The content disseminated on social media by public secondary school libraries as a reflection of society. The case of the Extremadura region of Spain
| Pages | 16-34 |
| Date | 04 February 2019 |
| Published date | 04 February 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-04-2018-0073 |
| Author | Cristina Faba-Pérez,Lara María Infante-Fernández |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
The content disseminated on social
media by public secondary school
libraries as a reflection of society
The case of the Extremadura region of Spain
Cristina Faba-Pérez and Lara María Infante-Fernández
Department of Information and Communication, University of Extremadura,
Badajoz, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to analyze the type of content disseminated by school libraries
through social media and what topics are the most commonly used, to discover if, in addition to topics
concerninglibraries, information with a wide social scopeis also disseminated.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper reviews the use of social media as well as the
implementation of a content analysis on the most used 2.0 platforms, to locate which content is the most
relevantin the school libraries of public secondary schools in Extremadura.
Findings –In the Extremadura region of Spain,the results of the 752 publications posted during the period
2014-2017 by the librariesof the 86 public secondary schools on six selected social mediaplatforms generated
a total of 4 categories and 14 subcategories,and point to a predominance of topics related to encouragingand
promoting reading and writing, and to the library’s supportfunction for both the classroom and the school.
However, shortcomingsare detected in content related to social aspects of specialinterest, such as bullying or
educationin equality.
Originality/value –The originalityof this paper lies in the fact that although there are some works on the
analysis of the content of the social web of librariesin general, especially university libraries, the same does
not apply to theevaluation of social media in school libraries, and much lessabout the analysis of social media
contentin these typesof libraries.
Keywords Secondary education, Social media, Content analysis, Spain, Information dissemination,
School libraries, Reflection of society
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Progression towards a communication model based on hypertextuality, immediacy,
digitality and hyperconnectivityhas meant that the traditional school has had to adapt to a
2.0 school model involving unprecedented change from analogue to digital, driven by the
advance of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This has led to a hybrid
model of the school which combines the traditionalway of understanding teaching with the
digitalizationof its organizational, pedagogicaland functioning processes.
In this context, libraries have seen in socialmedia, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,
Pinterest and Googleþ, new allies for the creation of educational and leisure resources,
This work was financed by the Consejería de Economía e Infraestructuras of the Junta de
Extremadura and the Fondo Social Europeo as part of the Aid to Research Groups GR15024. We also
wish to express our gratitude to the experts of REBEX (the Extremadura School Libraries Network)
for their collaboration in ratifying the categorization and coding obtained in the present work.
EL
37,1
16
Received12 April 2018
Revised9 August 2018
Accepted16 September 2018
TheElectronic Library
Vol.37 No. 1, 2019
pp. 16-34
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-04-2018-0073
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm
which can serve to strengthen the pedagogical work that emanatesfrom the classroom and
to complement the actions that blogs and web sites have been putting out for some years
(Sudhier and Priya, 2017). Therefore, the content disseminated through social media is
steadily gaining in importance,as it is a direct reflection of the school library’s functions, as
well as of the initiatives directly related to the classroom, the school itselfand the society in
which it is immersed. Now more than ever, school libraries have “the capacity and the
potential [...] to collect,select, organize, and present in their area on the Internet resources of
support for the development of reading and learning in the school”(Durban Roca, 2013),
reaffirming their role as ResourceCentres for Teaching and Learning (CREA) (Area Moreira
and Marzal García-Quismondo, 2016;IFLA, 2015;Gobierno de España,Agencia Estatal,
2006, 2013). School libraries also represent a fundamental pillar for the achievement of
information literacy (IL) (Blasco Olivares and Durban Roca, 2012;Campal García, 2006;
Catalani, 2017;CILIP, 2014;Kim et al., 2014;Marzal et al., 2012;Pagán and Ortiz, 2016;
Smith, 2016), of the key curricular competencies at all educational levels (Hanson-Baldauf
and Hassell, 2009;Limberg et al.,2012;Martínez-Abad et al.,2017) and of the education of
adolescents in such topics of major social relevance as immigration (Elizondo and
Gorostiaga, 2016), bullying (Medina Santiago et al., 2017), equality (Muñoz Alvarado, 2013;
Walker and Bates, 2016) and gender-basedviolence (Celis Ávila, 2004;Garro Fallas, 2014).
The legislative framework underpinning the reality of school libraries in Extremadura
(collected and made available on the school library portal Educarex, Portal of Bibliotecas
Escolares de Educarex, 2016) is structured in the Education Act of Extremadura (Gobierno
de España, Agencia Estatal,2011), in the Support and Promotion Framework Plan for School
Libraries in Extremadura orderwhich promotes the Extremadura School Libraries Network
(REBEX) (Junta de Extremadura, 2007) and, finally,in the Reference Framework for School
Libraries (Bernal Macaya et al.,2011). It recognizes the school library as a CREA, being a
necessary curricular support to be taken into account in both educational projects and the
various documents necessary for the organizationand functioning of the school. Thus, one
is passing from the traditional concept of library as a physical space that responds to a
“library approach in which infrastructure and space, the physical collection, and auxiliary
services prevail”towards a concept of the library understood as a “centre of resources for
teaching and learning, which is the true window to educational cyberspace and the web”
(Area Moreira and Marzal García-Quismondo, 2016, p. 236) and, therefore, a faithful
reflection of the society in whichit is immersed.
School libraries have for some timenow had a presence on social media, with the type of
information disseminatedas well as the repercussions that it entails being fundamental both
for the educational community of the school itself (internal network), and for cooperation
and communication with other institutionsand organizations in the society, whether or not
in the field of education (external network). From this, there derives the relevance of
applying content analysis to determinethe type of information that school libraries concern
themselves with on social media, regardless of whether it is self-produced or the result of
interactions with otherusers (schools, libraries, official organisms, etc.). In thissense, Bardin
(2011, as cited by Prado and Correa, 2016) set out three points to attain in the content
analysis process that might be applicable in the context of studying the presence of the
school library on these platforms: pre-analysis, exploration of the material (or sample) and
treatment of the results with theirinference and interpretation. This would lead to the final
generation of a system of categories (Abidin et al.,2014;Darnell et al.,2017;Ewbank and
Kwon, 2015;González-Teruel,2015;Savolainen, 2010).
In relation to the possible content that libraries might share through social media,
and understanding the importance of the information dissemination function acquired
Content
disseminated
on social
media
17
To continue reading
Request your trial