Social Media Influence on New Zeland's Public - Case Study Example

Impact of Social Media of the ID Number: of the Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. Impact of Social Media on New Zealand’s Society 3 2.1 Positive issue related to the use of social media 4 2.2 Negative issue related to the use of social media 5 2.3 Business-related issues associated with social media 6 3. Conclusions 7 3.1 7 3.2 7 3.3 7 3.4 7 3.5 7 4. Recommendations 8 4.1 8 4.2 8 4.3 8 5. References 9 6. Appendices 11 Appendix 1 11 Appendix 2 11 Appendix 3 11 1. Introduction This report has been written for the Minister of Social Development, Employment, and Youth Affairs to provide a better understanding on the social media’s impact on the society of New Zealand. Social media offers for the participation and support an individual is able to acquire by the exchange of thoughts with likeminded people. Social media is the most effectual method for the business and individual to obtain more traffic as well as create new leads. It comprises of sites, services, and internet tools providing customers with dynamic means to interact, generate, and share. Having the presence on every major network such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Google+ is a requirement nowadays for every business (Evans, n.d). The users or customers of social media are public, collaborators and producers. It encourages the participation and interaction. This paper will lay emphasis on three accepted tools of social media i.e. Twitter, Facebook, and You Tube. Other tools of social media are also used by the people as well as MPs of New Zealand, but are not considered for discussion because they have lesser usage in New Zealand. The social media has both its positive as well as negative side. So, the main aim of this paper is to provide the positive as well as negative issue related to the use of social media. It will also focus on both the business-related and personal issues associated to social media. Further, suggestion will be given for recuperating the social welfare of the people of New Zealand, which will assist in developing future government policies and programmes. 2. Impact of Social Media on New Zealand’s Society According to the Statistics New Zealand Survey of 2009, it was found that more than a million of people had broadband connection and almost 80% of the individuals aged above fifteen years had make use of internet in the earlier twelve months (Stats, 2009). The New Zealand society most often makes use of the internet in order to find out information as well as opinions which can have an impact on their attitudes. According to World Internet Project, most of the people of New Zealand deemed the internet to be a significant base of information than newspaper, television, or radio. Facebook got 2nd ranking in the list of leading New Zealand websites and in the list of top website globally in the year 2011. You Tube obtained 5th rank in the list of most important New Zealand websites. Blogger got eleventh, Twitter – twelfth, and Wordpress - sixteenth rank in the list of leading New Zealand websites. Blogger also received 7th rank, Twitter 10th rank, and Wordpress 19th rank in the list of top website globally (Parliament, 2011) (See Appendix 1). 2.1 Positive issue related to the use of social media Social networking sites are serving education by allowing coaches and teachers to post school projects, times of club meeting as well as homework on these websites (Ashrafi, 2013). It enables advancement in medicine and science. It is also regarded as a useful tool for job hunting. It helps the people to remain in touch with their friends. The MPs of New Zealand were engaged with the use of Facebook since 2007 (Sunday Star Times, 2007). It is considered as most used social networking website by the New Zealand’s MPs. Approx 76% i.e. 90 out of every 121 of the individual members across the political parties symbolized in the forty-ninth Parliament had the Facebook accounts as of November 2010 (See Appendix 2). Facebook appears as custom-made for the desires and needs of youngsters. It allows the users of New Zealand to make their own personality and shape their image, while also offering a means to interact and connect with peers. It provides a sense of freedom and a way to feel like the users have an identity and existence outside of their family role (Siers-Poisson, 2013). During November 2010, 100% of the Green Party contains the highest MPs’ percentage who are using Twitter Account followed by the ACT Labour Party (See Appendix 3). The followers of Twitter are more informal than the Facebook friends and the follower or friends’ requests are generally automatically accepted. Building a society of supporters is more difficult than normally ‘tweeting’. Having exciting things to state and stating them in an appealing way assists to construct a community. The two major ways the political parties of New Zealand make use of You Tube are by providing speeches clips during debates in the ‘House of Representatives’, and through providing more untailored video blogs where the MPs converse about latest activities. The members of Labour Party have worked together on videos like clip supporting the entire White football team. The Green Party and Labour Party videos frequently appear connected to a definite topic, while the videos of National Party often emerge to be persons making a video log. You Tube is used by the Maori Party of New Zealand to provide clips of the House debates. During January 2011, You Tube appears as the fifth most visited site in the New Zealand. This makes it one of the most valuable tools of social networking. It permits engagement of most of the people nationally and internationally, especially those unwilling or unable to examine party information. The utilization of the online tools shows that some of the government leaders identify the possibility for the social media in order to present a straight line of interaction among “the administered and the government”. The ‘digital divide’ can avert some individuals accessing the internet towards participating in the online independent activities. The internet assisted in shaping the 2008 General Election Campaign of New Zealand. The National MP of New Zealand started using the social networking website for example Twitter to put on air her campaign actions before the date of election was announced (Parliament, 2011). The young adults of New Zealand rely on the social media sites for political news as well as for entertainment activities but the politicians are engaged with these websites for their political achievement. The social media provides speedy communication, helps to remain in touch with the entire world, assists in building relationship with common sets of people, and also help to find familiar ground in an open society (Weaver, 2014). 2.2 Negative issue related to the use of social media Social media has now become the unavoidable part of everybody’s life. Even the politicians, big businesses, and the celebrities have shown the craze of social networking sites. Every morning most of the individuals check their accounts in spite of reading newspapers. The social networking websites emerged out to be a source of everyday consumption for the internet users (Weaver, 2014). Besides having its positive side, the social media also include some negative issues. One of the negative issues related with social media is that it results in addiction. Through spending innumerable hours on the sites can divert the attention and focus of the people of New Zealand from a definite task. It decreases the motivational level especially of the students and teenagers of New Zealand. They mainly depend on the internet and technology for carrying out their work in spite of learning the realistic knowledge as well as know-how of the daily life (Rensing et al, 2014). Kids of the New Zealand can be deeply affected by the social media due to the reason that few times individuals share photos which contain violence and this can harm or damage the teenagers and kids’ behaviour. It places the harmful impact on the entire society because these teenagers and kids can engage themselves in the crime related acts (Anderson, 2010). Another drawback of the social networking site on the New Zealand society is that the individuals shares excessive information which might pose risks to them. Even with stiff security settings, the personal information of the individuals may leak sometimes because downloading the pictures or videos is not a difficult task (Harvey, 2014). The social media websites makes it more complicated to differentiate between the various casual relations formed by social media and the meaningful relations people use to look after in the actual world. By focusing a lot of psychic energy and time on the less meaningful relations, the most important bonds of people may sometime weaken. The teenagers are vulnerable towards the tradition of cyber-bullying where the perpetrators terrorize the individuals. The damage of these attacks can only leave deep psychological scars. In some cases it also happens that the victims are driven towards suicide (Saleh, Grudzinskas & Judge, 2014). 2.3 Business-related issues associated with social media Social media has emerged as the most dominant media platform. It facilitates businesses and brands to directly get in touch with their customers anywhere and anytime. It has assisted the small businesses of New Zealand to grow more rapidly than before. Besides providing benefits, it has also showed the way towards the downfall of some businesses in New Zealand by misusing the promotion platform as well as damaging the reputation of small businesses or wasting a lot of money (Joosten, 2012). There are several instances of how companies remain unsuccessful towards using the social media. It may sometimes happen that the businesses talk about the controversial issues related with their product that do not make any sense for their business. By engaging in this type of activity, the businesses turn their customers against them. If the businesses want to receive worth from their customers then they have to grant value first. Most of the users of social media are searching for few satisfying and simple things such as useful information related to company or their products, entertainment, and some interesting contents. If the businesses provide the users with those things then they can earn value that leads to several clicks and customer traffic (Joosten, 2012). In spite of the repeated catastrophes, some businesses keep on to commend their social site to the persons who are actually unqualified. People may have knowledge of using the social networking sites for themselves but supervising a presence of business is entirely different. Inexperience leads to catastrophe. The companies need somebody who knows how to analyze the data in order to track the results as well as refine the results. They also require someone who is aware of the customers and are familiar with how to involve them through different forms of social media (Mathews, 2012). The social media sites also lead to decreased productivity for some businesses. While few businesses make use of social media to find as well as communicate with their customers, the sites could also comes out to be a big distraction to the employees who show more concern in what others are posting instead of focusing on their own task. The businesses should lay emphasis on one means of social media at a time. It is better to use one tool of social media rather than to employ three or four of them unsuccessfully (Forbes, 2013). The platforms of social media have great potential to promote innovation in the businesses of both small and big size. However, it requires the small businesses to innovate their ways of using the social media (The Guardian, 2013). 3. Conclusions 3.1 The people of New Zealand make use of internet for different activities such as sharing the political opinions as well as engaging with colleagues or friends online. 3.2 While most of the MPs are making use of tools of social media which are beneficial for communication with the community, some politician employ it in terms of broadcasting mechanism, instead of using it as a means to connect with constituents. 3.3 Though, there are few drawbacks related to social networking sites, but its optimistic effects constantly outweigh the drawbacks of the social media. Nobody can undervalue the role which the social media has played by helping the people to interact with each other in a simpler way. 3.4 The New Zealand people make use of the internet in order to find out information as well as opinions which can have an impact on their thoughts. 3.5 The social media provides great benefit to the businesses. The only thing they require is to improve their methods of using the social media. 4. Recommendations 4.1 The businesses in New Zealand who suffer loss through the use of social media may consider appointing a manager of social media who can entrust responsibilities and tasks and can supervise the bigger picture as well as produce the finest result. 4.2 The businesses should explore where their potential and current customers are, and should design a policy to attain them. The businesses which sell their services to small consultancies might find it simpler to connect with customers using social media sites. 4.3 MPs frequently have many online viewers and followers. Therefore, an effort is required to connect with the online society, for example through seeking feedback and online dialogue, rather than just making announcements like the media releases. 5. References Anderson, E. (2010). Social Media Marketing: Game Theory and the Emergence of Collaboration. Heidelberg: Springer Science & Business Media. Ashrafi, M.Z. (2013). Impact of E-Marketing in the Telecom Industry: A Study on Robi Axiata Ltd. Bangladesh: Mahbub Zaman Ashrafi. Evans, J. (n.d.). Impact of Social Media on Politics: Influence of Social Media on Social Developemnt. Australia: Coffee Publishing. Forbes. (2013). 10 Social Media Time Management Tips for Small Business. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/aileron/2013/04/01/10-social-media-time-management-tips-for-small-business/. Harvey. K. (2014). Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics. London: Sage Publication. Joosten, T. (2012). Social Media for Educators. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Mathews, J.N. (2012). Social media marketing for business owners. United States of America: Booktango Publishing. Parliament. 2011. New Zealand Parliamentarians and Online Social Media. Retrieved from http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/parl-support/research-papers/00PLSocRP11021/new-zealand-parliamentarians-and-online-social-media. Rensing, C. Freitas, S. Ley, T. Munoz-Merino, P.J. (2014). Open learning and teaching in educational communities. Heidelberg: Springer Science & Business Media. Saleh, F.M. Grudzinskas, A. & Judge, A. (2014). Adolescent Sexual Behaviour in the Digital Age. New York: Oxford University Press. Siers-Poisson, J. (2013). Social Media is both Positive, Negative for Youth. Retrieved from http://www.wpr.org/social-media-both-positive-negative-youth. Stats. (2009). Household use of information and communication technology: 2009. Retrieved from http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/information_technology_and_communications/hhold-use-of-ict/household-ict-2009-tables.aspx. Sunday Star Times. (2007). Politicians finds friends in fake places. Sunday Star Times, p.5. The Guardian. (2013). Small businesses should innovate the way they use social media. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2013/apr/05/innovative-use-social-media. Weaver, L. (2014). The impact of social media. Retrieved from http://phys.org/news/2014-09-impact-social-media.html. 6. Appendices Appendix 1 The table indicates the most accepted social networking sites in the New Zealand. (Source: Parliament 2011). Appendix 2 Percentage of New Zealand’s MPs on Facebook as at 2 November 2010 Appendix 3 Active MPs on Twitter by party as at November 2010 (Source: Parliament 2011) Read More