11. The Impact of Social Media on Internal Communications in the Tanzanian Telecom Industry

Social media, a new class of information technology (IT) that allows interaction and interoperability of users, is transforming organisational communication processes by offering affordances that were impossible to achieve with previous forms of IT. Social media affect knowledge transfer, socialisation and power processes within organisations. Likewise, it increases ambient awareness (knowledge of communication occurring amongst others in the organisation), metaknowledge (knowledge of who knows what and who knows whom), as well as increasing accountability. However, despite understanding potential effects of using social media within organisations, there is limited knowledge on how the internal use of social media within organisations influences structures and processes within an organisation. It is agreed that the interplay between people and technology within organisations enacts the structure of using technologies, consequently generating emergent processes and structures within organisations. Considering this, the chapter intends to explore how the internal use of social media within organisations influences the structure and process of communication within organisations. The chapter uses practice theory perspective, which considers the interplay between people and material in the process of organising. The study uses the case of the Tanzanian telecom industry to gather empirical evidence. Results of this initial study will advance our understanding of social media practices and the ways in which it affects structures and processes of communication within organisations. In particular, this will enable us to understand how people in organisations organise themselves when they engage with social media technologies and how such organisational processes produce communication structures and processes within the organisation. Furthermore, the results will assist management with insights on how to manage dynamic and fluid communication practices that are the essence of social media. Therefore, this will help organisations to moderate power dynamics, enhance knowledge management and socialisation through better management of social media practices.