Addressing the challenge of digital transformation from a social work perspective

Abstract

Social network services are allowing more social connectivity and making possible sharing information and knowledge of a different nature.

This article analyses whether professionals related to active social policies who are working at Malaga, Spain and are using social network services to share information and knowledge and if there is a mirror between online and offline relationships. Since an experimental model, through virtual ethnography and via social network analysis methodology, is observed the presence and connectivity as well as analyzed the relational structure that sustained 77 professionals from 13 organizations on Facebook®. Moreover, it uses the statistical technique of modularity (Girvan y Newman, 2002) was employed to detect online communities, which were compared with distribution of professionals in their organizations. Also its has been identified the influencers nodes (Del Fresno García, 2015). On the other hand, through Clustering Coefficient the “small world” effect (Milgram, 1967). has been reproduced. The results show how social networking services applied to social intervention are massively and frequently used by professionals. Moreover, the detected communities reflect existence of analogy between online and offline relationships. The online structure demonstrates a high degree of cohesion and reveals how certain professionals have higher capacity of influence and diffusion depending on position in the online structure (Burt, 2005). It argues about the opportunity to incorporate social network services towards social intervention as a manner of social innovation to improve cooperation and diffusion of information and knowledge.