Organisational Responses to Social Media Storms: An Applied Analysis of Modern Challenges

101 Pages·2020·2.009 MB·English

by  Andy Phippen, Emma Bond

Organisational Responses
to Social Media Storms
An Applied Analysis of
Modern Challenges
Andy Phippen
Emma Bond
Organisational Responses to Social Media Storms
“Written in a clear and lively style, this book examines the breadth and depth
of social media storms across a series of carefully crafted case studies. It offers a
compellinganalysisofhowanewriskcultureistransformingsocialrelationsand
advancesourcriticalunderstandingofachanging,digitalworld.Basedonoriginal
empirical research and thought-provoking argument—this is an important and
timely book.”
—Professor Eamonn Carrabine, University of Essex and Editor Crime, Media,
Culture
“A very interesting analysis of the changing face of online safeguarding, how
socialmediastormscancreatemoralpanics,andhoworganisationscanrespond.
For anyone working in online safeguarding, this is an essential book to read.”
—David Wright, Director of the UK Safer Internet Centre
“This book is the fore-runner when considering new aspects of online media
activity and its impact on those charged with safeguarding children and adults.
It offers a topical and compelling discourse on the impact of social media
storms on educational establishments and their responses to such phenomena.
The authors highlight the need for safeguarding professionals to develop a far
more critical approach to digital literacy through their examination of four
real-life scenarios. They get you thinking “what would I do in those circum-
stances?”whichleadstotheverypurposeofthisbook—toopenupdebateinan
endeavour to ensure that best practice is achieved in all our dealings relating to
the protection of children and adults. Well worth reading.”
—Tink Palmer, MBE—CEO Marie Collins
·
Andy Phippen Emma Bond
Organisational
Responses to Social
Media Storms
An Applied Analysis of Modern Challenges
Andy Phippen Emma Bond
Department of Computing Suffolk Institute of Social
and Informatics and Economic Research
Bournemouth University University of Suffolk
Bournemouth, UK Ipswich, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-49976-1 ISBN 978-3-030-49977-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49977-8
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Contents
1 Organisational Responses to Social Media
Storms: An Introduction—Fake News, Post-Truth
and Policy-Based Evidence Forming 1
1.1 The Rise of the Post-Truth Era 1
1.2 Social Media Storms 2
1.3 Approach 3
1.4 Structure 6
References 8
2 The Case of Vanessa George and the Little Teds
Nursery in Plymouth: Calls for a Return to Capital
Punishment? 11
2.1 Background 12
2.2 Child Sexual Abuse 15
2.3 Social Constructions of Childhood and Gender 17
2.4 More Than Technology 19
2.5 Organisational Impact 21
References 23
3 Momo Week: A Perfect Social Media Storm
and a Breakdown in Stakeholder Sanity? 27
3.1 Background 28
v
vi CONTENTS
3.2 Failing to Learn from History—The Story
of the Blue Whale Challenge 30
3.3 The Emergence of the Momo Challenge 34
3.4 Momo Week—A Perfect Social Media Storm? 36
3.5 Organisational Responses 41
3.6 Implications 45
References 47
4 Teen Sexting: The Challenge for Secondary
Schools—Where a Society Decides Criminalising
Children Is Perhaps Not the Best Safeguarding
Approach 49
4.1 Background 50
4.2 The New Normal? 52
4.3 Teen Sexting and Social Media
Squalls 54
4.4 A Turning Point? 58
4.5 Organisational Response 61
References 66
5 The Warwick University Group Chat:
Where Reputation Is Placed Ahead
of Safeguarding? 69
5.1 Introduction 70
5.2 Cybersexism 71
5.3 The Warwick Online Rape Chat 74
5.4 Context 74
5.5 They Should Know Better 75
5.6 Warwick’s Response 76
5.7 Conclusions 78
References 81
6 Conclusions: What Happens When People
Only Hear Echoes of Their Views and
No-One Knows What a Fact Looks Like 85
6.1 Fake News and Echo Chambers 85
6.2 Responding to Social Media
Storms 86
CONTENTS vii
6.3 Learning from Case Studies 87
6.4 An Intense Reflection of the Zeitgeist 90
References 91
Index 93
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Google Trends of searches for “Vanessa George” in the
UK between 2009 and 2020 (Data source Google Trends
https://www.google.com/trends) 14
Fig. 3.1 Google Trends data for “Blue Whale Challenge” searched
for in the UK (Data source Google Trends https://www.
google.com/trends) 33
Fig. 3.2 Google Trends data for “Momo Challenge” searched for
in the UK (Data source Google Trends https://www.goo
gle.com/trends) 37
Fig. 3.3 Google Trends data for “Blue Whale Challenge” and
“Momo Challenge” searched for in the UK (Data source
Google Trends https://www.google.com/trends) 42
Fig. 3.4 Search frequency for Momo-related terms in RM-filtered
schools over previous year 44
Fig. 3.5 Search frequency for Momo-related terms in RM-filtered
schools for “Momo week” 45
Fig. 4.1 Google Trends for teen sexting in the UK (Data source
Google Trends, https://www.google.com/trends) 55
Fig. 4.2 Charge and caution statistics for minors arrested under
Home Office code 86/2 (Data source Ministry of Justice
2018) 62
Fig. 5.1 Google Trends for “#shameonyouwarwick” between 2019
and 2020 (Data source Google Trends https://www.goo
gle.com/trends) 72
ix
CHAPTER 1
Organisational Responses to Social Media
Storms: An Introduction—Fake News,
Post-Truth and Policy-Based Evidence
Forming
Abstract Social media storms are a modern-day digital phenomenon,
wherebyonlineplatformsprovidecitizenswiththeopportunitytoexpress
their opinions on key issues of the moment which, in turn, raise aware-
nessamongfriendsandfollowers,whothenalsoexpressopinions.Inthis
book, social media storms around issues related to online safeguarding,
and the responses that organisations once the storms start to blow, are
explored.Usingamixed-methodsapproachofthematicanalysisfromthe
stormsthemselves,andethnographicobservationsfromworkinthefield,
we make use of four case studies to demonstrate the role of social media
storms in organisational change in the education section, as well as wider
cultural and legislative impact.
Keywords Social media storms · Ethnography · Online safeguarding ·
Case study research
1.1 The Rise of the Post-Truth Era
Following the publication of a rigorously researched and reviewed scien-
tific paper that considered the impact of social media on young people’s
well-being (Orben et al. 2019), media reporting (Harding 2019) picked
up on the results that concluded that there was little evidence to suggest
© The Author(s) 2020 1
A. Phippen and E. Bond, Organisational Responses to Social Media
Storms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49977-8_1
2 A. PHIPPEN AND E. BOND
that social media had little wide-ranging and serious impact upon the
well-being of young people. The resultant public response drawn from
social media was, at best, mixed, with some welcoming accurate analysis
againsttheusualmedianarrativesandconjecturethat“wellitmustbebad
for them!”; however, there was much generally disbelieving, reinforced
with the reporting of the study in the media, at a time when media and
policy discourse (UK Government 2019) wished to place social media as
a purveyor of harmful content and upset for children and young people,
alongside a groundswell of stronger regulation and greater responsibility
by social media companies.
This small social media event was a wonderful encapsulation of the
post-truth era (McIntyre 2018) in which facts and evidence are dismissed
in favour of opinion and conjecture. Clearly, as McIntyre explored in
his text, social media has a role to play here—the echo chambers of
opinionandagreement,inspiteofevidencetothecontrary,underpinned
by media reporting with prolific use of sensationalist headlines in order
to more sales and online traffic. Why would we believe evidence, when
we’ve decided something different ourselves and we can find others who
will reinforce our viewpoint?
The impact of social media on lives and organisations is still only
just beginning to be understood (bearing in mind that the technolog-
ical phenomenon has not been around for even a generation yet), but its
impacthasbeensignificant.Politicalpartiesinvestbillionsonsocialmedia
advertisingandanalyticsplatformsinordertobeabletoreachsupporters
and persuade others, media courts social media share and click rates as a
means to replace the revenue once generated by print sales, and in the
midst of this cultural adaptation, social media storms take place, blowing
in cultural change as a result of mass social consensus.
1.2 Social Media Storms
While there is a dearth of academic research exploring social media
storms, without even an established definition of what they are, there
is general cultural recognition of what it is when it happens—an event,
reported through the media, will trigger a social media response that will
reach a large audience, through shares, reposts and online commentary,
such that the event moves into a public consciousness where everybody
seeminglyhasanopinionontheeventinquestion.Theroleofthemedia
in influencing public opinion has long been debated (e.g. Gene Zucker