Social Media Technology - Essay Example

s There is a mass consensus in the intellectual world over the fact that knowledge is power. However, the evolution of communication paradigms to social networking has culminated this concept to a whole new level. Social media technology has paved way for revolutionizing the way how information is shared and created platforms where sharing information has become more of an art (Lam 2005: 92). For this reason, expertise in the field is being developed just like with any other discipline, since dealing with the technology associated with social media networking can be a daunting task for a layman. Also, various organizations have now been recruiting experts in the field to carve out an incisive social media strategy to avoid complications and clarify the rules of order regarding information sharing and integration beforehand. This is especially true for big organizations where the procedures are bureaucratic in nature, and thus a systemized way of running the communication paradigms is regarded (Goertz, shortle & Bergestorm 2005: 177). For this reason, the paper will explore the utilization of social media technology in the United Nations Organization to integrate communication paradigms for effective advocacy and awareness campaigns. Lately, the organization has been focusing on developing blueprints on how social media tools and techniques can be used to enhance the output of communication and advocacy campaigns. It can be argued that the United Nations organization utilizes the social media technology as a product of interpretive flexibility over various relevant social groups. In other words, technology in social media and its utilization for various social groups in driving the organization to take leaps while the organization in itself isn`t leading the process, rather it is being led by interpretive flexibility processes. Also, the conceptualization of the social media technology differs over the scope and role, thus in turn changing the structural systems. Thus, observing the organization, it can be precisely states that the variables in social media technology tends to dictate how the UN designs communication strategies while the strategies tend to in turn impact structural change and thus, the process takes place in a circular manner which is dynamic and progressive. United Nations has missions and offices all around the globe, and thus it would be ignorant to perceive the social media communication paradigms at all levels integrated and similar in nature. Thus, for the purpose of determining a holistic account, the global context would be considered and the discussion would revolve around how UN as an autonomous organization perceives and designs social media communication strategies. For instance, the UN held a conference back in 2012 in Brazil themed as ‘Rio Social’ where opinion leaders from major social media related conglomerated were invited to help UN carve out a strategy to effectively develop mechanisms for information sharing regarding advocacy campaigns. At the conference, representatives from organizations like Mashable and Erikson were invited to highlight the trend and technological advancements in social media (United Nation 2013: 44). The priorities and the commitment of the UN in this context can be analyzed from his statement at the conference, where the CEO of the UN foundation explained;  “Every minute, social media and technology are opening doors for new, young voices to participate in and shape the ongoing international development debate… World leaders are listening, and better yet, working in collaboration with these #socialgood pioneers to change how we approach global solutions.” (United Nations 2013: 17) Similarly, the Office of the Coordination and Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) published a report titled, ‘Humanitarianism in the Network Age’ which points out to the social media tools and techniques which are changing the way how humanitarianism agencies are operation (United Nations 2013: 71). The report points outs the role of social media in enhancing participation of the communications where the donors as well the community actors can work in unison and participation at both ends can be ensured. Similarly, the social networking within a community may also alter how the humanitarian efforts are monitored and implemented, since a well connected community can deal with the issues more effectively. Thus, humanitarianism in the network age is quite complacent in this context and the revolutionized technologies have changed the way advocacy and humanitarian activities are influenced, implemented and monitored. The UN in this context is open to the idea of adapting to the changing needs of time, and not only adapting, rather making full utility of the technology to extract the maximum output. Another perspective which may be analyzed in context to managerial and administrative side of the UN is the conflict management. An analysis of the report published by the UN foundation, ‘New Technologies and Conflicts’ indicates that UN is making quite an effort to integrate social media technology for the purpose of dealing with emergency situations as well (United Nations 2013: 99). UN has always indicated a tilt towards maintaining a resilient and a pro-active approach towards developing emergency response mechanisms. However, the sole issue which has always been identified is the communication complexity, which is where social media tools can be used. In this context, UN can explore an exclusive application aimed at connecting and integrating main actors involved in the process, where they can monitor the situation. Similarly, a conflict ridden community can also be well equipped with social media tools to help them develop early warning systems. Similarly, in a conflict situation, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook can very well be used to mobilize the social workers in making the required efforts, in such a way the efforts aren’t merely uncoordinated moves but well integrated campaign to help mitigate the losses. Thus, social media can be used at every step, ranging from preparedness to response to even rebuilding a community after a conflict had taken place. In this scenario, the nature and scope of the conflict dictates the strategy which will be utilized by the organization. In the context of the discussion, it would be quite insightful to place the organizational preferences regarding social media technology assessment and impact within the communication models already perceived, to generate patterns. For this reason, the ‘social construction of technology’ can be assessed, which argues that it is not the technology which determines how humans react and adapt to it, rather it is the human preferences and actions which shape how the technology is being utilized. The model stands true in case of social media technology and its utilization in context to the United Nations organization. The organization in itself didn’t pioneer the idea of integrating social media communications with the mainstream communications, rather the social changes in itself made the UN sensitive about the utilization of the technique. The preferences mentioned above reflected in the initiatives the UN took to integrate social media tools weren’t taken until recently when the global community had already engaged itself with social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, Algorithms, social apps, etc. The small and medium sized humanitarian organizations along with individuals engaged in activities similar to those undertaken by the UN had already sparked their presence on these social mediums, and thus it had now become a social construct to interact via social media profiles (Bourhis & Dube 2010: 55). Thus, only after it had become a norm did UN took initiatives to utilize the social media technology for information sharing. Furthermore, the model explaining ‘social construction of technology’ relies on the concept of interpretive flexibility. This concept inherently implies that the utilization of a piece of technology is itself not a scientific phenomenon, rather more of a social construct. Also, these technological artifacts shape themselves according to the cultural norms associated with the product (Barret 1992: 24). In the case of the UN and its organizational strategy regarding social media, the organization undertook mechanisms and tools of social media associated with humanitarian assistance and conflict management systems since those defined and suited the cultural norms reflecting the organizational needs and setup of the UN. Secondly, the model relies on relevant social group which acts as a frame of reference to determine which shared meaning s and cultural variables are needed to be extracted from the technological artifacts. For instance, globally, the UN has to opt for social media tools which the developing states may also have access to an understanding of. Thus, the UN does most of its campaigning and runs most of its advocacy campaigns via Facebook since most of the communities have their presence of this very medium. Similarly, UN is aware of that the relevant social groups have access to mobile phones, if not laptops or others tablets, and thus, it has been incorporating social networking via cellular phones to run the cause (United Nations 2005: 101). Thus, the social groups have acquired closure with respect to social media tools and thus, UN is comfortable enough to acquire them for achieving targets. In the wider context, UN is looking at impacting the global scenario by changing the socio-cultural variables holistically, for instance, the statement of the CEO of UN foundation stated above mentioned the intended role of the UN in impacting the young generation to bring about change. In addition, the Orlikowski`s (2001: 22) theory of conceptualization of technology also tends to explain the processes associated with social media technology with reference to the UN. The theory tends to focus on the point that the technological imperatives differ with the scope and role of the technological artifact in impacting cultural variables of a society (Bijker, Hughes & Pinch 2007: 122-123). Since UN deals with the global culture, the holistic global trends with reference to humanitarian efforts and advocacy would be discussed. Also, the scope of the technology would be conceptualized with reference to the diversity in its usage and implementation. In this context, three models are relevant. Firstly, the model of technological imperatives is analyzed to study organizational characteristics with reference to contingency and measurable factors. In this context, the UN measures its technological advances depending on the role and scope or rather the vision of the organization. Since UN tends to expand missions around the world to make socio-cultural change, the social media technology would also be anticipated accordingly and to meet the relevant needs. Secondly, and most importantly, the model suggests that strategic choices are made by decision makers after they have anticipated the needs of the users. The UN was influenced by the changing needs to the time with reference to communication paradigms and increased integration within and between communities and also donors and humanitarians. Thus, the decision makers within the bureaucratic setup felt the need to incorporate social media technology within their organizational setup. For this reason, most of the UN offices at country level now have permanents positions for social media analysts and social media strategists which indicate that the decision makers have now understood the inevitability of the culture of social media and the current trends. Thirdly, the model suggests that the resultant product is the structural change which would occur, i.e. the UN aims at impacting the society and the global world by transforming it into a well integration information system where any flaws and errors in communication are immediately countered. After having assessed the models and the approach of the UN to the social media technology, it would be crucial to highlight a few of the tools which the organization has now set as standard tools which must be exploited by the organization. The United Nations has now fully adapted to and integrated within its communicational paradigm, the Web 2.0 technology which undertakes social media functions (United Nations 2005: 17). This includes the website portal of the organization which is designed in an interactive manner to integrate all social media panels alongside the live blog and other similar channels. The main website of the UN is linked to the country offices around the globe, and the country office websites are in turn synced with the global and regional networks. Thus, the UN has integrated and synced all the social media channels where online presence is accessible and up to date. Furthermore, UN is also undertaking mobile networking as a serious measure to integrate backward communities with limited internet connectivity into the communication spectrum. For instance, the UNDP has been running campaigns in countries like India and Pakistan to raise awareness for causes like elections awareness and women rights movements, the success rate of which is still questionable, given the cultural constraints. Similarly, online applications and portals have been dispersed by the UN via secondary organizations to facilitate ideas generation and mass campaigns on community levels. Similarly, UN has been exploring mediums like Twitter, Digg, Tumblr etc as well to further ensure that all kinds of mediums which are accepted in the cultural norms of the global world. Therefore, as indicated by the model, the social constructs dictating the global communication spectrum indicates that the humanitarian as well as emergency response systems have increasingly been using social media tools, and thus following the lead, the UN also stepped in and made an effort to integrate similar social media technological advances within their organizational spectrum. Thus, once the global pretext developed a consensus amongst the use of social media as a cultural norm, the next step was to change the socio-cultural scenario by virtue of social media. Once there was a progression in the socio-cultural scenario, the changes will further trigger another communicational variable which will further trigger change in the scenario (Hawryszkiewycz 2011: 255), as part of the evolution in the communication process, to which the organization will adapt. Thus, conclusively, the social media technology has paved way for revolutionizing the way how information is shared and created platforms where sharing information has become more of an art. For this reason, expertise in the field is being developed just like with any other discipline, since dealing with the technology associated with social media networking can be a daunting task for a layman. Also, various organizations have now been recruiting experts in the field to carve out an incisive social media strategy to avoid complications and clarify the rules of order regarding information sharing and integration beforehand. This is especially true for big organizations where the procedures are bureaucratic in nature, and thus a systemized way of running the communication paradigms is regarded. For this reason, the paper will explore the utilization of social media technology in the United Nations Organization to integrate communication paradigms for effective advocacy and awareness campaigns. Lately, the organization has been focusing on developing blueprints on how social media tools and techniques can be used to enhance the output of communication and advocacy campaigns. It can be argued that the United Nations organization utilizes the social media technology as a product of interpretive flexibility over various relevant social groups. In other words, technology in social media and its utilization for various social groups in driving the organization to take leaps while the organization in itself isn`t leading the process, rather it is being led by interpretive flexibility processes. Also, the conceptualization of the social media technology differs over the scope and role, thus in turn changing the structural systems. Thus, observing the organization, it can be precisely states that the variables in social media technology tends to dictate how the UN designs communication strategies while the strategies tend to in turn impact structural change and thus, the process takes place in a circular manner which is dynamic and progressive. Bibliography: BARRETT, E. (1992). Sociomedia multimedia, hypermedia, and the social construction of knowledge. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=1434. BIJKER, W. E., HUGHES, T. P., & PINCH, T. J. (2007). The Social construction of technological systems: new directions in the sociology and history of technology. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press. 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