Social media connections – can you help me with my research?

by | May 23, 2012 | PhD | 0 comments

Whilst wading my way through my literature review, I’m also starting to think about the research I will be undertaking next year, and am keen to find a social media site to focus on for my study. I am interested in if/how social media affords the opportunity to shape, influence, deconstruct and do all sorts of interesting and disruptive things which challenge the received comfy and paternalistic order of things, that was once (and still largely is) perpetuated by large institutions such as the NHS. The new NHS Confederation briefing alive and clicking gives a glimpse into the potential (and threat in the eyes of some) of social media to niggle away at this relatively snug world. In my discussions, opinions vary from dismissal through to downright horror, with the odd bit of curiosity and occasional enthusiasm in the middle. I think it still holds ‘hobby’ status for most people i.e. not to be taken that seriously… but that is beginning to change. In my research I really want to get to the heart of what is happening in terms of relationships and connections (or not) between people experiencing mental health difficulties, mental health providers and mental health professionals online. I’m interested in themes of power, Iabelling, stigma and identity. The sorts of questions I’m interested in are: If/how are social media influencing and shaping relationships? What does it mean for those involved? To what extent do social media enable people to throw things out of kilter and re-order the shape of things? What disruptive forces are at work (for example, humour)? Is it just more of the same in...
Going viral – is social media an effective campaigning tool?

Going viral – is social media an effective campaigning tool?

by | May 7, 2012 | mental health | 0 comments

What are your views about the effectiveness of social media as a campaign tool? Read the final part of my three part interview with One in Four editor and Social Spider development director, Mark Brown, to get his take on where we’re at with social media and what the future holds. Social media suicide reporting guidelines are a great example of influencing a live debate on Twitter.  I remember re-tweeting them when Gary Speed died but hadn’t realised you developed them. I’m interested in how this came about When Alexander McQueen killed himself, Chris O’Sullivan (@mentalcapital) thought that it would be good to do some Twitter suicide reporting guidelines in the manner of the Samaritan’s excellent press ones.  We spent an hour knocking something up over email, got it online and then injected it into the various hashtagged conversations, asking people to read them and retweet them. Given an event that people were discussing that couldn’t have been foreseen, we moved our arses quickly to do something useful and helpful.  There’s amazing scope for this kind of reactive agenda altering on Twitter.  You can directly affect how people think of something as it’s happening.  Tell me a bit about campaigns using social media which have impressed you I think one of the greatest examples of boundary fu**ing is the Broken of Britain campaign and its Responsible Reform #spartacusreport. Disabled people and supporters have come together entirely through social media and developed an effect way of responding to government plans.  I think this is the first truly social media age government and it’s been noticeable how susceptible they have been...