CONTEXT

Addressing new agricultural challenges may benefit from open communication among field extension agents and other actors who hold relevant expertise, including subject matter specialists and applied researchers.

OBJECTIVE

In the context, this article investigates the contribution of two social media messaging platforms, in Ghana, to facilitating open information sharing and interaction amid the emergence of a new pest, fall armyworm.

METHODS

Using thematic content analysis and network analysis, we analysed the types of content exchanged over the platforms, the characteristics of the networks in terms of the involvement of different actors in sending and receiving messages; and through platform user surveys established how such interaction patterns were influenced by social relations, self-representational interests and organisational set-ups and rules.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

The results indicate that both social media platforms are characterised by relatively centralised network and communication structures, suggesting that participation in especially sending messages is non-egalitarian. Such structural features are not conducive to complex knowledge and problem solving processes such as knowledge integration and joint problem solving. In line with this, the analysis of the actual knowledge and problem solving processes taking place demonstrated that the platforms were used more for knowledge and information dissemination as well as for the distribution of notifications in support of organisational coordination. Our investigations show that social hierarchies, organisational rules and tactics related to identity management influenced these patterns of interaction and posed constraints to open knowledge and information sharing. Nevertheless, the platforms play meaningful roles in supporting knowledge processes, and are likely to generate useful input for knowledge integration and collaborative problem solving in complementary face-to-face settings.

SIGNIFICANCE

The study contributes to an emerging research area that relates social media (other than Facebook) to knowledge sharing, problem solving and broader forms of collaboration in professional spaces, in the African agricultural context.

中文翻译：

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加纳扩展后台的社交媒体平台，开放式沟通和问题解决：实质性，结构性和关系性分析

语境

应对新的农业挑战可能会受益于田间推广人员和拥有相关专业知识的其他行为者（包括主题专家和应用研究人员）之间的开放式沟通。

客观的

在这种情况下，本文研究了加纳的两个社交媒体消息传递平台在新的病虫秋天粘虫的出现下对促进开放信息共享和交互的贡献。

方法

使用主题内容分析和网络分析，我们分析了平台上交换的内容的类型，网络的特征（根据不同参与者在发送和接收消息中的参与）；并通过平台用户调查确定了这种互动方式如何受到社会关系，自我代表利益以及组织机构和规则的影响。

结果与结论

结果表明，这两个社交媒体平台都具有相对集中的网络和通信结构，这表明特别是发送消息的参与是非平等的。这样的结构特征不利于复杂的知识和问题解决过程，例如知识整合和联合问题解决。与此相应，对实际知识和问题解决过程的分析表明，该平台更多地用于知识和信息的传播以及通知的分发，以支持组织协调。我们的调查表明，社会等级制度 与身份管理相关的组织规则和策略影响了这些交互方式，并给开放知识和信息共享带来了限制。然而，这些平台在支持知识流程中起着有意义的作用，并且可能会在互补的面对面设置中为知识整合和协作问题解决产生有用的输入。

意义

该研究为新兴的研究领域做出了贡献，该领域将社交媒体（除Facebook之外）与非洲农业背景下的知识共享，问题解决以及专业领域中更广泛的合作形式联系起来。