New Media New Research Opportunities
The new electronic communication and information management technologies have emerged and changed so rapidly that studying the magnitude and direction of their effects on the social and economic aspects of life has been an ongoing challenge. While there certainly is no shortage of research on the effects of the Internet and other related communication technology, two areas that might warrant additional investigation are the interrelationship of the integration of the Internet at work with the personal life and also an examination of the leaders of social movements use of technology and if that’s affected their leadership style.
Digital divide research, which tries to understand the conditions under which technological change enhances of diminishes socioeconomic differences, seems to focus on hardware access and personal use in the home and neglects to overlap it with how it is being used on the job. In the 1980s, business embraced technology because it facilitated the direction toward a more systems approach that had been underway in order to remain competitive. Plus, they had the resources to purchase it. Businesses learned that you couldn’t just put this powerful new communication and information tool on someone’s desk and expect them to intuitively know how to use it. Significant training dollars are and continue to be spent to transform workers into what Robert Reich called “a symbolic analyst,” someone who identifies and solves problems, works collaboratively on teams and acts as a strategic broker. Employees needed to be taught team skills – how to talk to each other, how to support each other – essentially how to have an informed, rational discourse in order to build knowledge and to run competitively. So are the knowledge, skills and abilities that people are learning on-the-job being brought into the home, the community and the public sphere? So perhaps if we first understand how the new communication and information management technology has transformed discourse and relationships within business, we can begin to understand the future of the public sphere.
The other area that would be interesting to examine is how leaders of social movements are using this new communication technology – cell phones, internet, etc. – to adapt their communication strategies and leadership styles. Who are they? What are their characteristics or leadership traits? What are they saying and how are they using this new communicating and information management tool? For example two recent events – the recent nationwide demonstrations by the Hispanic community about proposed immigration legislation and the worldwide, and at times violent, reaction of the Muslim community to the Danish cartoons which were published last Fall -- demonstrate the speed and cohesiveness of the message being delivered by the leaders of these two very public actions. It would be interesting to study the anatomy the communication strategy that was utilized and the characteristics of the leaders who facilitated it.
Digital divide research, which tries to understand the conditions under which technological change enhances of diminishes socioeconomic differences, seems to focus on hardware access and personal use in the home and neglects to overlap it with how it is being used on the job. In the 1980s, business embraced technology because it facilitated the direction toward a more systems approach that had been underway in order to remain competitive. Plus, they had the resources to purchase it. Businesses learned that you couldn’t just put this powerful new communication and information tool on someone’s desk and expect them to intuitively know how to use it. Significant training dollars are and continue to be spent to transform workers into what Robert Reich called “a symbolic analyst,” someone who identifies and solves problems, works collaboratively on teams and acts as a strategic broker. Employees needed to be taught team skills – how to talk to each other, how to support each other – essentially how to have an informed, rational discourse in order to build knowledge and to run competitively. So are the knowledge, skills and abilities that people are learning on-the-job being brought into the home, the community and the public sphere? So perhaps if we first understand how the new communication and information management technology has transformed discourse and relationships within business, we can begin to understand the future of the public sphere.
The other area that would be interesting to examine is how leaders of social movements are using this new communication technology – cell phones, internet, etc. – to adapt their communication strategies and leadership styles. Who are they? What are their characteristics or leadership traits? What are they saying and how are they using this new communicating and information management tool? For example two recent events – the recent nationwide demonstrations by the Hispanic community about proposed immigration legislation and the worldwide, and at times violent, reaction of the Muslim community to the Danish cartoons which were published last Fall -- demonstrate the speed and cohesiveness of the message being delivered by the leaders of these two very public actions. It would be interesting to study the anatomy the communication strategy that was utilized and the characteristics of the leaders who facilitated it.
posted by Vicky Hildebrandt at
3:26 PM
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