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Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 600– 602

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Public Relations Review

esearch in brief

igital natives and social media

na Tkalac Vercic a,1, Dejan Vercic b,∗

University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business, Trg J.F. Kennedya 6, 10000 Zagreb, CroatiaUniversity of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences, Kardeljeva pl. 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

a r t i c l e i n f o

rticle history:eceived 14 May 2013eceived in revised form 18 August 2013ccepted 21 August 2013

eywords:igital natives

nternal communicationublic relationseputationocial media

a b s t r a c t

Digital natives (also known as “Generation Y” and “Millennials”), a generation born duringof after introduction of digital technologies, 1980s and after, have mixed preferences formedia use in personal and professional lives. A study by Friedl and Tkalac Vercic (2011)showed that even though digital natives prefer digital media in their personal lives, thisis not necessarily reflected in their business lives. This study addressing preferences of“traditional” vs. “the new media” in a university setting found an opposite result.

© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

. Introduction

Contemporary generations are living in an utterly new communications environment that has been shaped by ease ofnformation collection and access to knowledge. For organizations, it raises the following important question: What mediareferences do digital natives (Prensky, 2001; a generation born during or after introduction of digital technologies, during980s or after, also called “generation Y” and “Millennials) have regarding communication channels? Friedl and Tkalac Vercic2011) showed that, contrary to popular opinion, not all individuals below 30 years of age are completely immersed in digitalechnology. The results of their study showed that digital natives who prefer digital media in their personal lives may notecessarily reflect that preference in their business lives.

In this research, we addressed the same issue in a university setting. Universities everywhere are facing increased competi-ion and decreased funding, whether state-supported or private. As a result, universities must either focus on understandinghe preferences of their public in adopting a market-oriented approach to their product (Ressler & Abratt, 2009) or payhe price. Because social media enables a new and interactive way of communication that utilizes mobile and web-basedechnologies, students (and everyone else) can potentially share, co-create, discuss and modify user-generated contentKietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011), which can clearly upgrade the quality of communication and affecttudent satisfaction, the perception of the university and – consequently – the reputation of the university.

The results that are presented here represent the continuation of a larger study of academic reputation management

n which a Croatian university is attempting to overcome a series of problems that has affected its reputation. One of therst issues the school must address is student dissatisfaction. Employing in-depth interviews and questionnaires, studentsevealed that they did not believe there was a mechanism in place to answer their questions or address problems that theyight have. There are no official channels of communication for the students. The school has no presence in the world of

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +386 41 688 146.E-mail addresses: atkalac@efzg.hr (A. Tkalac Vercic), dejan.vercic@fdv.uni-lj.si (D. Vercic).

1 Tel.: +385 1 238 3322.

363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.ttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.08.008

A. Tkalac Vercic, D. Vercic / Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 600– 602 601

social media. Occasionally, professors who have shown an interest in contemporary modes of communication develop theirown social media presence or online sites, but this is the exception and not the rule.

Tredinnick (2006) defined social networking sites as those sites that are driven by user-participation and user-generatedcontent. Social media offer a variety of ways for students to become involved with their universities. Through communica-tions with students on Facebook and other social media applications, universities and other schools develop relationshipswith the public and with their students. Online public relations development was introduced by Kent and Taylor (1998);now, it is common for organizations to develop strategic virtual communication strategies by which to maintain and improvetheir relationships with the public (Kelleher, 2006).

The aim of this study therefore was to assess students’ attitudes toward both existing media channels and new com-munication media in their “private” and “university” lives. The main research question was: What media preferences dostudents have with respect to obtaining formal information on their university and are these media preferences the sameas those that they use in their informal social communication?

2. Research methodology

Friedl and Tkalac Vercic (2011) chose to focus upon three different publics in their study (students, employees of theschool, both teaching and administrative, and the general public), and they developed a questionnaire based on Vidaver-Cohen’s (2007) adaptation of Fombrun’s reputation quotient to measure respondents’ preferences. The questionnairefollowed eight dimensions of academic reputation (performance, product, service, leadership, governance, workplace, cit-izenship and innovation) and was sent to 1000 respondents who were members of the three key publics in the followingproportions: students of the school (N = 446); employees of the school (N = 154); and the general public (N = 400). The studywas based on the assumption that it should be possible to measure reputation within various stakeholder groups with asingle tool if reputation is defined as a function of perceptions both inside and outside an organization. The main goal wasto explore the direction and size of possible gaps in perception between various stakeholder groups of the business schoolin question. The results showed that students’ perception of the school was significantly worse than the perceptions ofemployees or the general public.

In the present study, 308 undergraduate students in four marketing classes at the School of Economics and Businesscompleted our questionnaire. All of the students were fourth year students. In each class, the purpose of the study wasexplained to the students and they were asked to fill out a paper and pencil questionnaire if they wished. The questionnairewas composed of 16 questions concerning their use of social media and their social media habits. Half of the questions useda five-point Likert-type scale. After they filled out the questionnaire, the students were informed where they could find theresults of the study.

3. Findings

Of the respondents (N = 308), 71.3% indicated that they used web portals to follow the news, whereas 61.2% of themwatched TV regularly. Approximately one-half (50.8%) of the students indicated that they read newspapers online, whereasonly 11.7% read printed papers. Less than one-quarter of the students (18.1%) listened to the radio occasionally.

As for social media, nearly all (91.5%) responded that they use some form of social networking platforms, whereas only2.6% stated that they do not use any form of social media at all. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents (66.1%) indicated thatthey used online photo management and sharing platforms (e.g., Flickr or YouTube), and 25.7% of the respondents usedblogs and other forums; only 4.9% of the participating students stated that they occasionally use microblogging sites (e.g.,Twitter). Less than 4% of the respondents ever comment on products or services on various company websites.

When asked how often they use social media, the majority of students (90%) predictably indicated that they use socialmedia more than once a day. Another 8% use social media once a day, whereas only 0.3% of students are on social media lessthan once per month. Just over one-half (56%) of the student sample answered that they are connected to a company or anorganization through social media.

As for the university/business school, it is clear that social media are an important source of information for the students.The great majority (88%) claim that they communicate about the business school through social media. When asked if theyuse professors’ social media sites, 27% of them state that they do, 8.1% claim that there are no professors who have officialsocial media sites, and 3.3% follow a professor on Twitter; however, 18.1% of the respondents do none of the above. Notably,61.0% of the students read and comment on (unofficial) forums connected to the business school, and most of the studentsbelieve that it is important to receive information on classes and lectures through social media.

When students were asked where they look for official information about the business school, most (93.5%) said it wasthrough the school’s web page and more than half (57.5%) answered that they ask their friends. Less than one-third (31.9%)use some form of social media to find answers, whereas another 21.8% obtain their information directly from professors.

School bulletin boards were used by 13.7% of the students seeking official information. In comparison, when asked whattheir preferred way of finding out official information would be, 88.3% preferred the school’s web page, 32.6% of them wouldlike to use the school’s official social media outlets; 30.3% would rather ask their friends (via social media) and 5.2% statedthat their preferred media for communication regarding this type of information would be school bulletin boards.

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02 A. Tkalac Vercic, D. Vercic / Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 600– 602

As for the importance of receiving information about the school through social media, most students agree that it ismportant. Specifically, 26.1% believe that it is very important, 35.8% think it is important, 27.4% state they do not haven opinion one way or the other, 3.6% say it is not important, and 7.2% claim it is not at all important. Nearly the sameespective percentages of students believe that the business school’s presence on a social media platform would add to itsositive perception, where 28.7% of students think it would add significantly, 36.2% believe that it would add somewhat,2.1% of the students believe that it does not matter, and 6.5% of students think it would not add to its positive perceptiont all.

Students of the School of Economics and Business are relatively unhappy with their school, and there are obvious issueso address. When asked if they believe that there is an (official) place where they can turn when they have a problem atchool, approximately two-thirds (66%) replied that there was no official place or forum to address student problems. Theajority of students (82%) believe that social media could help with that issue.

. Analysis and conclusion

The results of this study indicate that social media outlets are perceived of as an important communication tool for stu-ents in the focal school. Contrary to previous research into the use of social media by Internet natives in a business settingFriedl & Tkalac Vercic, 2011), students in the school expressed an explicit preference for the use of social media over tradi-ional media that was nearly identical to the preferences in their private use of social media for functional communication.his raises important issues both for reputation management of academic institutions and for the communication behaviorf university staffs.

Academic institutions are corporate actors performing on a social stage in which students and other stakeholders evaluatehe quality of their communication and reputation vis-à-vis other corporate actors. Because social media is Internet-enabled,ocial media outlets are global phenomena; stakeholders develop their social media experience in one global social mediaetropolis, not locally as they do with so-called “traditional” (off-line) media. Thus, academic social media presence is

lobally competitive, although competition for students and staff may be restricted by other barriers (e.g., language oreography).

For university professors, utilizing social media in university settings – and particularly in their interaction with students represents new ways of transforming the relations between teachers and students. Traditionally, there was a power gapetween university professors and their students in favor of the former. The marketization of academic educations hasurned students into customers and professors into service providers, which has leveled power in the academic field. Social

edia platforms, through user-participation and user-generated content, contribute to the leveling of academia even further,re)turning academia to its origins as communities of students and professors.

eferences

riedl, J., & Tkalac Vercic, A. (2011). Media preferences of digital natives’ internal communication: A pilot study. Public Relations Review, 37(1), 84–86.elleher, T. (2006). Public relations online: Lasting concepts for changing media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.ent, M. L., & Taylor, M. (1998). Building dialogic relationships through the World Wide Web. Public Relations Review, 24(3), 321–334.ietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social

media. Business Horizons, 54(3), 241–251.

rensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the Horizon, 9(5), 3–6.essler, J., & Abratt, R. (2009). Assessing the impact of university reputation on stakeholder intentions. Journal of General Management, 35(1), 35–45.redinnick, L. (2006). Web 2.0 and business: A pointer to the intranets of the future. Business Information Review, 23(4), 228–234.idaver-Cohen, D. (2007). Reputation beyond the rankings: A conceptual framework for business school research. Corporate Reputation Review, 10(4),

278–304.