Is Social Media the Great Information Equalizer? Exploring Current Use of Social Media by World Federation of Occupational Therapists Member Organizations

PURPOSE: Social media is touted as the “great information equalizer” (McNab, 2009, p. 566), which has transformed how people communicate with each other across the globe. However, is this the case for occupational therapy organizations across the globe? The purpose of this study was to explore World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) member organizations’ use of social media and to investigate development needs.

Since the advent of the Internet in the early 1990s, the organization and storage of large amounts of information have been moved to digital repositories. Interactive digital technologies have created the option to share information and create knowledge online. Social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are freely available in most countries to anyone who has an Internet-enabled computing device. With hundreds of millions of people across the globe using social media as professional tools (McNab, 2009), it is important to examine if social media has become the “great information equalizer” for WFOT member organizations.

METHOD: A mixed-methods online survey was developed to gather information about WFOT member organizations’ current and anticipated use of social media and areas for development. The survey was based on surveys that investigated occupational therapy students’, educators’, and practitioners’ use of social media (Hamilton, Coldwell-Neilson, & Craig, 2014) and was refined in consultation with the WFOT, an occupational therapy scholar, and an occupational therapist who uses English as a second language. Following ethics approval, the WFOT Secretariat circulated an information letter and link to the online survey to the 77 national member organizations. The number of usable responses was 44, representing a 57% response rate.

Quantitative question responses were analyzed using Excel to depict findings descriptively. Thematic analysis of qualitative data was completed using Leximancer (Version 3.5; Brisbane, Australia) text analysis software to present the extracted information as a visual diagram (Smith & Humphreys, 2006). The researchers read all individual text responses to verify the digital analysis and to select statements that captured the emerging themes.

RESULTS: This study found that few WFOT member organizations have a formally trained social media coordinator, but many organizations are using social media successfully for enhanced communication with members, the promotion of their organization, and the promotion of the profession to internal and external audiences. Some respondents identified that their organization has limited human and fiscal resources and highlighted development needs including assistance with guidelines for ethical social media use, development of technical expertise for social media selection, and data analysis. This research found that social media is the “great information equalizer” (McNab, 2009) for many occupational therapy organizations. However, this research also found that many organizations lack technical expertise to use social media tools effectively. These organizations cited lack of fiscal and human resources as a critical barrier.

CONCLUSION: Through this research, two imperatives have emerged: the promotion of the position statement on Use of Social Media (WFOT, 2016) and the development of online resources that can enhance member organizations’ ability to select and use appropriate social media tools and analyze data emerging from the use of these tools. The WFOT International Advisory Group on Social Media is well positioned to exert influence on enhancing the use of social media by WFOT member organizations by leveraging existing resources and creating new resources designed to build technical expertise in social media selection, use, and data analysis.

References

Hamilton, A. L. (2010). Diffusion of Innovation Web 2.0. Occupational Therapy Now, 12(1), 18–21. Retrieved from http://www.caot.ca/otnow/jan10/web2.pdf

Hamilton, A. L., Coldwell-Neilson, J., & Craig, A. (2014). Development of an information management knowledge transfer framework for evidence-based occupational therapy. VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems, 44(1), 59–93. http://doi.org/10.1108/VINE-12-2012-0051

McNab, C. (2009). What social media offers to health professionals and citizens. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 87, 566. http://doi.org/10.2471/BLT.09.066712

Smith, A. E., & Humphreys, M. S. (2006). Evaluation of unsupervised semantic mapping of natural language with Leximancer concept mapping. Behavior Research Methods, 38, 262–279. http://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192778

World Federation of Occupational Therapists. (2016). Use of social media (Publication No. CM2016). Retrieved from http://www.wfot.org/ResourceCentre.aspx