Category: Social Networking

With each passing year, we see more Governments across the world adopting social media and related services to reach out to their citizens. Though e-governance has been in place for many years and we have constantly striven to provide the best of e-governance packages, one must note the importance of social media too, when it comes to Government services. While e-governance has made it easy for Governments across the world to deliver services across social classes, social governance has allowed Governments to be more transparent and efficient. In fact, most political parties which abide by the rules of democracies already have some activity on their Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts. This helps citizens to track what the Governments say and what they do later on. In effect, social governance makes it easier to keep Governments and individuals accountable for their words and actions. That being said, Governments have much to gain from social governance. In this article, we shall discuss a research study conducted in South Korea, which analyzed the effects of Twitter usage among various Government and citizen entities. Before we discuss the study, let us try and understand a few terms that are discussed in the research paper. E-governance: When a Government uses information and communication technology to deliver Government services and when it uses IT to integrate, communicate and deliver various services & functions to citizens, businesses and Government entities, we refer to them as e-governance. It also includes back office operations within governmental entities too. G2C (Government to Citizens): This refers to all sorts of communication, service delivery and integration of various channels that pertain to the citizens of a particular region over which a Government has jurisdiction. G2B (Government to Business): This refers to all sorts of services, communication and integration of functions related to businesses. G2G (Government to Government): This refers to all sorts of communication between various Government entities, within and without. It could be services and communication rendered between various departments of a Government and within those departments as well. G2E (Government to Employees): G2E refers to all the communication, services and exchange of information that takes place with the help of information technology when it comes to Governments and their employees. This form of e-governance acts as electronic wing of Government human resource departments. The above terminology can be directly applied within the realm of social governance as well. Social governance refers to using social media to reach out to citizens, businesses, employees and Governments themselves. When South Korean Government’s Twitter usage was analyzed G. F. Khan, H. Y. Yoon, J. Kim and H. W. Park published a paper titled “From e-government to social government: Twitter use by Korea’s central government” in the Online Information Review, a journal that publishes research articles about the Internet and the ways people use it. The research, which was made possible by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant studied how Twitter was used in South Korea, especially, by its Government. The study was funded by Korea’s Government and it provides us with some very valuable information. The paper concluded that though the South Korean Government’s direct networking strategy targeting its citizens did not necessarily motivate them to participate in the Government’s Twitter activities, it played an instrumental and important role in “reinforcing G2G relationships”. A hierarchical and socially conservative society engages less with Governments The conclusion highlights a very important aspect of social governance in countries like South Korea, which tend to be very capitalist in nature, yet socially conservative. In South Korea, hierarchy is valued and it is not usually questioned, unlike in Europe or North America. It is possible that citizens did not attempt to question or engage in conversations with whoever was tweeting from Government Twitter accounts. They probably just took the Twitter feed for granted, soaking in all the information and also using it. The researchers probably missed this point. Were the results colored by the choice of the social network, that is Twitter? It is quite possible that the research bias tended to ignore the importance of passive social media consumption, which is very much prevalent on Twitter than on Facebook. Most people tend to use Twitter as a broadcasting service, reading all the tweets and not responding to it directly. They know what is being said and who is saying it but they do not reply or retweet. Passive usage of Twitter sets it apart from Facebook, where people tend to be more vocal, though it is of course, more of a closed garden, when compared with Twitter. This study highlights the importance of social media within various departments of Governments. The study concludes that Twitter in South Korea, plays an important role in reinforcing G2G relationships. What could this mean? It means that using Twitter in G2G communication helps in transparency, communication and exchange of information within various entities of a Government. This could be from a top-down model or vice versa. As government employees tend to be more vocal about their communication with other government entities, the study probably revealed that G2G communication is more enhanced than G2C communication. What was the methodology of the study? G. F. Khan, H. Y. Yoon, J. Kim and H. W. Park (2014) extracted tweets, follower/following relationships and hyperlinks for 32 ministries of the South Korean Government. It investigated the broad-spectrum nature of South Korean central Government’s social governance strategies by classifying all the Twitter-based communication based on content. By applying descriptive statistical analysis and social network analysis that were able to map South Korean Government’s Twitter activity. Network properties, co-link analysis and reciprocity of relationships were part of the study tools. While South Korean Government is not an example of governance across the world, when it comes to other democratic societies like India, U.S., Canada or countries in Europe, Twitter can play a very important role not just in helping various ministries communicate with each other but also in encouraging public social dialogues between people and Governments. In

Last month, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan banned Twitter and vowed to “wipe out Twitter”; and he did for 2 weeks. The country’s Constitutional Court ruled the ban illegal saying that it infringed upon freedom of expression. The court did not stop at that. It also said that the ban was “illegal, arbitrary and a serious restriction on the right to obtain information”. The last part of the ruling, which states that Twitter is fundamental for Turkish people’s right to obtain information, speaks much about Twitter and its importance when it comes to today’s world. Important publications like BBC News online, The Guardian and The New York Times have all run stories about the saga. Banning Twitter shows that it is very important When authoritarian rulers and dictators are scared of a tool, it speaks volumes about its importance. Telephones were widely tapped in East Germany and Soviet Russia. The Stasi of East Germany listened to telephone conversations of normal folk (not in way NSA collects metadata, but in a way far more invasive). Telephones scared them. Their fear spoke of the importance that telephones had as tools of communication. Similarly, when satellite television is banned in certain countries, it reveals the importance of television as a tool to change people’s opinions and provide them with new knowledge. Today, Twitter seems to be that tool which gives authoritarian leaders and dictators sleepless nights. It allows people to instantly broadcast what is happening, contact people across the world and that too, contact people with influence. If there were ever a truly democratic tool, it had to be Twitter. It lets anybody contact anyone else who is on it, as long as they are literate. In countries like Turkey, where literacy is not as big an issue as it is probably in Afghanistan, Twitter certainly seems like a threat to authoritarian regimes; and when the Constitutional Court lifted the ban, it again spoke volumes about the importance of Twitter in our society. Google’s YouTube has helped sustain democracy too Though Erdogan won local elections and it seemed like a period of victory for him, the Twitter case proved to be a bit too much for him. Google too has appealed to the Constitutional Court so that its YouTube service can be restored in Turkey. YouTube has often been banned in many countries too as it allows people to post videos that might not be pleasant for the ruling groups. It has often been accused of inciting people to protest. On the other hand, YouTube is yet another social networking tool that has helped millions to learn truths that have been hidden away by way of censorship. Banning tools like Twitter in democratic countries foments resentment and anger In a country where democracy and freedom of speech is respected, tools like Twitter cannot be banned or restricted. It will backfire and that too, very badly. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not initially care about the outburst within and outside Turkey. His political support comes from the working classes of Turkey who do not use the social networking site much. Erdogan knew that his votes came from people who probably never got online, leave alone Twitter. Yet, the venerable Turkish court ruled the ban illegal and brought an end to the 2 week ban. However, YouTube continues to be banned and Erdogan continues to restrict the freedom of Internet users and has tried to block websites that cast him in poor light. The damage seems to be done by now are Turkish people who never used Twitter have begun to register en masse and have begun to criticize the single-handedness with which it was banned. That change of mind occured even among the conservatives when the Constitutional Court ruled the action illegal. Turkish intellectuals, activists and common people now have an uphill battle to fight against Internet censorship and arbitrary banning of websites like YouTube (it is still banned) ahead of them. The fact that the constitutional court ruled in favor of Twitter shows that it is neutral in nature, respects freedom of speech and information and is not biased by political motives. Surely, YouTube’s ban will be removed too, though it might take a little while. Twitter’s place in democracy Twitter, as we all know, is a social broadcasting tool that lets people share text, media and links in just 140 characters. It can be used from the browsers on your computer and mobile devices, Twitter applications on mobile devices and also through text messaging. In short, anyone with or without an internet connection can use Twitter as long as they have a device connected to the Internet or just a cell phone without a data plan. Whatever we call Twitter and whatever role we assign to it, its importance in our societies cannot be understated. More than Facebook or LinkedIn, Twitter has the ability to let people connect, no matter whether they know each other or they are complete strangers. With respect to broadcasting being available to common people, Twitter is the closest that we can get to. Not surprisingly, marketers and managers and SMEs have understood the power of Twitter in terms of connecting with people. Billions of people across the world could possibly use Twitter, if they wanted to; and they do. When revolutions took place across the Middle East, people used Twitter to connect with each other. Some governments were repressive enough to ban it entirely and some, like Turkey, followed legal and constitutional obligations and reversed the bans. Twitter has also helped people in times of disasters. Each one of us can remember searching through Twitter feeds furiously when a tremor struck nearby. Grabbing one’s cell phone, we probably ran downstairs and assembled in the garden nearby and found out that though the neighborhood was still sleeping, though no news channel had yet reported those earthquake jolts, people on Twitter were already talking about it. Twitter proved that you weren’t hallucinating an earthquake. It really

Infinite scrolling is attractive to some and burdensome to others. It has stayed long in people’s minds. In fact, it has reached a cult-like status among web designers. Twitter, newsfeeds of social networks, certain websites that are image-based, and a host of other websites employ infinite-scrolling. However, one needs to stop and ask ourselves: is infinite scrolling really the way to go forward? The prevalence of infinite scrolling in social media The birth of social media saw an over-dependency on infinite scrolling in a bid to handle the ever-burgeoning user-generated content. Social media would never have been the same if it was not for the gift of infinite scrolling from web designers to the then internet-savvy people. Web designers use a lot of cues from these yesteryears even now. A lot of pages from the social media circles have now loosened the load on themselves because of over-dependency on infinite scrolling and are exploring other alternatives to handle the overload of information on their sites- infinite scrolling looks like its outdated. You should comprehend the large volume of information generated here to get a feel of the predicament of the people in social media. This exploration of alternatives may take long but it is a welcome step. How have popular websites limited the use of infinite scrolling? Here are a few steps these social media giants have taken to get a grip on their sites and do away with infinite scrolling. Let us look into that. 1. Facebook Facebook caters to people in the millions- 450 million and counting, to be exact. An average user glued to Facebook, which is often the case, can generate a huge volume of information from his likes, statuses, photos or videos. And this avalanche of information can put to shame the widely catalogued information in many of the world’s libraries. To curb this over-dependency on infinite scrolling and explore other options, Facebook has adopted a whole new breed of strategies. One of them is the categorization of the news feed wherein the posts of its many users are grouped into top stories, most recent stories and the like. Top stories direct the users to the gossip about the friends whom the user has been in constant touch with and thus considers their company worthwhile. It should be noted that many users on Facebook do not meet the whole of their friends in their list personally and are total strangers to them. This categorization can solve a lot of problems infinite scrolling resolves and can be a good alternative. Most recent stories are carefully picked by Facebook through an algorithm that decides what the users are best interested in and the posts that are very fresh. This is better than the stale news which some users detest. Facebook also reserves some other good features such as the option to view older stories. These stories are the ones that the users have very likely missed and can be important to them. These are the ones such as important events like a wedding, a birthday or anything else. These photos and albums make sure that nothing is missed or else the user could land in a soup concerning his friends. Another important feature that Facebook has come up with is giving its users the liberty to subscribe to their most important friends’ news feeds. A click of the button ensures that everything that their friend posts does not miss their attention. This optimization to the infinite scrolling system can allay fears of the users being in the dark regarding their friends’ antics. Facebook has greatly improved with the recent hacking fiasco that it had fallen victim to. Needless to say, Facebook can come up with a great substitute to infinite scrolling in a few years. This innovation by Facebook can make many heads turn. 2. Twitter To lessen the load on its website, Twitter limits the characters in its tweets to 160 and once the tweets are full to the brim it is never shy to admit that its network is busy and congested. It notifies the user that the tweets are full to its capacity and the social network is up and running after a few minutes. Twitter also prompts an average user to group their tweets into hash tags. Once a user searches for a piece of information via a tag it magically appears and is thoroughly grouped. This information is streamlined. Prompting the user to group his own tweets is a good idea to counter heavily relying on infinite scrolling. Also, the mobile version of Twitter makes an attempt to put the user at ease by the introduction of a useful button that asks the user whether he wants to go back to the top after he has scrolled to the near bottom of the page. This is kind of useful because many users are not aware of the usefulness of the ‘Home’ and ‘End’ buttons on their keyboard. Hence they find it very difficult to navigate the page. Twitter’s infinite-scrolling has worked in its favor, though. What should web designers be watchful about infinite scrolling? Here are some of the users’ habits that make a web designer to watch their step when they plan to tread into the ambit of infinite scrolling: 1. Users want access only to exclusive data The users of the website in question here do not want a deluge of information flooded to their monitors but welcome the thought of having a lot of this on their fingertips. They should be allowed to explore many of the information at their whim while the most important piece of data that they have come searching for should be at their hand’s reach. Thus a website designed with a readily available content can be termed usable by its users. 2. Users want to keep themselves posted Imagine the plight of the users when they do not know the volume of data that is remaining to be displayed and they have to