Insights from Analysing the Use of Social Networks for Academic Communication at Latin-American and Spanish Universities

In the current debate about the use of social networks for teaching, it is often insufficiently acknowledged that universities have become very active at the institutional level in several social networks, with differing levels of engagement. This article looks at the way social networks are used for official communication at the institutional level in some selected Spanish-speaking universities to discover the different approaches and organisational implications of these activities. Although the institutions selected for this study are not exclusively distance-teaching institutions, all of them either have departments focused on virtual teaching or offer complete distance-education programs. The distance-education institutions are in a position to become forerunners in the utilisation of social networks for various reasons. They are, by nature, familiar with media-design and media-production, and they have a specific need for network-based communication because of the separation between the teacher and the learner. The authors have analysed the practice of using social networks by comparing institutional web presence on social networks at five universities located in Argentina, Mexico and Spain. The analysis was complemented by interviews with academics responsible for this area to obtain authentic descriptions of the actual state of development and their experiences. Furthermore, several metrics about social networking activities have been calculated for the respective universities, and their significance and validity is discussed. The academic institutions analysed use the most popular social networks to maximally reach their student population. Furthermore, information is mostly restricted to official statements about internal developments and organisational issues, which are duplicated on the university’s web pages. Interaction and feedback to user comments are rare. Communication patterns are not adjusted and differentiated accordingly to the respective social network characteristics. Finally, some suggestions are made about aspects to be considered with regard to institutional communication using social networks.