Research Methodology Social Media

Question: Discuss about theResearch Methodology for Social Media. Answer: Literature Review Introduction Social media is a series of computer-mediated tools that are used by various parties for connections and socialization. These tools have been developed from time to time to fit the needs of the users (companies, individuals among other organizations). The core aim of social media was to manage relationships among before but because of the competitiveness of the society, the platform has been of much importance to the community. It has also been used in creating virtual communities where people can share information and managing the marketing of products and services among other tasks. Due to its diversity, a lot of research has been undertaken to scrutinize its impacts in the society. In these research works, different approaches (qualitative, quantitative or mixed method) have been used to analyze the data and make respective conclusions. Examples of journal articles will be described before, which focuses on the issue of social media in the contemporary society. Connecting with Others Connecting with others is an article that has been published by Patrick Wayne, Geneva Gray and Mary Kate Reese from Geneva University. They focused on the usage of online social networking for creating of connections between various people who have differing objectives. In addition, the authors were aiming at identifying various effects of social media usage to the users. Therefore, through this research, it was expected that the consequences of social media would be identified after various observations and data analysis. The usage of social media differs with the time a person spends on the networking sites. Some individuals are said to be heavy users because of the addition, thus spending most of their times on their social sites such as Facebook and Twitter account. However, connecting with others is an article whose purpose was to make the audience understand the in-depth effects of heavy users of social media to their lives. It was found that all the people who participated in the survey supported that the objective of social media in to enhance relationships and online connections. For instance, one of the respondents stated that social media helps in connecting with many people on the same platform. The online connection was enhanced by the inefficient offline connections between people. Some others stated social media could help them develop offline events. In addition, some stated that isolation drew them to the usage of social media that helped them keep busy evade boredom. Use of social media affects the moods of the users depending on the responses of the posts. This is based on the responses of the participants of the survey who also responded differently concerning their frequency of use. This article recommends future research to pro vide more in-depth research about impacts of social networking use in several ways (Powell, Gray, Reese, 2013). Crises and Social Media Crises and Social Media is an article that was developed by creating a meta-study research aimed at analyzing the use of social networking in communication crisis. Data used was obtained from other academic resources such as research projects and published articles for the last decade. The Period ensured that the data used was valid, and the level of certainty was high. This article would provide a rationale for the use of social media as a communication channel during crisis and emergencies. A qualitative methodology was used by analyzing other articles published in the field of communication and social media (Wetzstein, Grubmuller-Regent, Gotsch, Rainer, 2014). From the statistical analysis, it was found that the largest percentages of the texts analyzed focused on communication and media (83.3%) followed by computer-scientific (6.1%) and interdisciplinary texts that covered 4.5%. It was found that several texts were used for communication for various crisis situations. These crises occasions include natural calamities, health crises, terrorism and human error among others. It was found that there is a great need for enhancing the efforts of circulating information and using the available channels such as social media effectively. Social Media Effects on College Students As the technology continues to improve, many of its positive impacts on the society are being observed. Wei Chen, Qingya Wang and Yu Liang undertook a quantitative study focusing on the impacts of social media usage to the college students. This study involved a random sample size of 48 individual that included 26 males and 22 females. 65% of the participants were graduates, and 35% were undergraduate students of Johnson and Wales University. Most of the participants liked Facebook more than the other social sites such as Skype, Twitter, and MySpace. Almost half of the population admitted that they used around 6-8 hours on social sites, 23% spent more than 8hours and 30% spend less than four hours of their time in a day. Because of the anonymous time used on social media sites, the habit affected their academic performance and grades. Undertaking academic activities such as doing homework was not effectively performed. Educators are supposed to find better ways of dealing with the perceived problems of social media usage. Future research should find out if the use of social sites has positive impacts in academics and study (Wang, Chen, Liang, 2011). Use of Social Media in Emergency Leila Martini undertook a research study that used both qualitative and quantitative approaches that were performed in two phases. The study was aimed at the management of crisis and disaster management that has been affected by the development of technologies in mobile phones leading to increased use of social media. The quantitative approach was undertaken through National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) instrument that has been developed in 2012. In the second phase, a qualitative sample was selected in accordance to the quantitative segment. It was found that the use of social media in Florida was not mature enough to undertake social media in emergency cases. However, the system was evolving and making use of the existence of social networking as a method of communication and resolving the crisis. It was recommended that social media policies should be developed and more conferences and programs attended (Martini, 2014). Conclusion Social media has been of great importance in the society by helping in social developments. The community has been able to undertake other tasks such as communication and marketing through the social media platforms. This has been a technological development that needed to be embraced because its profitability is greater than the negative effects. The discussed article gives more information about social media and its use in the society. References Martini, L. (2014). Monitoring and Use of Social Media In Emergency Management In Florida. Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6569context=etd Powell, P., Gray, G., Reese, M. (2013). A Qualitative Study of Online Social Networking Site Usage. Connecting With Others, 2, 52-67. Retrieved from https://www.thepractitionerscholar.com/article/download/11637/7985 Wang, Q., Chen, W., Liang, Y. (2011). The Effects of Social Media on College Students, 2-10. Retrieved from https://scholarsarchive.jwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004context=mba_student Wetzstein, I., Grubmuller-Regent, V., Gotsch, K., Rainer, K. (2014). Crises and Social Media: A Metastudy on Pertinent Research and Practice. Human Technology: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Humans in ICT Environments, 10(2), 95-124. https://dx.doi.org/10.17011/ht/urn.201411203312