Collaborative Practices Between Conflicting Parties and New Media

The following article deals with the collaboration and conflicts through the new media means and with new media actors/users. By new media, we will take into consideration Internet and social media.

Three cases of collaborative practices between conflicting parties on new media will illustrate our theoretical part (please consult our personal blogs).

1)    A few words on the emergence of new media (historical perspective) and its impact on collaborations (system and global perspectives)

a)      Historical view

Digital, computerized, networked information and communication technologies emerged in the second half, last third of the 20th century. This is at that time Silicon Valley companies emerged too.

Until the 1980’s, media were mostly represented by TV and radio. These last thirty years and specifically these last ten years have seen a transformation of media through computers, digital softwares and networks. What we could do “by hand” like writing or manipulating photos is now doable on computers. Plus, tools of distance communications have been developed.

 

New media bubbles during the 1990’s

In 2001, Andrew L. Shapiro (founder of GreenOrder, management consulting group specialized in environmental sustainability) claimed that the "emergence of new, digital technologies signals a potentially radical shift of who is in control of information, experience and resources".

At the same period, W. Russell Neuman (University of Michigan) suggested that "we are witnessing the evolution of a universal interconnected network of audio, video, and electronic text communications that will blur the distinction between interpersonal and mass communication and between public and private communication”.

In fact, it seems that the emergence of new media and especially Internet gives the opportunity to democratize the public sphere and allows participation and good information. It permits debates between citizens and this in a non-hierarchical way (difference with the social structure). But, a possible negative appraisal is the too big increase of the global influence of some corporations.

Finally, as Terry Flew (Queensland University of Technology) highlighted: "as a result of the evolution of new media technologies, globalization occurs”. It sort of caused the death of distance, amongst other things.

We think the development of new media and its communication means contributed to globalization and not the opposite.

b-     Collaboration on new media

The emergence of new media as described previously has shifted new types of relationships, collaborations and exchanges between people and organizations.

W. Russell Neuman advanced that new media:

·         Alters the geographical distance severely,

·         Allows a larger amount of communications,

·         Increases the speed of communication,

·         Diversify the means of communication and the ways of interacting.

In the article “Building the Collaborative Enterprise-Ten Questions to Ask about Business Opportunities through Collaboration”, we can read that an important reason for collaborating is to permit a better individual and group productivity, a higher employee engagement, a more flexible and asynchronous work arrangements. But for this, a coordination in time and space is totally required and new media play an important role into that. So, we can say new media constitute a helper to better collaborations.

In 2012,

                                  

Collaboration through new media has advantages in the way it builds high performance teams. As we can read in the ‘mapping teamwork’ (from “The new science of building great teams” by A. Pentland), energy, engagement and exploration are three key words for a great team. The author insists on contribution and volume of communication which are both largely helped by new media means as we said above.

2)    Conflict management on new media (system and global perspectives)

Emergence of new media shifted collaboration. Consequently it has shifted new types of conflicts and a different management of them.

Because diverse backgrounds and cross-cultural people exchange on new media, because new media are across time and insensitive to distance, because new media interactions are quicker, links between people are more numerous and more frequent. Conflicts are also more frequent. Their resolution is different.

Four elements make the conflict easier to happen on new media:

·         The fact that a large part of interactions are public and so everyone is aware of it,

·         Everyone is accountable (responsible for) of what he/she says and can be contested. Negotiations happen among diverse parties because of the plurality of opinions,

·         Fake information can spread faster and create conflicts,

·         There is a co-authority of dialogues since there is no more “hierarchy” and there is a freedom of expression. Thus, the reality is jointly created by several individuals. It is not a “one way truth” anymore.

In despite of the fact conflicts are certainly more numerous with the emergence of new media. We can rightfully argue their resolution is easier. Indeed, if we have a look on the article “Conflict Management – Lessons from the second grade” by Hagemann and Stroope, conflict management needs, among others: avoidance, ignore, taking turns, apologize and postpone. All these actions are much more easier on a new media than in live (in a face-to-face relation).

Also, if the conflict is managed through escalation (described as a good strategy in the article “Want collaboration? Accept and actively manage conflict”), new media is very useful. Indeed, the authors claim that the escalation should be transparent to be efficient, which is the case on most of new media possibilities as we said earlier).  

3)    Future trend?

Collaboration through new media should keep increasing. Indeed, as we said in the previous part, conflict management is easier through new and social media. Thus, increasing new media collaboration will permit a gain of time and create ideas through more well manageable conflicts. More specifically, we can cite “Managing conflicts in today’s organizations” by G. Lippitt and its five style of managing conflict. In fact, new media make easier the five strategies.  

Also, concerning the increase of collaboration through new media, for instance, we can see nowadays even some surgeries are realized at distance with collaboration of different surgeons and nurses. But in this case whose fault in case of problem? Is it always the surgeon operating or can it be the one giving orders on another part of the planet?

Law-making concerning new media conflicts will probably be developed. We can regularly see conflicts between for instance Google and consumers or governments about confidentiality. There are still some lacks in law about these types of conflicts. Also, we can have in mind the recent “leaks” from Edward Snowden or Julian Assange who both took high risks and are not protected now. How will it evolve? Where to put laws to avoid a non respect of confidentiality of top secret documents and of private discussions between citizens or head of states!

As we can read in “Workplace conflict: Three paths to Peace” by Kristie McAllum, a source of conflict can be the unclearness or lack of regulations themselves (quote: “Policy documents may be vague, inadequate or nonexistent»). So, we suggest and tend to think the future will be at defining clear regulations and laws.

New means of communication should be developed and make us discover new functionalities. Things like the 3D printing are developing very fast and we could imagine something like 3D scanning and so we could share an “object” from long distance. It is complicated to develop this tendency since we probably cannot even imagine yet what we will use in five or ten years.

4)    Examples through three conflictual cases on new media

a)      Battles on new media between the People and the Government during the Arab Spring

Please consult Hugo’s blog: http://hugoi53498075.blogspot.com/

b)     Education and new media

Please consult Kathy’s blog: http://musketeerkathyy.blogspot.com/

c)      Political Weibo and new media

Please consult Winnie’s blog: http://53216248winnnie.blogspot.com/

Our references

• Our personal references:

-          « Collaboration and New Media » by P. Lichty from the Columbia College of Chicago in February 2007

-          “New Media: An Introduction” by T. Flew, Oxford University Press, 2007

-          “Media Society: Industries, Images and Audiences” (3rd edition) by Croteau, David and Hoynes, Pine Forge Press, 2003

-          “Introduction to leadership: Concepts and Practice” (6th edition) by P. Northouse, SAGE, February 2012

• Articles from the class:

-          “Conflict Management – Lessons from the second grade” by B. Hagemann and S. Stroope, American Society for Training and Development, July 2012

-          “Want collaboration? Accept and actively manage conflict” by J. Weiss anf J. Hugues, HBR, March 2005

-           “The new science of building great teams” by A. Pentland, HBR, April 2012

-          “Managing conflicts in today’s organizations” by G. Lippitt, Training and Development Journal, July 1982

-          “Building the Collaborative Enterprise-Ten Questions to Ask about Business Opportunities through Collaboration”, from nGenera Corporation, 2009

-          “Workplace conflict: Three paths to Peace” by Kristie McAllum, IESE Insights, 2013