Today’s social media world is a vast ocean with terabytes and terabytes of information on people from across the world. Anyone can do a Social Network Analysis (SNA) on almost any topic one can think of. From finding out what foods people like in different regions, music trends across the globe, to studying traffic patterns, SNA is an important tool in today’s society. Kazam Guccani, said, “SNA is about how networks and humans are organized. It is a methodology that provides quantitative and qualitative tools and date which someone can identify and measure the relationships and patterns of connections”
One field that truly benefits from these types
of analyses is the political world. If there is a conflict in a certain region
or city, people will post Facebook
videos, take snapchats, have town hall meetings, write news paper articles,
attend social activist groups, etc. The best example of social media use and a
political conflict was the Arab Spring that started in Egypt. People were
tweeting and posting videos and making mass Internet posts to gather millions
of people to overthrow a government. If one were to do an SNA on this event,
one could even pinpoint who sent the tweet that started the entire revolution.
If I
had unlimited resources and time to use SNA, it would be to help me further my
career in the political world. My dream is to become a politician one day and
knowing how to use SNA is crucial. The date that I would need from my Social
Media Network Analysis would be quite vast. I would need to research what
people think of my exterior looks, meaning, do people like my haircut, the suit
and tie that I choose for public speeches, the shoes that I wear, etc. How you
look is very important in the political world and analyzing how people view me
would give me a leg up in a political race.
Another
piece of information that I would need from the SNA would be statistics of what
people think of my political views in different regions. This would help me to
build a consistent stand on a number of different political and social topics
that my constituents believe to be important. The SNA would also help me to
construct different speeches to different types of people. If people are lower
income and poor, I would speak to them one way based on the SNA and in a middle
class neighborhood, I would need to speak in a different tone too. This
information can all be research through a Social Network Analysis. I believe
that the information that I need would not bee too difficult to retrieve. If my
staff members were well versed in social media, then they would be able to help
me analyze the information that I need for my campaign. I think that the most
important network measures will be what are analyzed in social media networks
as well as news media sources. These measures are most used and viewed by the
public, which could give me the best information possible.
Overall,
I think that SNA is an invaluable tool to learn and use in any type of field.
It can help solve different problems by studying analyzing what people are
saying about different issues. Through these analyses, people will be able to
mold and sculpt organizational and societal changes.
1 comment:
You've only scratched the surface of an enormous topic. You said your dream is to be a politician and that you would use SNA to further your career; I wish you had given some examples of what others have done to further theirs. There are many.
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