DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION

SCHOOL OF MULTIMEDIA, TECHNOLOGY & COMMUNICATION (SMMTC)

FIRST SEMESTER SESSION 2019/2020 (A191)

SUBJECT : MEDIA AND SOCIETY

CODE : SCCA2033

PREPARED FOR : DR. ABBAS RAMDANI

PREPARED BY: NURUL AMIRAH HANIM BINTI SAHIBOL FADZILAH

MATRIC NUMBER: 262599

GROUP: C
1.0 INTRODUCTION

Social media is getting an overwhelming interest nowadays not only for entertainment

purposes but also for corporate organizational purposes. Many organizations have

implemented the usage of social media in their workplace to facilitate their employees in

alignment to achieve their organizational missions and vision. Mc Mohan (2019), defines

social media as online services that encourage their users to digitise and publicly share

previously private personal information. Companies usually take advantage on the

advancement of social media to publicize their organizations to the society so that society

will acknowledge their existence and achievements. Other than that, most employees in

organizations are expected to use social media in the workplace to help them do better in their

work. For this academic essay regarding the usage of social media in the workplace, author

has chosen a journal article entitled ‘Using Social Media for Work: Losing Your Time or

Improving Your Work?’

2.0 ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

Author had analysed and discussed a few matters about the topic mentioned based on the

chosen journal article. The details from author’s study and observation will be divided into

four categories, which are reflection, review, critique, and personal opinion on this topic.

Following are the details:

2.1 REFLECTION

When reading the first half of the journal article, author realized that to truly identify

the impacts of social media usage in workplace is certainly not simple as the topic of

discussion itself is a subjective issue. Moving on to the second section, author noticed the

journalist somehow stresses more on the positive impacts of the social media usage in

workplace. This encouraged author to think that the journalist might have bias in

conducting the investigation. Next, the journal article indicates several methods that were

used to conduct this study which involves the human behaviour. Also, the journalist of the

journal article uses many tables and figures to present the study outcome. At first, it was

quiet hard for author to understand the data even though they are already written

systematically and not as complicated. Author had to read it more than twice to finally

understand the content. Even so, author still had a rough time to understand the whole

content of the journal because of abbreviation usage. After reading and analysing the

journal, author feels as though the journal is still lacking in term of explaining the whole

outcomes of the research. The journalist should have written the result in a simpler way

for audience of various backgrounds to read and understand it.

2.2 REVIEW

The journal article discussion is about the connection between social media and

employees in their workplaces. It focuses on why employees use social media for work,

and how their actions will affect their performance in work, as well as what motivates

them to use social media for work purposes.

 The journalist noted that the Hedonic and Utilitarian values approach was used in

attempt to explore workers’ inducements for using social media for work. Fundamentally,

these two values differ. To simplify, hedonic motivation refers to the search for emotional

values such as enjoyment, fantasy, and happiness. Meanwhile, utilitarian motivation are

noted repeatedly in literature as being a category of forces that engage users in several

processes and defined as rational and goal-oriented.

As for the methodology, a number of significant twenty-five researchers who are from

various insurance companies of the Greek market had cooperated to carry out this

quantitative research. The team distributed questionnaires to some employees and

employers working for the insurance sector in Greece by visiting their workplace and

handing out printed paper, sending the participants of the research an email containing the

questionnaires, and also by holding two large conferences; then distributes the forum

attendees the links to the online questionnaires. The total numbers of participant are one

thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine people from different genders and ages.

Research findings are presented in tables and figures form with short but solid

sentences. All three focuses of the topic discussed are well-explained by the journalist

who wrote the journal article.

2.3 CRITIQUE

As previously mentioned in the introduction, this topic is a subjective matter therefore

the outcomes will be up to one’s personal perception about how he/she perceives the

issue. People whom personally like social media will definitely say the usage of social

media in workplace has many advantages and could improve their work, likewise the
people who do not share the same beliefs as them might think the otherwise. Thus,

relying only on questionnaire seems a bit improper considering the fact that the collected

data were all answered by human. It is commonly known that human in general tends to

react upon something based on how they feel at the moment. Relatively, the participants

might have different point of view regarding the topic before, when, and after completing

the questionnaire. Consequently, the result of the study might not be completely relevant

after all.

Next, using the Hedonic and Utilitarian motivations approach to carry out this

research seems suitable and appropriate as the purposes of this research is to seek answers

through quantitative study. With the guideline from the motivations approach, the

researchers managed to prepare several questions for the participants. The team of

researchers applied the three procedures of Fornell and Larcker (1981) to justify and to

assess the validity and reliability of their research findings. In the investigation result

section of the journal, the team explains the final outcomes of the study in forms of tables

and figures followed with some sentence-explanations. Ultimately, the team are able to

obtain the answer to the study’s three questions by using Hedonic and Utilitarian values

approach, plus Fornell and Larcker’s (1981) three procedures in determining the validity

of the research outcomes.

2.4 PERSONAL OPINION

The title of the journal article chosen is ‘Using Social Media for Work: Losing Your

Time or Improving Your Work?’ Personally, author finds the topic of study is interesting

as it involves the connection between human and technology.

 However, author wishes that the team of researchers would have used more than one

method of conducting the study. Relying on questionnaire alone is inadequate. Empirical

data is necessary too. They could have taken the study up a notch wherein they could

observe the employees at their workplace and see how the usage of social media affects

the employees’ work. Of course, when suggesting this type of methodology, author

means that the employees should not be told about this since the employees could fake

their actions.

Furthermore, author is quite bothered because this study only involves workers from

the insurance sector and not from various sectors. Different workers in different

organizations might have different perceptions regarding the usage of social media in the

workplace whether it is making them losing their time or improving their work. Author

feels that it is also the type of work that people do will determine and affect people’s view

on the usage of social media in this context of discussion. Thus, it is unfair to conclude a

matter that is general but only by involving certain community in doing the research. The

participants of the research should have varied not only from the genders and ages aspect,

but also working sectors.

In addition, the technique that the journalist uses to present the research finding is

kind of complicated. Since the topic of study is general and society-related, author at first

finds it awkward that the way of this journal being written requires its readers to at least

have some skills in interpreting the data which is not a skill that most people of the

society would secure. However, author comes to understand that maybe the journal article

is not intended to be a general material reading.

3.0 CONCLUSION

Based on the journal article, the journalist noted that the research result shows that social

media are not simply a time waste for workers, but the social media are also significantly and

positively impact the workers’ performance.

To conclude, there are many impacts of social media usage in the workplace. Some

argues that because of social media, many things regarding work have become easier and

efficient. Meanwhile, some have different opinion about this issue. Nonetheless, social media

is used by many organizations nowadays despite the uncertain impacts of it being

implemented in workplaces. Social media usage whether in the workplace or any other places

can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on how we as human facilitate the

technology because after all, we are the one who invents it and controls it.
REFERENCES

Leftheriotis, I., & Giannakos, M. N. (2014). Using social media for work: Losing your

time or improving your work? Computers in Human Behavior, 31, 134–142. doi:

10.1016/j.chb.2013.10.016

Mahon Ciarán Mc. (2019). The Psychology of Social Media. Abingdon, Oxon:

Routledge.