EFFECT OF TWITTER BAN ON MOBILE DATA USAGE
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
Our focus in this chapter is to critically examine relevant literature that would assist in explaining the research problem and furthermore recognize the efforts of scholars who had previously contributed immensely to similar research. The chapter intends to deepen the understanding of the study and close the perceived gaps.
Precisely, the chapter will be considered in three sub-headings:
- Conceptual Framework
- Theoretical Framework
- Empirical Review and
2.1 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Social media
Social media are computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networksUsers typically access social media services via web-based technologies on desktop computers, and laptops, or download services that offer social media functionality to their mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablet computers). When engaging with these services, users can create highly interactive platforms through which individuals, communities and organizations can share, cocreate, discuss, and modify user-generated content or pre-made content posted online. They introduce substantial and pervasive changes to communication between businesses, organizations, communities and individuals. Social media changes the way individuals and large organizations communicate. These changes are the focus of the emerging field of technoself studies. Social media differ from paper-based media (e.g., magazines and newspapers) or traditional electronic media such as TV broadcasting in many ways, including quality, reach, frequency, interactivity, usability, immediacy, and permanence. Social media operate in a dialogic transmission system (many sources to many receivers). This is in contrast to traditional media which operates under a monologic transmission model (one source to many receivers), such as a paper newspaper which is delivered to many subscribers or a radio station which broadcasts the same programs to an entire city. Some of the most popular social media websites are Baidu Tieba, Facebook (and its associated Facebook Messenger), Gab, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, Viber, VK, WeChat, Weibo, What sApp, Wikia, and YouTube.
Evolution of Social Media (Twitter)
Social media have evolved through Web 2.0, a term coined to describe a new wave of Internet innovation that enables users to publish and exchange content online Kaplan and Haenlein (cited in Eun 2011:6). Social media encompass a wide range of electronic forums, including blogs, microblogs (e.g., Twitter), social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), creative work-sharing sites (e.g., YouTube), business networking sites (e.g., LinkedIn), collaborative websites (e.g., Wikipedia), and virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life). Among these social media, social networks and microblogs are the most popular, accounting for 22.7% of all time spent online in the United States ACNielsen (cited in Eun 2011: 6). According to Dominick (2009:283) Web 2.0 is the idea of a second generation Internet that is highly participatory, allowing users to improve it as they use it. Social media contents are primarily written and published by their users and not owners or employees of the site. For instance, most adverts, videos and pictures on Facebook and Twitter are uploaded by visitors of the sites. Jenkins et. al (cited in Stagno: 2) observe that Web 2.0 has been growing tremendously as it facilitates the production and dissemination of information, allows for the involvements in participatory culture to share individual expressions or creations and bring people with similar interests and goals to connect with each other on blogs, social networking sites and others. Few years ago, websites were quite static and passive. There was no much interaction going on as they were mostly corporate websites. The only way an individual could participate online was to send an email or form to the owners or web master of the website and hope that they would get back to him. This type of arrangement was called Web 1.0, referred to as “first generation Web where users generally consumed content. The audience went to web pages and looked at content provided by the website owner” Dominick (2009:283). But today, users have become producers which mean that they simultaneously consume and produce information (Bruns, cited in Stagno 2010:1). Igbinidu (2011:26) explains that the first exploitation of the potential of the social media especially to spread a candidates message, gain support and get the public engaged was through the 2008 presidential campaign by the then Senator Barack Obama who eventually became American president. The Obama campaign reached five million people on 15 different social media platforms. As at November 2008, Obama had approximately 2.3 million Facebook supporters; 115,000 Twitter followers and 50 million viewers of his YouTube videos. Facebook is a social network for connecting people with those around themfriends, family, coworkers, or simply others with similar interests. Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 alongside his roommates and fellow computer science classmates Eduardo Saverin, Austin Maskovitz and Chris Hughes at Harvard University in the U.S (Locke cited in Nnaane 2011:15). Initially, Facebook membership was restricted to Harvard students but later extended to other colleges in Boston and Stanford University all in the U.S. “Since 2006, Facebook has expanded beyond Harvard to other schools, corporations, businesses and any user across the world” (Dunay & Krueger 2010:27). Zuckerberg, cited in (Nweze, 2009:41) explains that advertising on Facebook is an opportunity for companies to reach their exact audience and connect real customers to their business. Facebook allow users to connect and share information in a variety of ways. Facebook allow users to post photos, videos and customize their profile content. Facebook has added a number of features over the past few years, including instant messaging/chat and apps (and their developer platform).Users communicate with one another through different methods, for instance, private messaging as well as writing on another user’s wall. Wall posts are visible to that user’s friends, but usually not to the general public. Users can also change their privacy settings to allow different users to see different parts of their profile, based on any existing relationships (the basic privacy settings are “only friends”, “friends of friends”, and “everyone”). Users can post notes that are visible to all of their friends. Users can also comment on or, more recently, “like” the posts of their friends, and conversations often occur within the comment sections among multiple people (Dunay & Krueger2010:27). Facebook pages are online location for businesses, organisations, public figures, entertainers, professionals of all types and individuals with the intention of marketing themselves to the Facebook community. Facebook Pages provide a powerful set of online tools for engaging with customers (or, as they are called in Facebook, fans). Every day, 3.5 million people become fans of a Facebook Page. According to eMetric’s February 2009 Facebook Usage Metrics Worldwide Study, although popular consumer brands enjoy large installed fan bases, smaller brands, business-to-business (B2B) companies, consultants, and personalities can also build a loyal following by using Facebook Page (Dunay & Krueger2010:27). He notes further that if Facebook were a country, it would be the sixth most populated nation in the world. This is because the site has grown to be perhaps the most popular all over the world with a user base of over 660 million (Amaefule 2011:20). The number of users continues to grow steadily.
Tyler (2010: para 3) explains that there are currently 1.7 billion Internet users worldwide, almost 57% of them have joined a social network, 66% of all Internet users visit social networks, Facebook is used more than 80 million hours daily and that close to 15million photos, wall posts, links, news, notes etc. are shared on Facebook every day. According to Idaresit (cited in Ofose, 2010) about 39.6 percent of all Internet traffic from Africa is from Nigeria and 29.8 percent of the population access the Internet. As at 2009, there were 30 million Nigerians on Facebook. Of this figure, 67% were males while 33% were females. These figures have changed since then. Lagos alone now has about two million subscribers to Facebook (Ogunbayo, 2011: 44). Supporting the above, Solaja and Odiaka (2010:32) state that “such a large population naturally offers a good basis for the adoption of the platforms for marketing purposes”. Facebook offers targeted communication initiative to select customers groups for product development as well as service enhancement and also be able to engage their customers and non-customers on platforms they are comfortable with while recovery real-time feedback on what they have to say about their brand, products and services (Wmworia (2010, February 11). In Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan boasts of the highest fan base with 97,000 Nigerian Facebook users. Both local and international brands would consider placing an ad on the presidents Facebook fan page as traffic to the site is unbelievably high Adebija (cited in Ofose 2010:4). Twitter was launched in 2006 and founded by Dorsey Jack, Biz Stone and Evan Williams as a free microblogging social network that enables users to post short messages known as tweets that could be viewed by other subscribers, more commonly referred to as followers. Tweets of not more than 140 characters can be sent from and received by almost any kind of electronic equipment, including desktop computers, laptops, Black Berrys, iphones, and other mobile devices (Farhi 2009). According to D’Monte (cited in Nnaane 2011:16) Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is estimated to have 200 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search queries a day. Message brevity, in contrast with lengthy e-mail marketing messages, has been hailed as an asset of microblogs; which enables consumers to browse a large amount of updates efficiently (Zhao and Rosson, 2009). Aided by increases in smart phone sales and the continued rollout of Internet and mobile network infrastructure, Twitter is poised for even more growth (Wauters, 2010). Users broadcast messages to the masses, without visiting a particular person's profile to do so. By following other users, people automatically receive messages on their own Twitter home pages tweeted by those whom they are following. Even though some Twitter accounts are kept private, and some users require that they offer approval to people who wish to follow them, messages exchanged on this microblog are public by default, thus everyone can read and comment on a Twitter message (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Chiang (2011) explains that visitors increased by 1,382, to 7 million in February 2009, up from 475,000 in February 2008, “making it the fastest growing social media site for that month” (McGiboney, 2009).
Twitter is an American microblogging and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and retweet tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through its website interface or its mobile-device application software ("app"), though the service could also be accessed via SMS before April 2020.The service is provided by Twitter, Inc., a corporation based in San Francisco, California, and has more than 25 offices around the world. Tweets were originally restricted to 140 characters, but the limit was doubled to 280 for non-CJK languages in November 2017.Audio and video tweets remain limited to 140 seconds for most accounts (D'Monte, Leslie 2009).
Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 and launched in July of that year. By 2012, more than 100 million users posted 340 million tweets a day,and the service handled an average of 1.6 billion search queries per day.In 2013, it was one of the ten most-visited websites and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet". As of Q1 2019, Twitter had more than 330 million monthly active users.Twitter is a some-to-many microblogging service, given that the vast majority of tweets are written by a small minority of users( twitter search team 2011).
In April 2014, Twitter underwent a redesign that made the site resemble Facebook somewhat. On June 4, 2014, Twitter announced that it would acquire Namo Media, a technology firm specializing in "native advertising" for mobile devices. On June 19, 2014, Twitter announced that it had reached an undisclosed deal to buy SnappyTV, a service that helps edit and share video from television broadcasts.The company was helping broadcasters and rights holders to share video content both organically across social and via Twitter's Amplify program.In July 2014, Twitter announced that it intended to buy a young company called CardSpring for an undisclosed sum. CardSpring enabled retailers to offer online shoppers coupons that they could automatically sync to their credit cards in order to receive discounts when they shopped in physical stores. On July 31, 2014, Twitter announced that it had acquired a small password-security startup called Mitro. On October 29, 2014, Twitter announced a new partnership with IBM. The partnership was intended to help businesses use Twitter data to understand their customers, businesses and other trends.
On February 11, 2015, Twitter announced that it had acquired Niche, an advertising network for social media stars, founded by Rob Fishman and Darren Lachtman. The acquisition price was reportedly $50 million. On March 13, 2015, Twitter announced its acquisition of Periscope, an app that allows live streaming of video. In April 2015, the Twitter.com desktop homepage changed.
Twitter Ban In Nigeria
On the 4th of June 2021 many Nigerians woke up to the horrifying news that twitter has been banned . the ban was announced after the government alleged that the micro- blogging site was been used to undermine Nigerian cooperate existence through the spreading of fake news that has violent consequences. However, it drew an angry reactions from Nigerians and western powers who saw the move as an attempt and a threat to civil liberty, but the government were unmoved leaving twitter officially blocked in Africa's most populous state. However, this ban has taken its toll on peoples businesses as they now have to use VPN to assess twitter in other to avoid been noticed and persecuted in the court of law by the government, further more, this ban has taken its toll on telecommunications company , in the sense that there have been low patronage in data consumption as many Nigerians are used to getting news and any trending issues in Nigeria.
DATA USAGE
In computing, data is information that has been translated into a form that is efficient for movement or processing. Relative to today's computers and transmission media, data is information converted into binarydigital form. It is acceptable for data to be used as a singular subject or a plural subject. Raw data is a term used to describe data in its most basic digital format. The concept of data in the context of computing has its roots in the work of Claude Shannon, an American mathematician known as the father of information theory. He ushered in binary digital concepts based on applying two-value Boolean logic to electronic circuits. Binary digit formats underlie the CPUs, semiconductor memories and disk drives, as well as many of the peripheral devices common in computing today. Early computer input for both control and data took the form of punch cards, followed by magnetic tape and the hard disk. Early on, data's importance in business computing became apparent by the popularity of the terms "data processing" and "electronic data processing," which, for a time, came to encompass the full gamut of what is now known as information technology. Over the history of corporate computing, specialization occurred, and a distinct data profession emerged along with growth of corporate data processing.
Effect of Twitter Ban on Data Usage In Nigeria
With the ban of twitter comes its scrounging effects, as citizens have been complaining of the fact that they carry out their businesses on the micro- blogging platform. However, the most affected if not careful by this ban is the telecommunications sector of which were responsible for bringing down twitter from their services. Also there have been low patronage in the way people buy data, as most people use twitter more than any other social media platform to share news and trending information going around , and also used to find missing persons, of course people use other social media handles to do all these, but they give more preference to their twitter handle because it has proven to be reliable, faster and efficient in dissemination of information for personal or business dealings that has helped to change lots of lives in Nigeria. However, the effect of twitter ban can be felt and seen on the usage of data, as people no longer buy data the way they buy before, telecommunications company's are losing money everyday owing to the fact that assessing twitter takes up a lot of data, which in turn brings in money for these company's but , now that twitter has been ban this has drastically reduced their income level, also people now have to boycott this ban by resulting to the use of VPN which is quite expensive to use unlike going through the normal channel to assess their twitter accounts.
2.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The Uses and Gratification Theory
The Uses and Gratification Theory was propounded in 1974 by Elihu Katz, Jay Blumler and Michael Gurevitch. “The theory was developed to explain why audiences do not passively wait for media messages to arrive, but actively and deliberately seek out forms of content that provide them with information that they need, like and use” ( Kur, 2003:34). Folarin (2005: 65) observes that the theory perceives the recipient of media messages as actively influencing the effect process, he selectively chooses, attends to, perceives and retains the media messages on the basis of his needs and beliefs. This implies that “members of the public will actively select and use specific forms of media content to fulfill their needs and to provide gratifications of their interests and motives Defleur & Dennis (1994:559). The uses and gratifications perspective takes the view of the media consumer. It examines how people use the media and the gratification they seek and receive from their media behaviours. Uses and gratifications researchers assume that audience members are aware of and can articulate their reasons for consuming various media content (Wimmer and Dominick 2003: 403). Consequently, when applied to this study, social media allow for participation as they give the advertisers and customers the opportunity to interact with each other on a one-on-one basis. The implication is that business organisations or entrepreneurs who use social media are active as they willingly create their Facebook page or Twitter account. The business organisation chooses social media as a means to fulfill their wants and goals over other sources. Basically, the business organisation/entrepreneur sign up an account on Facebook or Twitter for a particular purpose. That is, the need to connect with customers to promote a product/service. For other users, it could be the need to connect interpersonally with friends or the need to patronise a product/ service advertised on those social platforms or just to know an organisation they are interested in the better. The assumption is that those who decide to patronise adverts on Facebook and Twitter may be doing so because of the gratification they hope to derive from those messages. While those who do not patronize the messages, may not have seen any gratification in the messages. Debatin, Lovejoy & Horn (2009:87) explain that social media users are found to expose higher risk-taking attitudes than individuals who are not members of an online network. It can therefore be assumed that the expected gratification motivates the users to provide and frequently update very specific personal data that most of them would immediately refuse to reveal in other contexts
Information Technology theory
The field of information systems is premised on the centrality of information technology in everyday socioeconomic life. Yet, drawing on a review of the full set of articles published in Information Systems Research (ISR) over the past ten years, we argue that the field has not deeply engaged its core subject matter—the information technology (IT) artifact. Instead, we find that IS researchers tend to give central theoretical significance to the context (within which some usually unspecified technology is seen to operate), the discrete processing capabilities of the artifact (as separable from its context or use), or the dependent variable (that which is posited to be affected or changed as technology is developed, implemented, and used). The IT artifact itself tends to disappear from view, be taken for granted, or is presumed to be unproblematic once it is built and installed.
2.3 EMPIRICAL FRAMEWORK
Empirical Studies on Social media(Twitter)
According to Return on Investment Research 2011, social networking accounts for one of every six minutes spent online. There are 750 million active Facebook users across the globe and 31% of Facebook users are on the site multiple times every day. Edison Research revealed that 24% of twitter users reach out to their Facebook friends whenever there's an important SOS information to be passed around. More than one in three people have said they would rather share on twitter when they are in trouble as there are people who will take it up immediately by sharing to other micro blogging sites. According to Simonson et al. (2000), Using social media(twitter) becomes a risk to users more often than most people realize. One of the disadvantage of using social media that adult fear the most are cyberbully and online harassment. Using digital media to communicate false, embarrassing or hostile information about another person is called cyberbully. Online harassment and cyberbully is usually used interchangeably and it is actually two different entity. Online harassment is not as common as offline harassment, and the participation in social networking sites (twitter) does not put most users at risk of online harassment. However, cyberbully is common that most of the people face and can cause several psycho-social outcomes including depression, anxiety, severe isolation, and tragically suicide.
(Kassens, 2014,) also noted that Social media also can connect people in the other country. People can learn how to interact with foreigners by using different languages. Communicating through different language might be tough for them but the exciting in making a new friend can motivate people to learn new language and use some applicationlike twitter to communicate with each other. the friendship can make them to dig in deeper in certain country for their culture, environment and beliefs.
Other than that, social media( twitter)has enhanced learning opportunities for middle and high class people by connecting them with one another on group projects. Facebook, twitter and other similar social media programs enable people to gather around or online and exchange ideas about their business. Not to mention, some of the businesses have successfully used micro blogging site as their teaching tools to help people with their learning and exposure on a particular business. the implementation of social media, specifically social networking, is what individuals and organizations are using daily and this social networking encourage them to use technologies for their dealings (Kassens, 2014,)
(O’Hanlon, 2007) noted that staying connected with friends and family. Active social net-workers say an important driver of social media use is sharing and gathering information and learning about new events. 63% of twitter users said that sharing information with network is very or somewhat important, 59% explained that gathering information from network is very or somewhat important, while 58% said that to learn about emerging events, political matters,and security tips information is very or somewhat important. Given that active social media users are looking for information about politics, security threats, entertainment events online, how well do they think government and business owners are leveraging social media to these ends. Here is a breakdown of major reasons people cite for subscribing to and following trends through different channels and what that means for them . Facebook users said that they become fans of a celebrity or business page in other to receive discounts and also to show support for the individual or business, to stay informed about the celebrity activities, to get updates on future entertaining events. active Twitter users say the reasons why they follow celebrity and brand : To obtain new, authentic information about a scandal on a celebrity and business and to find out what they really stand for and To receive insider information about upcoming entertaining events.