scholarly journals A Comparative Study on South African Users’ Perception to Use, Choose, and Purchase a Smartphone Device through the Lens of the Social Shaping of Technology (SST) Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lufungula Osembe
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
South African ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Social Shaping Of Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Shaping ◽  
Analyse Data

Mobile technologies are increasingly making important contributions to the lives of many users. Various factors are said to influence the decision of users to remain connected and be in constant interaction with other users from the same or different social networks. This paper used the Social Shaping of Technology (SST) theory to assess the influence of users’ social networks on their decision to use, choose and purchase a smartphone device. The study used a quantitative research method to analyse data. Data were collected from a sample of young adults aged between 15 and 35 years residing in Durban, South Africa. The study revealed that social networking sites influence users’ decision to use, choose, and purchase a smartphone device. The findings also revealed factors that are perceived as influential in the perceptions of users about their social networks and their interactions with users from the same social networks.

MARKETING COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES OF THE ENTERPRISE IN THE CONDITIONS OF ECONOMY DIGITALIZATION

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasiia Zerkal ◽  
◽  
Viktoriia Holomb ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Customer Engagement ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Marketing Communication ◽  
Internet Users

The article considers the peculiarities of the formation of marketing communication strategies of the enterprise in terms of digitalization of the economy. The main directions of mass media in the twentieth century are determined and the delimitation of modern social media is presented. The conditions of compliance of the website have been determined so that it can be considered as a part of web 2.0: the ability to independently contribute to the content of the site; User control of your own information and website design -interactive and useful. The influence of digital and mobile technologies on the peculiarities of users' communication, as well as their attitude to the interactivity of social networks is proved. The potential of social networks to support their brands, increase the customer base and promote goods and services of enterprises has been identified. It is determined that due to its popularity, social networking sites have had a significant impact on ways of social communication and as a result have changed the sales channels of enterprises. It is estimated that the number of people using social networks is growing very fast, and at the time of writing, more than 2.62 billion people are using social networking sites. The largest social networks were analyzed: Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. Their features and advantages for both users and professional marketers of enterprises are determined. It is estimated that in 2021, 71% of the total number of Internet users were users of social networks, and this percentage is projected to increase. The most popular activity among Internet users is social networking, and it has a high level of user engagement, which has a positive impact on the sales of businesses that work with digital marketing tools. The ease and low cost of Internet marketing compared to conventional advertising has proven that businesses in all sectors of the economy can more effectively reach their target audience, and social networks help influence other potential customers, and allow businesses to get useful feedback on their product or service. Ultimately, this leads to improved products / services and customer engagement, ie improves the company's marketing communication strategies in today's digital economy.

scholarly journals Technical and Humanities Students’ Perspectives on the Development and Sustainability of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 3066 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasile Gherheș ◽  
Ciprian Obrad
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Positive Attitude ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Representation Error ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Humanities Students

This study investigates how the development of artificial intelligence (AI) is perceived by the students enrolled in technical and humanistic specializations at two universities in Timisoara. It has an emphasis on identifying their attitudes towards the phenomenon, on the connotations associated with it, and on the possible impact of artificial intelligence on certain areas of the social life. Moreover, the present study reveals the students’ perceptions on the sustainability of these changes and developments, and therefore aims to reduce the possible negative impact on consumers, and at anticipate the changes that AI will produce in the future. In order to collect the data, the authors have used a quantitative research method. A questionnaire-based sociological survey was completed by 928 students, with a representation error of only ±3%. The analysis has shown that a great number of respondents have a positive attitude towards the emergence of AI, who believe it will influence society for the better. The results have also underscored underlying differences based on the respondents’ type of specialization (humanistic or technical), and their gender.

scholarly journals "From The Worst To The Best": An Exploratory Qualitative Study Of The Process Of Social Change At A South African Secondary School

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Berendien Van Aswegen ◽  
Willem Schurink
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Gauteng Province ◽  
Process Of Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Role Players ◽  
Analyse Data ◽  
Ineffective Schools ◽  
Disadvantaged School

The primary aim of the study is to describe an initiative to effect organisational change at a previously disadvantaged school in South Africa’s Gauteng Province. Qualitative methods were used to collect and analyse data on the social process of change in the school. Essays of role players in the change process on their experiences led to important insights. This exploratory study points to a process that was effective in bringing about change at a school and holds promise for constructing a theoretical model of how change could be effected in ineffective schools. OpsommingDie primêre doel van die studie is die beskrywing van ’n organisatoriese verandering by ’n voorheen benadeelde skool in Suid-Afrika se Gauteng Provinsie. Kwalitatiewe metodes is gebruik om data oor die sosiale proses te genereer en te analiseer. Opstelle van betrokkenes by die veranderingsproses oor hulle ervarings het tot belangrike insigte gelei. Hierdie verkennende studie dui op ’n proses wat suksesvol gewerk het om verandering te weeg te bring en hou belofte in vir die ontwikkeling van ’n teoretiese model van hoe verandering in oneffektiewe skole bewerkstellig kan word.

scholarly journals Policy gaps and technological deficiencies in social networking environments: Implications for information sharing

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M. Mutula
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Business Education ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Internet Security ◽  
Literature Survey ◽  
Digital Networks ◽  
Education Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
User Trust

Background: With the growing adoption and acceptance of social networking, there are increased concerns about the violation of the users’ legitimate rights such as privacy, confidentiality, trust, security, safety, content ownership, content accuracy, integrity, access and accessibility to computer and digital networks amongst others.Objectives: The study sought to investigate the following research objectives to: (1) describe the types of social networks, (2) examine global penetration of the social networks, (3) outline the users’ legitimate rights that must be protected in the social networking sites (SNS), (4) determine the methods employed by SNS to protect the users’ legitimate rights and (5) identify the policy gaps and technological deficiencies in the protection of the users’ legitimate rights in the SNS.Method: A literature survey and content analysis of the SNS user policies were used to address objective four and objective five respectively.Results: The most actively used sites were Facebook and Twitter. Asian markets were leading in participation and in creating content than any other region. Business, education, politics and governance sectors were actively using social networking sites. Social networking sites relied upon user trust and internet security features which however, were inefficient and inadequate.Conclusion: Whilst SNS were impacting people of varying ages and of various professional persuasions, there were increased concerns about the violation and infringement of the users’ legitimate rights. Reliance on user trust and technological security features SNS to protect the users’ legitimate rights seemed ineffectual and inadequate.

Analyzing Social Networks to Mine Important Friends

2013 ◽  
pp. 90-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carson K.-S. Leung ◽  
Irish J. M. Medina ◽  
Syed K. Tanbeer
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Web Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Entity ◽  
Social Entities ◽  
Media Data ◽  
Media Mining

The emergence of Web-based communities and social networking sites has led to a vast volume of social media data, embedded in which are rich sets of meaningful knowledge about the social networks. Social media mining and social network analysis help to find a systematic method or process for examining social networks and for identifying, extracting, representing, and exploiting meaningful knowledge—such as interdependency relationships among social entities in the networks—from the social media. This chapter presents a system for analyzing the social networks to mine important groups of friends in the networks. Such a system uses a tree-based mining approach to discover important friend groups of each social entity and to discover friend groups that are important to social entities in the entire social network.

The Role of the Individual in ICT Standardisation

2015 ◽  
pp. 244-261
Author(s):  
Kai Jakobs
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Social Shaping Of Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Shaping ◽  
Technical Factors ◽  
Standards Development ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

This chapter discusses the influence individuals have in the ICT standards development process. The chapter draws upon ideas underlying the theory of the Social Shaping of Technology (SST). Looking through the SST lens, a number of non-technical factors that influence ICT standards development are identified. A literature review on the role of the individual in ICT standards setting and a case study of the IEEE 802.11 Working Group (WG) show that in a standards body's WG, the backgrounds, skills, attitudes, and behaviour of the individual WG members are crucially important factors. Yet, the case study also shows that in most cases employees tend to represent the ideas and goals of their respective employer. The chapter observes that the non-technical factors are ignored all too often in the literature. It argues that a better understanding of the impact and interplay of these factors, specifically including the skills and attitudes of the WG members, will have significant implications both theoretical and managerial.

Empirical Study of Cyber Harassment among Social Networks

2014 ◽  
pp. 1717-1730
Author(s):  
Joanne Kuzma
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Electronic Media ◽  
Protective Measures ◽  
Cyber Harassment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Communication Methods

The growth of Online Social Networking sites has brought new services and communication methods to consumers. However, along with benefits, serious problems such as online cyber harassment have recently come to the forefront of the electronic media. This behavior can have significant negative effect on individuals, businesses and the social networks. Some sites have begun to provide some levels of protection and create specific anti-harassment policies in their terms of service along with implementing protection technologies. However, these protective measures are not consistent among social media, leaving some consumers at greater risk. This study analyzed 60 worldwide social sites and determined the level of cyber-harassment protection. It reviewed statistical differences among geographical-based social networks. The results showed significant gaps among various social networks, but suggests methods for improving consumer safeguards to provide consistent levels of protection.

The Networked Effect of Children and Online Digital Technologies

2018 ◽  
pp. 7312-7326
Author(s):  
Teresa Sofia Pereira Dias de Castro ◽  
António Osório ◽  
Emma Bond
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Construction Of Technology ◽  
Social Shaping Of Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Contemporary Life ◽  
Social Shaping

Within the scope of how technology impacts on society three theoretical models: the social shaping of technology (SST), social construction of technology (SCOT) and the Actor-Network theory (ANT) are frameworks that help rethink the embeddedness of technology within society, once each is transformed and transformative of the other. More attention will be given to the ANT approach since it solves the technology/society dualisms unresolved by the previous proposals. This is a flexible epistemological possibility that can reach the ambiguity of contemporary life and the remarkable transformations brought by progress that have changed drastically childhood and children's contemporary lives.

Users as Developers

2008 ◽  
pp. 1330-1345
Author(s):  
Beryl Burns ◽  
Ben Light
Keyword(s):  
Human Resources ◽  
Professional Identity ◽  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Social Shaping Of Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Shaping ◽  
Contact Centre ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

We report the findings of a field study of the enactment of ICT supported knowledge work in a Human Resources contact centre, illustrating the negotiable boundary between what constitutes the developer and user. Drawing upon ideas from the social shaping of technology, we examine how discussions regarding producer-user relations require a degree of greater sophistication as we show how users develop technologies and work practices in-situ. In this case different forms of knowledge are practised to create and maintain a knowledge sharing system. We show how as staff simultaneously distance themselves from, and ally with, ICT supported encoded knowledge scripts, the system becomes materially important to the project of constructing the knowledge characteristic of professional identity. Our work implies that although much has been made of contextualising the user, as a user, further work is required to contextualise users as developers and moreover, developers as users.

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