Abstract
Background: Social media is changing the modern academic landscape; this study sought to explore how organizational structures support or inhibit the harnessing of social media use in academic contexts and knowledge translation. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted using framework analysis based on the Bolman and Deal’s Four-Frame Model—structural, human resources, political and symbolic. The research team used the snowball sampling technique to recruit participants following the completion of each participant’s semi-structured interview. A member check was completed to ensure rigour. Results: 16 social media educators and experts from several countries participated in the study. Study findings showed that within the Structural Frame, institution types were reported to have with diverse hierarchical structures, ranging from strict to malleable: hospital-based (strict), education institutional-based and online only groups (malleable). The Human Resources Frame revealed that most participants’ social media organizations operated on unpaid volunteer staff. The training of these staff was primarily via role-modeling and mentorship. Regarding the Political Frame, social media helped participants accumulate scholarly currency and influence within their field of practice. Symbolic Frame showed a wide range of traditional to non-traditional organizational supports, which interacted with both intrinsic to extrinsic motivation. Conclusions: Bolman and Deal’s Four-Frame Model framework may serve as an effective guideline for academic leaders who wish to strategically implement or enhance social media use into their organizations. The key insights that we have gained from our participants are how new emerging forms of scholarly pursuits can be more effectively enabled or hindered by the attributes of the organization within which these are occurring.
Highlights
For billions of consumers across the world, social media continues to grow as the epicenter of both information and entertainment
The immense reach and power of social media is best exemplified during the COVID-19 pandemic, where many took to Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to discuss, and debate the crisis[1,2]
Some Academic health sciences centers (AHSCs) neglected social media as a tool to combat misinformation, while other AHSCs appeared to actively avoid communicating with their employees, who took to social media to fill the information vacuum- one that was created in the first place by AHSCs9,10
Summary
For billions of consumers across the world, social media continues to grow as the epicenter of both information and entertainment. The immense reach and power of social media is best exemplified during the COVID-19 pandemic, where many took to Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to discuss, and debate the crisis[1,2]. Alongside these positive applications of social media, rampant usage of social media during the pandemic has demonstrated its capacity to serve as a vehicle of mis- and dis-information[3,4]. The Human Resources Frame revealed that most participants’ social media organizations operated on unpaid volunteer staff. The training of these staff was primarily via role-modeling and mentorship. Conclusions: Bolman and Deal’s Four-Frame Model framework may serve as an effective guideline for academic leaders who wish to article can be found at the end of the article
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