Networks II 2021/2022
Lecturer: Wai Yen Tang
Lecture 1: 04 April 2022
Introduction and Intervention Mapping
What is the nature of the wicked problem and how can this wicked problem be addressed?
By basic knowledge and understanding, application of knowledge, judgement and skills.
What features and processes may make social media a potential intervention tool
and how can we use social media for interventions?
Definition of intervention: a combination of program elements or strategies designed to
produce behavior changes or improve situations among individuals, groups or an entire
population. Different disciplines use different approaches when thinking of an intervention.
Intervention strategies can include educational programs, new or stronger policies,
improvements in the environment or a health promotion campaign
Multiple strategies are typically the most effective in producing desired and lasting
changes, may be the most effective way because of the potential to reach a larger
number of people in a variety of ways.
Implemented in different settings, including communities, worksites, schools, health care
organizations, faith-based organizations or in the home.
Definition of intervention mapping: a framework for effective decision making at each step
in the intervention development, makes planning explicit and transparent and facilitates
collaborative partners in a multidisciplinary group (Bartholomew et al., 1998).
Steps and tasks in intervention mapping:
Step 1, what is the problem? What do we know about this problem, like prior
research, what did others find about this problem? Need assessment, what does the
target group say about their experience?
Step 2, what are the objectives? What is the desired change? What individuals need to
learn/do (learning objectives) and what must be changed in the
organization/community (change objectives)
o What are the determinants of the problem? Personal determinants, individual
factors/cognitive factors or external determinants like social/structural factors
o Who is the target population, are there any sub-populations?
Step 3, identifying potential intervention methods, how can the determinants be
influenced in order to elicit a change? Were prior researchers and methods effective?
Translate methods into actual strategies
Step 4, design program materials, pretest the material you want to use
Step 5, implementation of intervention
Step 6, monitoring and evaluation, measuring effects and processes
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,People can be effectively influenced through their social network to adopt their behavior,
network intervention is the process of using social networks or data to accelerate social
change, generate influence and achieve desirable outcomes.
The strategy describes which component(s) of the social network will be targeted, the
decision is based on the available social network data
Individual level: targeting specific individuals in a social network, nodes,
influencers and opinion leaders
Segmentation: targeting a specific group within a social network
Induction: generating new connections among individuals, like word of mouth
Lecture 2: 06 April 2022
Social Media Interventions: part of the Problem or Solution?
Social media interventions are internet-based intervention strategies that exploit the
affordances (functions) of a social media platform to produce behavior change or improve a
situation.
Benefits of social media interventions, potential advantages of using social media as an
intervention tool:
Increase interaction with others, more availability, shared and tailored information dus
to user generated content, peer/social/emotional support
Increase accessibility, widening access, reaching people with lower media literacy
(understanding of media information), communication at real time on low cost
Public health surveillance, for example track disease outbreaks and potential to
influence (health) policy
Are social media interventions more effective than traditional interventions? Webb et al.
(2010) found a statistically small but significant effect on health-related behavior. They found
that theory-driven interventions were more effective.
Interventions that incorporated more behavior change techniques also tended to
have larger effects compared to interventions that incorporated fewer techniques
Theory of planned behavior, elaboration likelihood model, stress management,
goal setting, self-monitoring and more
Limitations of social media interventions are that there is a lack of reliability information,
privacy, confidentiality, data security issues, information overload, self-report is the most
often used measure, self-selection as opposed to randomization and high participant dropout
rate.
How to choose a social media platform?
Generational differences in social media use in frequency, preferred platform
Gender differences in social media use in type of information searched for
Sub-target groups may need to be addressed by different methods
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, Functionality of different social media platforms. What is your goal and how can it be served
by what you can do with a certain platform?
Individual identity, the extent to which the social media intervention requires that users
reveal their real identity. High-identity platforms are LinkedIn, Facebook, low-identity are
for example Twitter and Blogs (anonymity attracts trolls).
Group identity, the extent to which the SMI enables users to identify themselves with a
group and relate to each other. What tools do you know for this on different platforms?
Benefits:
Sense of belonging to a community members of which are connected through a
particular topic
Using network-informed association, peer-to-peer communication, social support
enhances effects of interventions
Cognitive load, the extent to which the social media intervention requires cognitive
investment form users. Determined by complexity of information, modality of information
and the required input from users. Target users’ cognitive skills need to be considered.
The extent to which users can start a conversation with each other, like sharing experiences,
give feedback to each other for emotional support is interactivity. Generate content
Availability or presence is the extent to which users can see if someone is online,
the sense of connectivity in real time
Whether someone or something can be accessed or used, for example when a
classmate can meet to discuss a project on a certain date
Lecture 3: 11 April 2022
Social Media Affordances, Acceptance, Uses and Gratifications
There are two core themes:
How humans relate to media, when a medium is introduced into a society, humans are
shaped cognitively by that new medium like social media or telephones
o The older function of the human is ‘amputated’ and now it serves to function
by interacting with the medium
o Older functions like the five senses
How media shapes human behaviors, according to McLuhan, new media are not ways
of relating to us the ‘real’ world, they are the real world
o All the new media are art forms which have the power of imposing, like
poetry, their own assumptions
Medium theory, McLuhan’s view of media launched a field of research that focuses on the
effect of the media technology itself, rather than the effect of the content within the media. It
is the media technologies and the cultural environment that led to change.
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