17 Dec Social software: communication tools
Social software: communication tools
Contextualisation
The Internet has become the new work space. Who doesn’t miss the email that doesn’t arrive to finish a project? Or those websites that you visit regularly to find out the state of the art on a given subject? It is no longer just a macro library where you can find information. It is where we spend time that is worth its weight in gold.
It is no longer just a macro library where you can find information. It is where we spend time that is worth its weight in gold. It has become a backbone of our work. What can we do so that it does not absorb us and so that we can use it as a tool?
What can we do so that it does not absorb us and so that we can use it as a tool? Software has become a technological platform. The lines of code that make up a program, the connection of different modules of a program that offer a new interaction between different people physically linked, thus take on an important role. (Fuente et al., 2010)
There has been a paradigm shift, technology has ceased to be a physical thing, it is no longer just the latest fashionable gadget or the latest and most powerful hardware (machinery). Software has become a technological platform. The lines of code that make up a programme, the connection of different modules of a programme that offer a new interaction between different people physically linked… Free software occupies an important space (Winner, 1993).
The shaping of the virtual public sphere is strategic, and social software plays an important part. Knowledge professionals are the key actors who can put the user at the centre of a new process (Nieborg & Poell, 2018).
New technologies allow the development of a critical mass of more democratic and participative citizens (Rodríguez, 2023) (Sánchez, 1970) (Fuente et al., 2010). New Internet tools such as newsgroups, forums, chat rooms, message boards, mailing lists and collaborative editing systems (wikis), point-to-point applications such as peer-to-peer messaging and blogs are multiplying on the Internet, allowing people from all over the world to interact, expand on topics, discuss, debate and grow with a new public opinion (Sánchez, 1970).
We live in a society in which we cannot ignore the advances we are making on a daily basis. This represents a fundamental change, as technology is no longer simply a physical device, but a platform for social interaction where new ways of interconnection and participation between people are being developed (Antón, 2012).
According to Angela McFarlane (2009), information and communication technologies must be seen as a set of skills and competencies, a set of tools to do what we always do, but in a more efficient, effective and economical way, as well as a transforming agent with a revolutionary impact. Many institutions believe that ICTs can change the world because of their communicative value, their capacity for service and data transfer, the importance of disseminating knowledge and the social interconnectivity they allow.
The change in communication, technological, cultural, economic and social progress that is taking place in society can no longer be explained only by the effects of the media, but by the concepts of intelligence and knowledge that are driving the appearance and presence of information and communication technologies in our everyday environment. Nowadays, content, services and communications are distributed at a rapid pace.
The increase in the use of Web 2.0 has been preceded by the development of social software tools. These are enabling ordinary people (who have no prior knowledge of computers or programming) to communicate, cooperate and publish in a transparent and fast way. The Internet has become more social and has recovered its initial philosophy. A space for the shared generation of knowledge, for cooperative work at a distance and for the worldwide publication of any kind of content (texts, images, sounds and videos). People want to communicate, share and cooperate with other people.
Social software, tools available to everyone thanks to free software
Social software is defined as a set of technological tools or supports that enable the expansion of interaction between individuals or groups, social feedback that allows a group to measure the contributions of certain individuals (known as ‘digital reputation’ or meritocracy) and the creation of social networks. As Stowe Boyd comments, ‘social software is not designed for control, but for collective creation through personal contact, mutual interaction and influence, without having a pre-defined project’.
Social software is becoming a technological platform with enormous potential for managing knowledge, interpersonal relationships and institutions at all levels. Cultural professionals are key players in making these tools true channels of communication and public opinion. These tools must be used with effective criteria, as they are a vehicle for building community and projects.
The rise of open source software has democratised access to these tools, making them more widely available and accessible to people from all walks of life. This has enabled more people and communities to harness the power of social software to improve their interactions, collaboration and knowledge sharing. The availability of free and open source software has played a key role in enabling wider adoption and use of these social technologies (Fuente et al., 2010). Social software should be used as a tool within a project and also as a tool in the project approach.
The basic idea of ‘no cultural project without its digital aspect’ takes full shape with the application of social software to projects. It complements, makes the users participants and an involved part of the project. You have to be on the internet, but not in a meaningless way. You have to do things, and doing things means making an effort to make it work. This also implies that from each project there should be a two-way approach at this level with the population or users.
There is a general tendency to be afraid of including ICTs in cultural projects. Has the approach to the project changed? No, I think that the inclusion of NNTT broadens its possibilities. Not all new technologies need expert knowledge to be used. The universe of possibilities that is opening up before us expands our productive capacities and our capacity to process information. Social software is usually built in open source programming, normally PHP, HTML and XML, and connected to databases that are also open source, such as MySQL.
Social software applications are designed for people, designed to be useful and to be installed by people with little or no computer and programming skills. In some cases it is necessary to know a series of terms (see the glossary at the end of the book) to be able to know what to do in each moment, you can always ask for help from the people who manage the server where the web is hosted. The basic functions of social software applications are as follows:
- Create, edit and share content collaboratively (González et al., 2014).
- Interact with other users: communication, comments, voting…
- Manage social networks, communities, contacts and relationships.
- Publish, distribute and consume their own and other people’s content.
There are social software applications that are online services, directly accessible through their websites, where you can enjoy a space to share, create or categorise content through a quick, simple and free registration process. There are other applications that do require a minimum of technical knowledge, such as packages for installing portals or blogs on a web server. Hybrid solutions are also available.
The most visible and widespread example that has existed and still persists are blogs. Blogs are the most active and fastest growing example of social software. They are personal publishing systems, like frequently updated online diaries, with entries in reverse chronological order and a multitude of links. They represent the evolution of the primitive and aesthetic personal webs and are multiplying thanks to their wide bandwidth, their simplicity of use and their free access. No specialised knowledge is required. There are different kinds of websites: individual personal, professional personal, group…
What was known as the ‘blogosphere’ in its early days is allowing a resurgence of the public sphere. At the beginning of the year 2000, there were less than 30 thousand blogs; by the end of 2005, it was estimated that there were 53 million; by 2024, almost 600 million blogs coexist.
Final note
For professionals in the cultural and knowledge sector, social software offers them competitive advantages to be able to communicate, share and manage knowledge more efficiently, while at the same time being a way to broaden the scope and impact of their projects. It is necessary to explore, experiment and learn to use these technologies effectively in order to make the most of their potential (Sánchez, 1970) (Bote-López, 2021) (Fuente et al., 2010).
References
- Antón, A. M. G. (2012). El fenómeno de las redes sociales y los cambios en la vigencia de los Derechos Fundamentales. En Revista de Derecho de la UNED (RDUNED) (Issue 10). https://doi.org/10.5944/rduned.10.2012.11097
- Bote-López, S. (2021). Redes sociales y el desarrollo empresarial, en el contexto del COVID-19. En Revista Científica Arbitrada de Investigación en Comunicación Marketing y Empresa REICOMUNICAR (Vol. 4, Issue 7, p. 8). https://doi.org/10.46296/rc.v4i7.edespjun.0027
- Fuente, A., Herrero, J., & Gracia, E. (2010). Internet y apoyo social: sociabilidad online y ajuste psicosocial en la sociedad de la información [Internet and social support: Online sociability and psychosocial adjustment in the information society]. En Acción Psicológica (Vol. 7, Issue 1). Servicio de Psicología Aplicada (UNED). https://doi.org/10.5944/ap.7.1.201
- González, F. J. G., Durlan, C., Gómez, S., & Mendizábal, G. A. (2014). El reto de la Evaluación del Impacto Social de la Tecnología en España. En Política y Sociedad (Vol. 51, Issue 2). Complutense University of Madrid. https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_poso.2014.v51.n2.42390
- Nieborg, D. B., & Poell, T. (2018). The platformization of cultural production: Theorizing the contingent cultural commodity. In New Media & Society (Vol. 20, Issue 11, p. 4275). SAGE Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818769694
- Rodríguez, H. J. M. (2023). Entre el entretenimiento y la socialización: un acercamiento a la cultura digital adolescente a través de TikTok. En RICSH Revista Iberoamericana de las Ciencias Sociales y Humanísticas (Vol. 12, Issue 23, p. 71). https://doi.org/10.23913/ricsh.v12i23.307
- Sánchez, L. (1970). Patrones del comportamiento viral. En Documentación de las Ciencias de la Información (Vol. 39, p. 313). Complutense University of Madrid. https://doi.org/10.5209/dcin.54421
- Winner, L. (1993). Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology. In Science Technology & Human Values (Vol. 18, Issue 3, p. 362). SAGE Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1177/016224399301800306
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