A Framework and Future Direction for Studying Productive Applications of Social Media / Social Networking Sites

Abstract

I am researching how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) utilize social media and social networking sites (SM/SNS) in their efforts to organize, inform, and serve the communities they operate in as well as how they use these technologies to communicate and disseminate information. This study will gather data on persons posting on behalf of NGOs and examine SM/SNS data with the goal of developing a framework for both future research and contextual application of SM/SNS as a mediating artifact by NGOs. Many previous studies have addressed similar issues, but those studies are limited in context (e.g. one large software manufacturer) and they typically use only one type of research method. I will address this issue by aggregating a large data set and employing mixed methods to improve the generalizability of my findings and present a replicable framework for future studies of organizational use of SM/SNS.