Social Media: the Wild West of CSR Communications

Purpose - The central argument that this paper posits is that traditional media of old presented a clear, ordered world of communication management for organisations to extol their CSR credentials. In contrast to this, new Web 2.0 social media is increasingly being used by activists and hactivists to challenge corporate communication CSR messages and does so by highlighting instances and examples of Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSI) (Jones, Bowd and Tench, 2009; Tench, Sun and Jones, 2012). Design/methodology/approach - The paper reports on research data from the European Communication Monitor 2010, 2011 and 2012 (http://www.communicationmonitor.eu/) and draws on work already published in this area (Tench, Verhoeven and Zerfass, 2009; Verhoeven et al, 2012; and Zerfass et al, 2010, 2011) to illustrate the unruly unregulated Web 2.0 social media communication landscape in Europe. A range of literature is drawn on to provide the theoretical context for an exploration of issues that surround social media. Findings - In late modernity (Giddens, 1990) communication comes in many guises. Social media is one guise and it has re-shaped as well as transformed the nature of communications and the relationship between organisations and their stakeholders. Originality/value - Communicating CSR in the Wild West of social media requires diplomatic and political nous, as well as awareness and knowledge of the dangers and pitfalls of CSI. The data reported on in this paper illustrates well the above points and sets out scenarios for future development of corporate communication of CSR through, and with social media

Citizens and Institutions as Information Prosumers. The Case Study of Italian Municipalities on Twitter

The aim of this paper is to address changes in public communication following the advent of Internet social networking tools and the emerging web 2.0 technologies which are providing new ways of sharing information and knowledge. In particular public administrations are called upon to reinvent the governance of public affairs and to update the means for interacting with their communities. The paper develops an analysis of the distribution, diffusion and performance of the official profiles on Twitter adopted by the Italian municipalities (comuni) up to November 2013. It aims to identify the patterns of spatial distribution and the drivers of the diffusion of Twitter profiles; the performance of the profiles through an aggregated index, called the Twitter performance index (Twiperindex), which evaluates the profiles' activity with reference to the gravitational areas of the municipalities in order to enable comparisons of the activity of municipalities with different demographic sizes and functional roles. The results show that only a small portion of innovative municipalities have adopted Twitter to enhance e-participation and e-governance and that the drivers of the diffusion seem to be related either to past experiences and existing conditions (i.e. civic networks, digital infrastructures) developed over time or to strong local community awareness. The better performances are achieved mainly by small and medium-sized municipalities. Of course, the phenomenon is very new and fluid, therefore this analysis should be considered as a first step in ongoing research which aims to grasp the dynamics of these new means of public communication

Both Sides of the Story: Communication Ethics in Mediatized Worlds

Current transformations in the media landscape are challenging contemporary communication and media ethics in at least 2 ways. First, digitization of the media creates new ethical problems that stimulate calls for a redefinition of the norms and values of public communication. Second, new instruments of web-based media observation introduce new possibilities for media (self-)regulation and accountability, thus complementing the initiatives of traditional institutions like press councils. The article retraces those conflicting developments by reference to 2 comparative studies, representing the diverging traditions of conventional communication ethics and media accountability research. In bridging over the conceptual gap between the 2 forms of research, the article develops new perspectives for ethical reflection in the mediatized worlds of the digital ag

The Web 2.0 as Marketing Tool: Opportunities for SMEs

The new generation of Internet applications widely known as Social Media or Web 2.0 offers corporations a whole range of opportunities for improving their marketing efficiency and internal operations. Web 2.0 applications have already become part of the daily life of an increasing number of consumers who regard them as prime channels of communication, information exchange, sharing of expertise, dissemination of individual creativity and entertainment. Web logs, podcasts, online forums and social networks are rapidly becoming major sources of customer information and influence while the effectiveness of traditional mass media is rapidly decreasing. Using the social media as a marketing tool is an issue attracting increasing attention. The hitherto experience is that large public corporations are more likely to make use of such instruments as part of their marketing and internal operations (McKinsey, 2007).The paper defines the Web 2.0 phenomenon and based on the experience of large corporations examines how SMEs could engage the various Web 2.0 instruments in order to efficiently market their products, improve customer relations, increase customer retention and enhance internal operations

Measuring internet activity: a (selective) review of methods and metrics

Two Decades after the birth of the World Wide Web, more than two billion people around the world are Internet users. The digital landscape is littered with hints that the affordances of digital communications are being leveraged to transform life in profound and important ways. The reach and influence of digitally mediated activity grow by the day and touch upon all aspects of life, from health, education, and commerce to religion and governance. This trend demands that we seek answers to the biggest questions about how digitally mediated communication changes society and the role of different policies in helping or hindering the beneficial aspects of these changes. Yet despite the profusion of data the digital age has brought upon us—we now have access to a flood of information about the movements, relationships, purchasing decisions, interests, and intimate thoughts of people around the world—the distance between the great questions of the digital age and our understanding of the impact of digital communications on society remains large. A number of ongoing policy questions have emerged that beg for better empirical data and analyses upon which to base wider and more insightful perspectives on the mechanics of social, economic, and political life online. This paper seeks to describe the conceptual and practical impediments to measuring and understanding digital activity and highlights a sample of the many efforts to fill the gap between our incomplete understanding of digital life and the formidable policy questions related to developing a vibrant and healthy Internet that serves the public interest and contributes to human wellbeing. Our primary focus is on efforts to measure Internet activity, as we believe obtaining robust, accurate data is a necessary and valuable first step that will lead us closer to answering the vitally important questions of the digital realm. Even this step is challenging: the Internet is difficult to measure and monitor, and there is no simple aggregate measure of Internet activity—no GDP, no HDI. In the following section we present a framework for assessing efforts to document digital activity. The next three sections offer a summary and description of many of the ongoing projects that document digital activity, with two final sections devoted to discussion and conclusions

Community Development Evaluation Storymap and Legend

Community based organizations, funders, and intermediary organizations working in the community development field have a shared interest in building stronger organizations and stronger communities. Through evaluation these organizations can learn how their programs and activities contribute to the achievement of these goals, and how to improve their effectiveness and the well-being of their communities. Yet, evaluation is rarely seen as part of a non-judgemental organizational learning process. Instead, the term "evaluation" has often generated anxiety and confusion. The Community Development Storymap project is a response to those concerns.Illustrations found in this document were produced by Grove Consultants

Preserving Social Media: the Problem of Access

As the applications and services made possible through Web 2.0 continue to proliferate and influence the way individuals exchange information, the landscape of social science research, as well as research in the humanities and the arts, has the potential to change dramatically and to be enriched by a wealth of new, user-generated data. In response to this phenomenon, the UK Data Service have commissioned the Digital Preservation Coalition to undertake a 12-month study into the preservation of social media as part of the ‘Big Data Network’ programme funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The larger study focuses on the potential uses and accompanying challenges of data generated by social networking applications. This paper, ‘Preserving Social Media: the Problem of Access’, comprises an excerpt of that longer study, allowing the authors a space to explore in closer detail the issue of making social media archives accessible to researchers and students now and in the future. To do this, the paper addresses use cases that demonstrate the potential value of social media to academic social science. Furthermore, it examines how researchers and collecting institutions acquire and preserve social media data within a context of curatorial and legislative restrictions that may prove an even greater obstacle to access than any technical restrictions. Based on analysis of these obstacles, it will examine existing methods of curating and preserving social media archives, and second, make some recommendations for how collecting institutions might approach the long-term preservation of social media in a way that protects the individuals represented in the data and complies with the conditions of third party platforms. With the understanding that web-based communication technologies will continue to evolve, this paper will focus on the overarching properties of social media, analysing and comparing current methods of curation and preservation that provide sustainable solutions

The cathedral and the bazaar of e-repository development: encouraging community engagement with moving pictures and sound

This paper offers an insight into the development, use and governance of e‐repositories for learning and teaching, illustrated by Eric Raymond's bazaar and cathedral analogies and by a comparison of collection strategies that focus on content coverage or on the needs of users. It addresses in particular the processes that encourage and achieve community engagement. This insight is illustrated by one particular e‐repository, the Education Media On‐Line (EMOL) service. This paper draws analogies between the bazaar approach for open source software development and its possibilities for developing e‐repositories for learning and teaching. It suggests in particular that the development, use and evaluation of online moving pictures and sound objects for learning and teaching can benefit greatly from the community engagement lessons provided by the development, use and evaluation of open source software. Such lessons can be underpinned by experience in the area of learning resource collections, where repositories have been classified as ‘collections‐based’ or ‘user‐based’. Lessons from the open source movement may inform the development of e‐repositories such as EMOL in the future

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse