In Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta's Throwing Sheep in The boardroom social networking is explored in detail, expressing why such sites and blogs can be useful in the working environment, from helping to create and sustain relationships to promoting an individual or a business. Nothing is perfect and with this in mind the authors have also stated the problems which can arise as a result of social networking.
Blogs are a useful way for an individual to express their thoughts and opinions, a great way to get noticed and for new relationships to form. Fraser and Dutta (2009:182) say that bloggers have an advantage over newspapers and other contents of media as they respond quicker allowing the information to spread at a faster rate. Due to there being no rules, regulations or space limits to a blog the information expressed within them usually allows for a greater insight in to someone's opinion. It also eliminates the fear factor of just being themselves because no editors are involved and they can therefore write what is on their mind. By doing so their personality is expressed allowing someone to respond creating the foundations for a relationship to flourish.
As a result of blogs being filled with an individuals opinion it is questioned whether blogs are credible and studies show that people are less likely to trust the information on a blog than they would be if they were told the same information from a friend “According to findings published by Forrester Research, when consumers are looking for credible information about a product or service, 83% would trust a friend or acquaintance... while only 30% would put faith in the views of a blogger”. (2009:183)
(Fraser & Dutta 2009:09) tell us that social networking seems to be a good thing for your social life but not for your career. Many companies are controversial to the use of it within the work place and figures released by the Freedom of Information Act at the end of 2007 showed that hundreds of British employers had been disciplined for using social networking sites while at work. “Why so much fear,distrust and paranoia?” (2009:10) Fraser and Dutta believe this is because there is a possible threat to privacy and security which allows for competitive information to be revealed and also because its considered as a wasteful distraction to employees.
Some people have even been fired after there employees have found things published on their social networking sites which they deem as unacceptable “Ellen Simonetti, an attractive 29-year-old flight attendant from North Carolina working for Delta Airlines” was fired in 2005 after she uploaded sexy photos of herself wearing the Delta Airlines Uniform.(2009:186)
Despite this some companies have found social networking sites to work in their favour and Sun Microsystems' CEO Jonathan Schwartz says “blogging is a matter of corporal survival... we communicate directly with customers, employees and the broader business community through blogs.” He believes in time that blogs will be like emails and the majority of people will be using them without choice. (2009:191)
Evidence by Granovetter (2009:50) shows that people find jobs through weak tie acquaintances rather than through close friends, and social networking sites because they connect to online friends and acquaintances are the ideal place to create these weak tie bonds or e-quaintances, as there being called. The social networking sites help to strengthen the weak tie e-quaintances and Fraser and Dutta (2009:52) point out a site which is doing so. Doppler.com allows you to know if one of your e-quaintances will be at the same destination as you during your business trip. Simply provide Doppler with your destination and then Doppler will send an alert to your mobile or online device of who else will be there. Weak ties can even be more useful within organisations as they allow and encourage open communication and information sharing on a broader basis rather than with just the people we know. Thus making it easier to find that person with the expertise and knowledge required.
After reading Moral Spaces in Myspace: Preservice Teachers' Perspectives about Ethical Issues in social Networking, Teresa S Foulger, Ann Ewbank, Adam Kay Dutton Sharon Osborn Popp, Heather Lynn Carter I believe the main point to be to make people aware of the issues surrounding social networking and how it can have an effect on pupil teacher relationships. As yet, there are no rules stating the teachers role within the cyber world. Therefore according to the situation and people involved some people may believe the teacher to be crossing certain boundaries. Social networking sites cause problems to student-teacher relationship which then causes problems to teacher-parent relationships.
Foulger, Ewbank, Dutton, Popp and Carter did an experiment with 68 freshman undergraduates who took part in anonymous pre and post homework reflections. General aged 18-25 with two students in their 40s and the majority were female.
To begin with pupils had to get a functional understanding of social networking sites, learn about specific instances where teachers' use of social networking sites for educational purposes followed their pedagogical positions. They then had to read opinion pieces written by inservice educators of the benefits and disadvantages of social networking in education. For the third part the students read news stories from links about teachers and soon-to-be teachers who were punished for using social networking sites by their education institutions. Responses to the above where collected on an online form. (2009:08)
One of the scenarios consisted of a teacher who after inviting students to view his online profile then viewed the students and found illegal activities. On contacting the parents the parents state that the teacher has violated their child's privacy and complains to the school administration. The students then had to decided whether or not they thought it appropriate for the teacher to be disciplined.
The students had several things to consider when making a decision such as “What is the appropriate teacher role in this situation?, Is the teacher responsible for alerting parents to the students illegal activities or is the information outside of the teachers jurisdictions?... does a student have a right to privacy regarding a posted social networking profile or has the students given up those rights by making the profile publicly available?” (2009:09)
The pupils responses to this varied and using the ethical concerns coding framework found that 31% of preservice students thought disciplined was warranted and the teacher should be punished. After an intervention based on a review they read by Kim et al 2006 they believed that teaching the students about controversial social networking issues using cases would help to improve the students' recognition of multiple perspectives as well as the range of ethical vulnerabilities inherent in social networking media. (2009:11) This altered the results as the percentage of people who thought the teacher should be punished increased by 21% to 52%.
Although in this case it was only a scenario certain cases have led to teachers being reprimanded as Stacey Synder from Millersville university who failed to receive her teaching certificate and instead received an English degree after campus administrators found photos on her Myspace profile which represented her as a drunken pirate.(2009:01)
In another similar case Tamara Hoover a high school art teacher at Austin (Texas) Independent School District was fired after nude pictures were found on her Myspace and Flikr accounts. Due to her being an art teacher her pictures could be regarded as art in its natural form and Hoover settled for a cash settlement.
After studying both of my sources I have learned a lot about social networking and how it can have an effect on relationships. Throwing sheep in the boardroom, Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta seems to address both sides of social networking and how it can advance the work place, as well as cause some issues. Moral Spaces in Myspace: Preservice Teachers' Perspectives about Ethical Issues in social Networking, Teresa S Foulger, Ann Ewbank, Adam Kay Dutton Sharon Osborn Popp, Heather Lynn Carter touches more on the disadvantages social networking can have on a learning environment and the tensions this can put on a relationship.
As both sources are relating to different areas they don't include many similarities apart from both agreeing that social networking sites create privacy issues “a threat to personal privacy, an open invitation for slander and defamation and a danger to the security of competitive information.” Fraser and Dutta (2009:10)
“The parents believe the teacher has violated student privacy” Foulger, Ewbank, Dutton, Popp and Carter (2009:09)
Billy Hoffman, lead engineer at web security specialist SPI Dynamics when talking about Web 2.0 says “We're continuing to make the same mistakes by putting security last...they are not thinking about security and they are not realising how badly they are exposing their users.” I would agree that although social networking sites have a lot of advantages privacy is an issue as there are ways for people to hack in to accounts, steal personal information or even target potential victims as the Sophos Security Threat Report reveals,these are all serious problems some which are easier to overcome than others. I believe that the stealing of personal information could be solved quite simply by not posting anything on a public site which you do not wish others to see or to make your profile private so only friends or people you wish to be able to view your account can. Maybe this issue is not because of the sites themselves but because the users are uneducated on the risks concerned to their privacy when using these sites.
Other similarities within the sources are that by using social networking sites regardless of your profession, they can result in job loss if what you've posted to your site is deemed unacceptable by the seniors of your profession.
Fraser and Dutta in Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom state that online sites can create a link for people within different organisations to communicate openly allowing them to find that specific person they need for the job this idea is backed up by Howard Rheingold as he says that social networking sites “connect people and build relationships across boundaries of geography and discipline.” I agree with this as it allows you to access other peoples knowledge and contact them if you wish without actually knowing them. It allows you to easily find that person and create a relationship to an extent easier than on a face to face basis as time zones and time in general don't exist as it can be done at your own leisure.
The journal is a slight contradiction due to the fact it doesn't see this as a positive, as it actually creates issues, because it allows both teachers and pupils to view things about the other parties which they may not necessarily have wanted to witness (Tamara Hoover) . After having witnessed this information issues then arise about what to do with it and if its acceptable to be viewing the other parties site in the first place. The journal talks about a possible scenario where a teacher finds that one of their students is involved within in an illegal activity and after having informed the parents the parents believe the teacher to be breaching privacy. Although this is just a scenario i do believe that certain parents would think like this if involved in a similar case but if the teacher had witnessed a particular pupil being bullied and then informed the parents of this they would view it differently and be grateful for the fact the teacher had found this information out.
After reading both sources I believe there to be many uses for social networking within the business and learning worlds, although there are some things within these sites which need to be designed better to eliminate certain issues and allow relationships to form without the risk of revealing too much information which could then be stolen. In the case of student teacher relationships I believe that although there is the risk of privacy issues and teachers getting involved out of school hours I think it could be useful for teachers as it could allow for then to get to know there pupils better which could therefore result in better educated pupils as the teacher would possibly understand the need of the student more clearly.
Further studies needed would probably be to interview teachers, parents, and pupils to find out more about how they feel toward the privacy issue relating to this area and how they feel about it.
Also possibly try to find experiments or interviews with people who have experience on whether relationships are as effective or as genuine when made online, as despite social networking sites allowing you to make friends online is it the same as can you really get to know them with out viewing body language etc. Experiments could be hopefully be found on cross-search and then evaluated similarly to the way I have done previously throughout this summary.
Bibliography
Evans, J (2006) Cnet news The Security risk in web 2.0 Available:http://news.cnet.com/The-security-risk-in-Web-2.0/2100-1002_3-6099228.html 02/12/09
Foulger, T, S, Kay, A, Ewbank, A, D, Popp, S, O, Carter, H, L (2009) Moral Spaces in Myspace: Presevice Teachers' Perspectives about Ethical issues in Social Networking
Fraser, M & Dutta, S (2008) Throwing sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and world West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Rheingold, H & Kimball, L (2000) Rheingold Associates,
Available:http://www.rheingold.com/Associates/onlinenetworks.html 02/12/09
Author unknown (2009) Help Net Security Social networking sites must improve security Available:http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=7786 02/01/09
