FTA Seminar 2006 - Semantic Scholar

Second International Seville Seminar on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis: Impact of FTA Approaches on Policy and Decision-Making – SEVILLE 28-29 SEPTEMBER 2006

CAN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS BE USED IN FORWARDLOOKING STUDIES? Olivier Da Costa, Romina Cachia, Ramón Compañó Institute for Prospective and Technological Studies Joint Research Centre / European Commission Edificio Expo / Calle Inca Garcilaso s/n E-41092 SEVILLA [email protected]

Abstract “Social networking sites” have gained unprecedented popularity in the recent years. Within such online networks members can chat, interact with other members, contribute to forum discussions, share pictures, videos, music files or organise events. Some community websites comprise tens of millions of members from all continents. The creation of networks and their way of operating is becoming an emerging academic research topic in social sciences and its potential for commercial use is currently explored. The new modalities of large scale interaction, the huge size of communities, the immense broadness thematic topics and the fact that most users are youngsters (those who will shape the society in a few decades) are worthwhile investigating its potential for forward-looking studies. As a starting point, two major options for exploiting social networks for this purpose seem to emerge: one as an information source for "weak signals" of upcoming trends and the other one as a novel large-scale interactive tool that could be employed within foresight activities. With regard to the first one, communication exchange of thoughts and opinions amongst participants in the forums offers a formidable source of information and knowledge. This information becomes even more significant if juxtaposed against contributor profiles and behavioural patterns. In such way, emerging social trends might be detected. Similar approaches are already used in market research and could be transferred to forward-looking studies. Secondly, online social networks can be seen a unique tool for monitoring large interacting groups. In addition, the contents and they way a discussion process takes place can be traced back. In this paper, the authors aim at triggering thinking and discussion on the potential of this emerging phenomenon within forward-looking studies, rather than claiming to present conclusions. The authors will use Orkut as an example of a social network system. Keywords: Social networks, Participatory tools, Foresight, Future Studies

THEME 1: FTA ASSUMPTIONS, METHODS AND APPROACHES IN THE CONTEXT OF ACHIEVING OUTCOMES -1-


1 Introduction A social network is made up of nodes representing organisations or individuals that are connected and interacted through links. Arguably, "social networking" is as old as humankind. It is the simple act of expanding the number of people you know by meeting the friends of your friends, and the friends of the friends of your friends [Layton, Figure 1]. Figure 1: The concept of networking within a social network

Source: [Layton]

What is new is the combination of social networking with Information and Communication Technologies. Online social networks have two main interesting characteristics that are of interest for futurists and foresight practitioners, first as novel communication tool and second as major emerging social phenomenon.

1.1 Social Networks as a Communication Tool One of the innovative features of social networks is the possibility of "many-to-many"1 communication making use of a multi-modal channels, including text and audio-visual material. Foresight methods are generally highly interactive and of such a "many-to-many" type. They offer best results when a group of people in close (physical) contact mutually foster their creativity to generate novel routes of thinking. A drawback is that effective working is limited by

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Different communication channels categorized as follows: "one to one", includes talking, writing, phoning or video conferencing; "one to many" like newspaper, radio or television and "many to many" like face to face forums.



the number of participants, as well as time and budget constraints. Technology enables “social networks” to expand beyond close circles and allow people from different corners of the world to communicate in real-time at an affordable cost. Within such networks members can interact with others members, contribute to forum discussions, share pictures, videos, music or organise events. Some social network features are interesting for forward-looking purposes: •

Profiling. Upon joining a social network most systems require a set of personal details, though which the "profile" of the member is created. This data is then visible for other members.

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Networking. Members can either invite friends to join a thematic community, search friends of friends or search for members with similar interest over the whole network. Only if the interest is mutual, these people become members of his/her network. These selection procedures assures that only "trusted" people are allowed to join the network.

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Joining communities of interest. Some of these social networks, such as Orkut, cover any possible subjects ranking from social activities to professional interests.2 Forwardlooking topics can therefore be also one. No matter if expert or novice, participants share similar interest and motivation. This sets the basis for evolving "learning" networks.

1.2 Social Networks as New Social Phenomenon Some networks have become truly global with members from every continent, from developed and developing countries. The increase of membership and use has been exponential. For instance, MySpace3 launched in 2003 has now almost 80 millions members 4 and Orkut5 created in January 2004 has reached 25 million members (August 2006) [Layton]. Other successful networks include Friendster, Facebook, Yahoo groups, Flickr and Multiply. The different networks offer distinctive features; like of community of interest (e.g. Orkut, Yahoo groups) or sharing pictures or music (e.g. Flickr, MySpace, Multiply). Networks are gaining popularity across all generations and levels of society. They are predominantly popular among young people. In the case of Orkut the predominant members are between 18-25 (Figure 2). This age bracket could be interesting for forward-looking studies, as this age group will become the movers and shakers in the next two decades.

2 As an illustration the classification of Orkut communities are: “Activities”, “Alumni & Schools”, “Arts & Entertainment”, “Automotive”, “Business”, “Cities & Neighborhoods”, “Company”, “Computers & Internet”, “Countries & Regional”, “Cultures & Community”, “Family & Home”, “Fashion & Beauty”, “Food, Drink & Wine”, “Games”, “Gay, Lesbian & Bi”, “Government & Politics”, “Health, Wellness & Fitness”, “Hobbies & Crafts”, “Individuals”, “Music”, “Pets & Animals”, “Recreation & Sports”, “Religion & Beliefs”, “Romance & Relationships”, “Schools & Education”, “Science & History”, “Travel” and “Other”. 3 About 200 000 new profiles are created daily on MySpace.com; http://www.myspace.com/ 4 The larger success of MySpace.com compared to its competitors seems to be due to the possibility of exchanging music in MP3 format, as Napster and Kazaa, what is immensely popular among teenagers. Some en vogue artists use MySpace.com to diffuse their work [Layton]. 5 http://www.orkut.com/



Figure 2: age distribution in Orkut (2/02/2006)

Source:Orkut

Although in absolute terms, social networks may still appear modest with respect to other communication channels, their rapid growth and evolution are impressive. More importantly, they hold the potential for novel ways of interaction. Such networks may reflect novel trends in terms of communication patterns and behavioural interactions. This phenomenon is currently being intensively researched in social sciences and human computer interaction (HCI) studies. Similarly, the private sector is also trying to learn from social networks about new lifestyles that may impact traditional business models.6 To our knowledge, the potential of social networks for forward-looking purposes has not yet been investigated. Two features of social networks are worth investigating. First, as information source for weak signals of upcoming trends and second, as communication tool that could be employed for foresight purposes.

2 Detecting Weak Signals The inherent characteristics of social networks are similar to those of “communities of practice”. Both provide a social space where “individuals are united in action” [Liedka, 1999] and the collective knowledge is greater than individual knowledge [Gherardi & Nicolin, 2000]. Future Research [Glenn Gordon] or Foresight methods [FOR-LEARN, Da Costa et al 2006] are foresight examples aiming at illustrating how collective knowledge can add more value than the sum of the individual contributions. The level and quality of discussions in social networks obviously varies according to the contributions of the discussants. There may be many novices, but there may be also many experts in social networks. The more dynamic the community, the more likely is that it will attract more experts. Irrespective of who the participants are individual contributions are generally contested. This generates a dynamic debate. A huge amount of information and communication is stored in the forums. This represents an unexplored source for forward-looking investigations to detect emerging (particularly social) trends, and possibly give insights on novel communication patterns and discussion topics.

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In July 2005, the press magnate Rupert Murdoch bought Myspace.com for a substantial $580M.



The networks' information could be complemented with members' profiles, which include some personal data. Datamining of relational databases are already subject of investigation in some areas, for instance, in market research for detecting emerging trends in consumer behaviour. Online shops7 and search engines8 already propose “personalised recommendations” or “personalised advertisement” derived from navigation behaviours. Also, the US National Security Agency is reported to monitor and datamine social networks [O’Reilly Radar]. From a foresight point of view, crossing already available information might enable the study of online social interaction on a massive scale.9 Contributions within forum can be related to the contributor’s profile or to his/her contribution to others forums. It would be thus give an indication whether the contributor has an expertise in a given field, figure out from his/her other centres of interest what could be his/her underlying motivations, detect other related pieces of information in other forums or identify the trend setters that others will follow. The analysis of the Club Nexus student community at the Stanford University is an example how such analysis could be carried out and which information could be extracted [Adamic et al]. Correlations have been found between the personalities of the students, their online profiles, their preferences, their academic majors and their genders. For forward-looking studies, networks analysis could be performed to detect weak signals of emerging trends. The large scale of these networks would make such studies statistically significant, even if they would be to some extent biased and non-representative of the general population or of the reference group. Possible selection criteria to screen networks for emerging trends include: •

Size of a network: the value of a network grows with its size10;

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Level of activity of the forums: how active participants are participating in the discussions and quality of their contributions;

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Area of activity: there are already some forums specifically dedicated to Foresight and Future Studies [Da Costa Foresight] or emerging technologies [Da Costa Convergence] which are obviously particularly relevant in this context but any discussion related to social values, technologies, long-term issues would also be interesting to monitor.

3 Social networks for foresight Futurists and Foresight practitioners are sometimes facing a dilemma. On the one hand, methods based on face-to-face interactions between participants are efficient and enable indepth thinking. However, the outcome is often limited by the number of persons that can 7

i.e. Amazon i.e. Google 9 There are some possible privacy issues at stake when performing such investigation. In such studies, member names should be replaced by anonymous identifying numbers and the results should be aggregated so as to ensure anonymity and protect privacy. 10 How the value and the information contents scale up with size is of little importance in this context. (Possible options are proportional to the square of the number of users of the system (n2) as proposed by [Metcalfe] or to n log(n) as proposed by [Briscoe et al 2006] amongst others) 8



effectively participate in the process and the cost. On the other hand, methods using online tools can increase significantly the number of contributions. However, the lack of visual contact, spontaneous reaction and other physical interactions reduces the richness of communication and group dynamics. This can only be partially compensated by online moderators. The question arises of whether social networks could not partially compensate the above-mentioned drawbacks. They can operate without moderator and possibly facilitate more interactive contributions of participants and exploit their creativity. From the onset, one can argue that online social networks bear some similarities with foresight and future studies. They are for instance: •

Oriented towards the future. Most network members are young people. In the case of Orkut half of the members are in the age frame between 18 and 25 years (Figure 2). Typically, these youngsters are –with regard to their peers- technology literate, curiosity driven, open minded, as well as trend setters. They are potential candidates for initiating novel trends or behaviour patterns within the networks. These might become the norm when they will be the generation shaping the societal values and behaviours in one or two decades.

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Oriented towards action in real life. [Adamic et al] shows that the online or “virtual” life is like an extension of the real life in a supplementary dimension. For instance being active in discussion forums related to societal issues (e.g. human rights, protection of the environment) might be correlated to being involved in a NGO in real life to act upon the future to make it better. Further studies are needed to precise this point.

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Participative by nature. Online networks are sustained on the basis of member active and voluntary contributions11.

These characteristics provide some indications, as to how social networks could be useful for foresight or future studies. We expect that social networks could be exploited as a tool for online brainstorming, a test-bed for testing future concepts, ideas, assumptions or scenarios. Though there are some similarities with real life forums, such online discussions are quite free-running with less possibility to steer discussions towards a precise objective. The structure of these networks allows researchers to interact and participate as respondents. They may also initiate various 'explorations' such as creating a community on a specific subject, so as to observe the effect on the network and its members. This stimulus can be “first degree”, for instance opening a serious discussion topic, or “second degree” like a provocative statement. A “first degree” stimulus would be for instance the creation of a community around a theme such as: “what does political engagement look like in 2040?” as an attempt to trigger the highest possible level of contribution. “Second degree” stimuli could be the simultaneous creation of two similar-looking communities, one very pro-American foreign policy and one very anti-American foreign policy. It would be

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Within our referential, Foresight is defined from the wider field of future studies because it is oriented towards action and participative (FOR-LEARN, Foresight: http://forlearn.jrc.es/guide/9_key-terms/foresight.htm; Future Studies: http://forlearn.jrc.es/guide/9_key-terms/future-study.htm)



interesting to observe how they evolve, the number, citizenship, demographical characteristics and sociology of their members, the topics being discussed, the activity and intensity of the discussions being triggered.

4 Limitations and Challenges In the above sections we proposed two ways on how social networks might be exploited for foresight purposes. The phenomenon is new and its viability as a research method as to be tested through real applications before making some statements about the real potential use. Social networks exhibit a number of possible limitations, such as: 1. Although there is a lot of information and part of it is structured, most underlying knowledge this is non-codified and difficult to extract. Textual data in the respective databases may be incoherent, contradictory and incomplete, so that an automatic screening procedure may not offer satisfactory results. 2. In traditional foresight settings the coordinator has a reasonably great influence to guide the discussion towards a given objective. In a less structured and non-hierarchical setting –like the social networks – the role of the coordinator is far less influential. Most of the discussions may drift away. 3. Foresight settings are generally defined in time (it has a starting and an ending). Social network type of discussions has a intrinsic time delay (people to not respond immediately) and have also "open-ended character". This poses limitations in setting-up the boundaries of the research framework. 4. Participant profiles may not always be reliable. They may be targeted to transmit idealised or wrong image of their owners (or even be “fake”). Basing analysis on wrong assumptions can lead to biased (or even wrong) results; 5. There may be privacy concerns. Although information used for this purpose is voluntarily provided and publicly accessible, some may raise ethical concerns regarding to monitoring people's behaviour without their consent. (e.g. participants may not want to be part of an “experiment”.) The importance of these and other limitations calls for further investigation.

5 Concluding remarks The authors make a plea for considering online social network in conducting foresight and forward-looking studies. As the social network phenomenon is relatively new, the objective of this paper is to initiate the debate about the possibilities and potential rather than claiming to present firm conclusions. In order to proceed, it would be necessary to investigate in depth the limits, the advantages and drawbacks with respect to alternative methods. A tested research framework, which could be used as an analytical tool to conduct forwardlooking studies, is desirable. In this respect various research methodologies and alternative



approaches should be taken into consideration seeking for the best possible results. This includes approaches to extract relevant information, the creation of specific foresight forums, and best-practices on how to operate these. Towards this end, the authors have set up a social network community on foresight to which we invite you to participate.12

6 References • • • • • • • • • • • •

Adamic L. A., Buyukkokten O., Adar E., “A social network caught in the Web”, http://www.cond.org/social.pdf Briscoe R., Odlyzko A., Tilly B. (2006), “Metcalfe's Law is Wrong”, IEEE Spectrum, http://spectrum.ieee.org/jul06/4109 Da Costa O., “Convergence of Technologies”, Orkut, http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=163462 Da Costa O., “Foresight & Future Studies”, Orkut, http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=143886 Da Costa O., Warnke Ph., Scapolo F., Cagnin C.,( 2006), “Contribution of the FOR-LEARN project to the study of Foresight impact on policy-making”, Second International Seville Seminar on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis, Seville 28-29 September. FOR-LEARN Online Guide, http://forlearn.jrc.es/guide/0_home/index.htm Gherardi, S., & Nicolini, D. (2000). The organizational learning of safety in communities of practice. Journal of Management Inquiry, 9 (1), 7-18. Glenn J. C., Gordon T. J. (eds), “Futures Research Methodology”, AC/UNU Millennium Project, Version 2.0, http://www.acunu.org/millennium/FRM-v2.html Layton J., “How MySpace Works”, http://computer.howstuffworks.com/myspace.htm Liedka, J. (1999). Linking competitive advantage with communities of practice. Journal of Management Inquiry, 8 (1), 5-16. Metcalfe, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law O’Reilly Radar, “NSA Datamining Social Networking Sites”, Accessed June 2006 http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/06/nsa_datamining_social_networki.html

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http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=143886 Disclaimer: the authors have no relation or interest in the social network application selected for this undertaking.
