The Role of Social Media within the Context of ICT4D Projects: How can the use of Social Media Enhance Project Adoption?
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Date
2020-05
Type of Work
Department
University of Baltimore. School of Information Arts and Technologies.
Program
University of Baltimore. Doctor of Science in Information and Interaction Design.
Citation of Original Publication
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Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by the University of Baltimore for non-commercial research and educational purposes.
This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by the University of Baltimore for non-commercial research and educational purposes.
Abstract
Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) attempt to
make the benefits of the information and communication enabled by technology available
to developing or disadvantaged groups, but these projects have historically faced
challenges of adoption and sustainability. Social media can potentially provide growth
opportunities for ICT4D nonprofit organizations and non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) through project adoption and collaboration; however, projects lack guidance on
how to track and analyze the impact of the social media campaign on adoption of an
ICT4D project. Historically, nonprofits and NGOs have relied on their websites to
provide information to key stakeholders and partners, but social media provides an outlet
for real-time collaboration as opposed to one-way information dissemination. In the case
of ICT4D projects, the collaborative nature of social media can provide a channel to
solicit feedback, impart good practices, and drive adoption of the solution for which the
project is being conducted. In particular, the 3-2-1 service, a potentially high-value
initiative, may benefit from including a social media campaign. The 3-2-1 service allows
for organizations to make their content available to everyone within a country, ondemand, for no-cost using a toll-free short-code and using an interactive voice response
(IVR) menu. Users dial the short-code and navigate the menu to select content about
agriculture, financial services, health, etc.; content would be provided in their local
language and recorded by native speakers. This paper explores the manner in which
social media can benefit the adoption of the 3-2-1 service within country programs run by
the Catholic Relief Services nonprofit organization. Additionally, this paper provides a
proposed toolkit that can be used to create a social media campaign to drive adoption of
any ICT4D project and provides proposed metrics to track success.