| 1. |
- Svensson, Anders, et al.
(författare)
-
Online Participation with Obstacles : Non-Willingness to Become Facebook fans of a Health-Promoting Web Site
- 2011
-
Ingår i: Merz. - 0176-4918. ; :6, s. 70-80
-
Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Within dominant branches of contemporary research and public debate, applications like Facebook and Twitter are perceived as social media for user participation. Technical possibilities and socio cultural restrictions for user involvement are identified and discussed. Common to both perspectives is that users’ willingness to participate tends to be taken for granted. By studying a case where the users’ response indicates weak willingness to participate, despite the website producers’ efforts to offer social media for participation, this article wish to contribute to a better understanding of the conditions for online participation on the so-called social Web.UMO is a very popular Swedish health promoting website intended for offering adolescents knowledge and advisory service on sexual, reproductive and psychical health. In 2010 UMO extended the use of social media by opening a Facebook fan page. One of the reasons was to attract new segments of the target audience, another was to make adolescents become fans. More than a year after the start, none of this have developed in accordance with the intentions and expectations. Analyses of data, gained from a content analysis of UMO’s Facebook fan page besides completing interviews with the administrator of the fan page and adolescent users of UMO, indicates a whole set of possible explanations for UMO’s shortcomings.The study shows on yet another problem with uncritically asserting that the new Web 2.0 and social media benefit participation. What has been overlooked is that obstacles to participation might as well be sought from the participants themselves, and be an active choice by the audience. The bottom line is that mediatization does not describe a fait accompli, and that socio-cultural change in its wake in no way is universal, but rather is characterized by a set of particularities.
|
|
