market
power of the users as participants” (Constantinides & Fountain, 2008)


First and Second Media Ages
First Media Age Second Media Age
Centralised content production Decentralised content production
(e.g. user-generated content)
State or capitalist control Beyond state and capitalist control;
democratising; open access; bottom-up
One-way distribution of information - Two-way interactive communication –
monologue dialogue and conversations
Audiences conceived and treated as mass, Audience fragmentation; networks;
passive prosumers / produsers creating user-
generated content as well as consuming
Elites dominate media content influencing Individuals use media to construct
social consciousness and reproducing themselves as ‘subjects’, enabling social
existing social structures change


Understanding media
 Traditional definitions:
• “... the institutionalised production and generalised diffusion of
symbolic goods via … transmission of information or symbolic content”
(John Thompson, 1995)
• “... technological channels of distribution of messages by organisations
(W. James Potter, 2009)
 “ … structures of communication, where structures include both
technological forms and their associated protocols, and where
communication is a cultural practice (Lisa Gitelman, 2008)


Understanding social media
 Social media are a significant shift in media and communication
 It’s about the PRACTICES more than technologies
• Openness – to prosumers / produsers Not dominated by elites
• Two-way interaction and dialogue Not monologue
• Bottom-up and side-to-side Not top-down
• No, or few, gatekeepers Not controlled
• Authentic Not packaged
• Listening Not just talking


Gov 2.0 consultation trials 2009
 Lack of planning – usually no clear objectives
 Cultural barriers – don’t want to, or reluctant, to engage
 Heavy moderation
 Inability to meet response time expectations
 Lack of resources to monitor and respond
• No extra human resources
• Little or no social media monitoring
 Lack of sense-making tools
• E.g. text analysis software to review
and understand large quantities of Study of 11 federal government
public comment departments and agencies
using social media for citizen
engagement

2010 Australian election
 Content analysis of social media use by
206 sitting federal candidates + two
major political parties
• Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, YouTube, blogs


2007 – 2010 Australian elections
Social media 2007 2010 % change
Personal Web site 137 157 15%
Twitter 0 92 9200%
Facebook 8 146 1725%
YouTube 13 34 162%
MySpace 26 9 -65%
Blogs 15 29 93%
Flickr 0 9 900%
E-surveys 24 7 -71%
E-petitions 10 3 -70%
E-newsletter 42 78 86%
Total online sites/activities 275 564 105%


Politicians on Twitter
Fake Twitter accounts
4%

On Twitter
45%

Not on Twitter
51%


Politicians on Twitter
500

450 439

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150 142
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75 72
63 62 59 55
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Talking v listening
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Talking v listening
Politician Tweets Followers Following

1. Malcolm Turnbull 439 26,943 20,498

2. Scott Morrison 158 1,978 166

3. Andrew Robb 142 1,684 1,254

4. Tony Burke 134 3,107 550

5. Kate Lundy 104 4,352 720

9. Julia Gillard 75 43,538 27,467

92. Tony Abbott 2 19,083 20


Dialogue v broadcasting
Politician Direct Broadcasts Where am I? Attack on
messages & opponents
responses
Malcolm Turnbull 248 191 81 9

Scott Morrison 33 125 48 19

Andrew Robb 1 141 17 79

Tony Burke 65 68 9 14

Kate Lundy 28 56 22 11

Mathias Corman 22 44 5 49

Julia Gillard 12 51 20 4


UK and US election experiences
 “UK political leaders and organisations engaged primarily in
broadcasting their messages and not listening or engaging in
dialogue”
(Gibson, Williamson & Ward, 2010)
 “In the 2010 US mid-terms, 76% of tweets were one-way
dissemination of information about candidates or their
campaign events – “a wasted opportunity” for engagement
(Unpublished PhD thesis, 2012)


August – September 2011

1. Survey of 200 + organisations (private and public) in Australia, New
Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong
2. Depth interviews with social media specialists (n = 14)


Participants


Social media most used

Social media/network % of Organisations Using
Facebook 73.7%
Twitter 54.1%
YouTube 52.7%
Corporate/organisation blog 46.8%
Podcasting (e.g. of speeches) 19%


Risks in social media

57.9%

43.4%
Loss of
34.4%
control

30.4%

30.3%

8.4%


Social media use by organisations
 Few organisations allocate additional resources for responding
to social media comment, questions, etc
 65.2% have no specific policy or guidelines for employees on
use of social media
 46.7% either do not monitor social media at all, or monitor only
in an ad hoc way
 Less than one-third (32%) analyse social media content
qualitatively
 Most focus is on content creation and distribution (talking)


Key requirements in social media
 Listening – not just talking
• Listening is essential to be social, interactive and for engagement
• Listening = free real-time 24/7 market, opinion and reputation research
 The WORK OF LISTENING
• People
• Effort
• Time


Key requirements in social media
 Listening (particularly large-scale organisational listening)
requires an ARCHITECTURE OF LISTENING
• Policies
• Systems (two-way interactive sites)
• Tools or services to monitor
• Technology such as auto-acknowledgement
and text analysis software
• Human resources (moderators, editors, etc)
• Articulation to management and policy


Where and whence the revolution?
 It’s about the practices and a cultural shift –
not the technologies
• We need to change organisational culture and architecture
 The shift to the social organisation is revolutionary – if
operationalised in practice
• Openness, interactivity, participation, collaboration
• But the control paradigm is resilient
 Being social requires listening as well as talking
• Do the work of listening
• Have an architecture of listening


Where and whence the [R]evolution

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