Researcher use of social media (Dissertation Sample)

RESEARCHER’S USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA: DISCUSSION CHAPTER by [Name] Course Professor’s Name Institution Location of Institution Date Researcher’s Use of Social Media: Discussion Chapter This dissertation sought to evaluate how researchers used social media in the field of communication, media, and development. The results are based on face-to-face interviews and email feedback of 21 respondents (researchers). The study noted that more men utilize social media in doing researcher compared to women. The respondents emerged from different levels of academics and age groups, hence providing diverse feedback essential in determining the age groups of researchers that utilize social media more in investigating various topics. Based on the results, Twitter was the leading social media platform utilized by researchers for professional purposes followed by Facebook, Academic sites, and LinkedIn for professional and personal use purposes. Despite previous researchers raising criticism about the above social media platforms and referring them as unprofessional platforms as noted by Yu, Foroudi, and Gupta (2019), this study's findings are inconsistent with these claims since the majority of the researchers utilized Twitter and Facebook for professional purposes. Moreover, these findings support the assertions of Henninger, Alevizou, and Oates (2017), who indicated that the leading social media platforms (Twitter and Facebook) remain dominant as the key tools of communication and a tool of communication as opposed to the mainstream SMS. These results imply that researchers prefer to utilize real-time feedbacks and vast amounts of data generated by social media platforms to extract their research findings. Social media offers an opportunity for researchers to access a larger population of participants in a connected community. Since the researchers are more focused on data collection than personal use, most participants tend to leverage the benefits of social media platforms to device customer inquiries to satisfy their aims and objectives. Hence, these findings correlated with the claims of Bogaert, Ballings, and Van den Poel (2016), who indicated that the important factors of professional researchers are the ability to reach a connected audience. Additionally, the utilization of various social media platforms for professional purposes confirms the findings of Bogaert, Ballings, and Van den Poel (2016) in which academic explorers utilize various SMS to promote their studies. Hence, if more people can access and read the works of academic researchers, their aim is achieved; thus, these findings are consistent with the claims of Mazzoleni and Bracciale (2018). According to this study's results, the respondents indicated that they use more social media sites and applications such as blogs, Telegram, YouTube, and others. These platforms offer the researchers the option of sharing their works to reach a wider audience and more views. Hence, the findings are consistent with the claims of Ryan and Sfar-Gandoura (2018). Moreover, the utilization of more than one social media platform is confirmed in this study as a crucial element for enabling the researchers to achieve their research's main goals. For instance, Ryan and Sfar-Gandoura (2018) and Hallinan, Brubaker, and Fiesler (2020) indicated that being active in multiple communicates offers the researcher a wider audience which is confirmed by these study's results which noted that the participants used more than one platform such as zoom and Twitter and Facebook. As indicated by the study's findings, most of the researcher's used academic sites for academic work (42.85%), while others (38.09%) utilized LinkedIn for professional purposes only. The findings confirm the arguments of Farkas, Schou, and Neumayer (2018), who noted the increased used and initial design aims of LinkedIn as a social media platform for professionals to share content. In this case, the findings imply that researchers perceive that the utilization of LinkedIn in their professional work is likely to enhance their connectivity and professional growth. Besides, this dissertations' findings show that social researchers are driven by their social interests to adopt specific technologies in their research experience. These findings correlate with the claims of Dixzon and Anderson (2018) and Fleming (2016). They argued that social media's continued growth in the academic field is influenced by social interests regardless of the existing criticisms and objections from others, such as Wexler (2016). In this case, contrary to Wexler (2016) claims, the researcher inferred that researchers (professors and assistant professors) recognize the significance of using SMS and unprofessional platforms such as social media sites due to their benefits of brand growth, and networking. Hence, it can be concluded that the 'purpose of use social media use' may be used to define professional or unprofessional use of social media. Comparing Facebook's utilization for personal and professional use, the researchers used the platform more for professional purposes (73.33%) than personal purposes (71.42%). These findings imply that since the social media site has a high population of users, and its main focus was on connecting and communicating, the researchers leverage their communication opportunities offered by the platform. Still, their academic motives surpass their personal use. These findings support the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), where it is assumed that social norms play a critical role in influencing researchers' decisions to adopt a specific platform or new technology, as asserted by Yzer (2017). However, the findings do not specifically define what influences researchers' behaviour to use social media in their professional work. Hence, the findings show an unclear highlight on whether personal use supports professional purposes. Future researchers may use this basis to establish the relationship between personal and professional social media use among explorers. The utilization of all the social media platforms by at least one participant indicated that researchers are motivated by information sharing features implemented in the diverse community of social media. The findings support the claims of Akram and Kumar (2017), who identified in the increased usage of social media platforms or mediated web communications in the field of communication, media, and development. These findings support the assumptions of the technology acceptance model (TAM) by arguing that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness influences the researchers' motive towards new technology solutions, as noted by Al-Emran, Mazhuyev, and Kamaludin (2018). Besides, the findings of this study encountered the same limitation as to the TAM theory in which it fails to clearly highlight the impacts of social influence in adopting the technology. Hence, these findings suggest future investigators evaluate social media adoption and use based on the perspective of researchers such as professors, associate professors, lecturers, Ph.D. researchers, and senior lecturers. Although the previous study of Freelon, Mcllwain, and Clark (2018) indicated that high traffic of YouTube monthly users, this study's findings indicated contradictory findings where a minimal percentage of researchers (9.52%) utilized the platform for professional purposes. These findings imply that research...