From social networking to social distance: How did architects react to the pandemic? -Evidence from social media accounts

Abstract

The crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic is still being experienced by the first wave of effects, and more is expected until an unforeseen future. Each industry is discussing the change predicted for the near future but everyone seems to agree on the idea that things will definitely be different for a prolonged period, and it appears that AEC industry is not far from this argument. While the first reaction all over the industry was to increase the health and safety measures, site and office workers are affected by different practices. While site work was either suspended or went on with strict measures, most of the office workers are sent home and expected to work online. Although the global work environment was encouraging architects to communicate and work online for some time now, a change in such a scale was not something expected this abruptly. While discussing the expected change for architectural practice, this study attempts to identify the reactions of architects and architectural companies to this compulsory work environment change using the data taken from their social media accounts and social networking service (SNS) practices.

Full text

From social networking to social distance:
How did architects react to the pandemic?
Evidence from social media accounts
A.T. İlter
Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
tolga.ilter@itu.edu.tr
Abstract
The crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic is still being experienced by the first wave
of effects, and more is expected until an unforeseen future. Each industry is discussing
the change predicted for the near future but everyone seems to agree on the idea that
things will definitely be different for a prolonged period, and it appears that AEC
industry is not far from this argument. While the first reaction all over the industry was
to increase the health and safety measures, site and office workers are affected by
different practices. While site work was either suspended or went on with strict
measures, most of the office workers are sent home and expected to work online.
Although the global work environment was encouraging architects to communicate and
work online for some time now, a change in such a scale was not something expected
this abruptly. While discussing the expected change for architectural practice, this
study attempts to identify the reactions of architects and architectural companies to this
compulsory work environment change using the data taken from their social media
accounts and social networking service (SNS) practices.
Key Words: architect, architectural office, content analysis, covid-19, ICT, pandemic,
social media, social networking services, SNS.
Introduction
Economic crises are becoming more prominent with an increasing pace over the last
decades. Although political and economic conflicts are more common for a cause, the
crises triggered by the covid-19 virus, in the first weeks of 2020 was unexpected for
most of the world. The unexpected halt to people’s mobility caused a total silence for
most of the industries. Inevitably, depending on the extent of the precautions countries
took into effect to slow down the spreading of the virus, architecture, engineering and
construction (AEC) industry took its share. While some countries imposed a total lock-
down, some others choose to imply a mixed set of limitations. As an example, Turkey
imposed a partial lock-down for different age groups while total lock-downs are
imposed for weekends. However, while most of the construction sites stayed
operational, majority of technical offices preferred to send their staff home and asked
them work from their homes. Almost suddenly, people woke up into a new world where
any kind of physical contact with ‘other’ people became almost offensive and our
isolated homes became the only possible place that we can eat, sleep, work if possible
socialize in a limited and mostly digital way. The work environment unavoidably
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shifted into digital mediums. However, it was not just office programs that were
considered to keep business world operational. Online meetings became a daily routine
and people found one of the easiest and practical ways to reach their clients as using
social networking services (SNS). Sales, marketing and customer relations works
operated majorly on those channels. One the main reasons for the SNS use is the wide
spread use of these applications through smart phones. In our daily lives, smart phones
are ubiquitous devices that are even becoming a standard for public works. And
although they are mostly privately owned devices, due to their practicality they became
an inseparable office equipment for businesses including the AEC industry. SNSs that
enable instant messaging and live group video conferencing increased their popularity
that are well suited to the isolation period.
ICT technologies have implemented a revolutionary infrastructure into the human
civilization such that it seems somewhat impossible to think our future apart from it.
New media technologies built over them are changing the way we communicate and do
our businesses with an increasing pace. On the other hand, the concept of social media
is literally young and its implications are yet to be further discussed but it is becoming
more apparent each day that, what social media changed so far seems to be only “a
scratch on the surface of what is coming and what is possible” (Aral et al., 2013).
Most of the SNSs were designed to be used on web browser interfaces and afterwards
adopted to mobile devices by dedicated software or ‘apps’ in short. Facebook,
Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are among the most popular SNSs according to the
renowned architecture web site Archdaily (Abdallah, 2020). Each SNS presents its own
way of interaction for the people by their constantly changing interface and ease of use.
In this context, Instagram has a more specialized property that is also pointed out by
researchers. According to Miles (2014), Instagram is a breakout social network, which
is the first SNS that was ‘born mobile’. Use of Instagram among the architects and
architectural offices are also booming, not just on using its social aspects but also using
it as a tool for improving their business (Lee, 2014). Moreover it is not limited to tech-
savvy new generations that are using ICT innovations since their birth but it is already
part of some renowned senior architects. Architect Norman Foster of London based
Foster+Partners architecture office have started a personal as well as a corporate
Instagram account in 2017 at age 82. Today he is being pointed out to be one of the best
Instagrammers of the architecture world by many, such as Furman (2019) who criticizes
the state of architectural mediation over his Instagram posts’ popularity.
Institutions of the AEC sector are releasing guidelines to overcome the present and
predicted difficulties of the future. However, it seems that we have just started to
understand the repercussions of the crisis caused by the covid-19 corona virus and we
are far from predicting how our daily lives and the way businesses flow will change in
the near future yet. Discussion over the future of public spaces is a hot topic such as
what this crisis brings into another already debated issue, the future of the architectural
education. Architecture is a profession deeply interested in society and human behavior.
This interest tackles with any kind of threat whether it is referring to a positive change
or the opposite. In this context, social media can be considered as a strategic
management tool for an architect to build an identity both for their personal character
and their business. Therefore, SNSs seem to be a practical way for the architects to
express and discuss opinions about the predicted change and future implications that
will affect the society and the profession.
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As the main research interest for this paper was the reactions of the architects
approximately during the lockdown period, three research questions of qualitative and
quantitative units of analysis are set as follows:
Q1: How is the performance of architects/architecture offices’ Instagram accounts?
(Quantitative & Qualitative implications)
Q2: Did Architects respond to the Covid-19 pandemic by their Instagram posts?
(Quantitative implications)
Q3: How did the architects react to the pandemic? (Qualitative implications)
The approach trying to identify these research questions as well as scope and limitations
are explained in the next section. Sections over details about the data collected and a
discussion over the outcomes of the data provided and validity of the research questions
tries to finalize the paper.
Methodology, Scope and Limitations
This research paper tries to identify reactions of architects against the covid-19
pandemic using their social media traffic, in particular Instagram posts. Instagram
became one of the ‘most important new tool for architects’ in the last couple of years
(Abdallah, 2020) especially for design oriented professionals and businesses by the
advantage of its visuals based interface. As the needed data was present as a digital
media content, content analysis method is selected make the necessary analysis.
Content analysis is a research method for analyzing the content of various documents,
such as visual and verbal data (Harwood and Garry, 2003), not necessarily from an
author’s or user’s perspective (Krippendorff, 2018). It is often used to decide the
occurrence of certain words, themes or concepts within the data provided. This method
can be used to quantify the presence meaning and relationship of such words, themes
or concepts. As a distinction from many other social sciences research methods, content
analysis method does not require data collection directly from people. It uses data from
recorded information in forms of text, media, or other such articles. In this context,
content analysis suits well for analyzing social media data. Codes of the content
analysis are formed by the keywords that we out of a sudden began to frequently hear.
These codes included the name of the virus, ‘covid-19’ and varied through more
contextual indicators such as ‘stay safe and healthy’ or ‘difficult times’. Starting with a
quantitative analysis, the number of times these codes are used is recorded. After that,
a qualitative search for the stress caused by this global crisis that may be skipped by
these pre-determined codes are looked for. Text and visuals are checked for possible
implicit or explicit ties relative to the research questions. Some of the findings of this
qualitative search which are indicating an implicit relation to the research theme are
also added as ‘other’ to the table of codes.
In a local versus global context, Turkish architects are selected from the members of
Freelance Architects Association and their global counter parts from a selection of
world’s best architects. Instagram accounts of architects/architectural offices in this
group are eliminated according to the amount of activity and seven of the busy ones are
selected from each group. Posts of these accounts between the last week of February
2020 to the end of first week of June 2020, covering roughly 70 calendar days on
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average, are analyzed according to a content analysis structure. This structure is shown
in Table 1.
Due to these research variables selected for this study, this research has many
limitations. The decision to use the selected architects and architectural offices depends
on an ongoing research by the author that is not yet published, that studies global and
local architects’ social media use in a time-dependent context. Reviewed social media
accounts representing an architect or an architectural office are among the most active
ones compared to others that are selected for this research. Another issue is to separate
the corporate accounts with the personal ones, since some of the architects leading
architecture firms also have personal accounts. Although many of the personal
accounts’ shared content are parallel to corporate ones, only the corporate accounts are
preferred as the data source. However, selecting corporate accounts can also be tricky.
Some of the architects/offices have side accounts besides their official business
accounts that even have more followers than the business account. As an example, the
Instagram account ‘Zaha Hadid Architecture’ has 1.1 million followers, where the
official business account ‘Zaha Hadid Design’ has roughly 111.000 followers. Only
business accounts are taken into account for this research to avoid any confusion.
The performance of individual Instagram accounts can be measured in different ways.
The first measures and the most easily accessible ones are the number of the followers
of the account, number of the accounts being followed by and number of media uploads
(posts) shared by the users. However, these numbers are not enough to predict the
performance of an account if the research focuses on a relevant time period or some
other basic comparisons between the account and that particular social networking
population. In order to maintain a more in-depth performance analysis of the architects
/ architectural offices, a web site dedicated to make basic statistical analysis for social
networking sites is employed. Quantitative analysis made for the first research question
of this research depends on the data taken from the dedicated social media analysis web
site socialblade.com. Social media is a relatively new-established research area and the
social networking platforms that are being explored are in a constant change of
popularity. Instagram is selected as a preferred social networking platform frequently
used by designers at the time of the research. However, other social networks in
combination with different architect selection can offer a diverse perspective.
Any Clue on Architects Reactions over the Social Networks?
As stated in the methodology section, seven local and seven global architects are
selected as the research population for this study. The local ones, representing Turkish
architects/architecture firms are 1-Çinici Architects/Can Çinici, 2-Emre Arolat
Architects (EAA), 3-Erginoğlu&Çalışlar Architects, 4-Tabanlıoğlu Architects 5-
Autoban, 6- Gökhan Avcıoğlu Architects (GAD), 7-Toner Architecture. Global
architects/architecture offices inspected in the research are 1-BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group,
2-Foster + Partners, 3-MAD Architects, 4-MVRDV, 5-OMA, 6-Studio Gang and 7-
Zaha Hadid Architects.
Performance of Architects/Architecture Offices’ on Instagram
In order to answer the first research question, a mixed way of analysis is selected that
is both quantitative and qualitative implications: In order to find quantitative answers
to “Q1: How is the performance of architects/architecture offices’ Instagram accounts”
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and interpret the findings, a social media analysis web site, socialmedia.com is used to
analyze these accounts. Instagram performance analysis summary of the selected
architects/architecture offices Instagram accounts are shown on Table 1. The architects
are sorted according to their media uploads during the time period selected for the
research. As the data retrieved from SocialBlade is weekly, there is a slight shift in start
and end times of the time period analyzed. Due to this shift, the period analyzed starts
between February 24-29th and ends at June 6-7th. As the start of this period cover the
period of when the outbreak turned into a pandemic and restrictions and lock-downs
took place all over the world and the end date complies with the ease of these
restrictions globally this slight shift is acknowledged as reliable. The metrics shown on
the table include the overall numbers of media shared by the account, total number of
followers, and number of accounts followed by the account as basic indicators. Average
likes and average comments are means of the responses for the shared content. ‘Rank’
and ‘Engagement Rates’ are calculated by the site depending on their analysis. Rank is
calculated based on a variety of metrics including average view count, comments and
likes. Engagement rate is the total number of interactions on a post such as likes,
comments and saves, divided by the total number of followers of the account based on
the latest 20 pictures uploaded to Instagram.
Besides the current status of the accounts using the overall ratings explained so far,
historical data showing the number of posts, number of followers and number of
followed at the end of February is also added to state any meaningful changes that
happened during the period of the pandemic restrictions. As the architects are sorted
according to their media uploads during the time period subject to this research, there
seems to be different relations between number of posts and followers gained for the
two groups. While the global seven does not show a correlation between these two
variables, Turkish seven tend to show a strong relation with the exclusion of Emre
Arolat Architects. Although Emre Arolat Architecture account gains more followers
despite relatively low number of uploads GAD Architecture’s number of uploads and
gained followers are in the context. First three Local accounts’ media uploads are above
the global group for the period of analysis. Emre Arolat Architecture’s Instagram
account is the only B- rated architecture office between the local group. EAA account
has more total uploads and engagement rate than any of the global architects.
As a result, Table 1 shows that each group has members with low number of media
uploads or followed accounts. Global architects have huge numbers of followers and
getting considerably more comments and likes for their posts. On the other hand, the
local architects have more engagement rates as the total response of likes and comments
in proportion with the total followers are quite higher. Also, there seems to be a direct
correlation between their number of uploaded media and gained followers. Average
total media and number of followed accounts of this group is higher than their global
counterparts. However, a more in depth analysis is needed to identify if these architects,
who are in a way social media leaders of their scale, have responded to the pandemic
during the crisis period or not.
Traces of Response to the Pandemic by Instagram Posts
Architecture extends beyond designing spaces but also in some ways shape the lives of
people. So, the second research question of the study tackled with the idea that
architects would have been reacting for the unexpected and traumatic situation created
by the pandemic. In order to examine the ‘Q2: Did Architects respond to the Covid-19
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Table 1- Instagram Performance Summary of / Global and 7 Local Architects/Architecture offices (Analysis by Social Blade.com)
Grade
Media Uploads
diff.
Followers
diff.
Following
diff.
Engage.
Rate %
Avg.
Likes
Avg.
Comments
J 6-7
F 24-29
J 6-7
F 24-29
J 6-7
F 24-29
J 6-
7
J 6-7
J 6-7
J 6-7
GLOBAL 7
1
MAD Architects
@madarchitects
B
908
952
44
383.515
395.089
11.574
530
530
0
0,86
3.399,88
16,92
2
MVRDV
@mvrdv
B
704
743
39
466.355
510.753
44.398
207
216
9
2,26
11.476,20
54,36
3
Studio Gang
@studiogang
B-
458
491
33
67.823
73.084
5.261
312
345
33
1,46
1.054,96
9,16
4
Foster + Partners
@fosterandpartners
B
285
307
22
293.946
311.447
17.501
55
60
5
1,23
3.808,40
31,24
5
OMA
@oma.eu
B
582
599
17
387.704
419.017
31.313
192
195
3
1,97
8.194,28
53,48
6
ZAHA HADID DESIGN
@zahahadiddesign
B-
88
105
17
87.898
111.571
23.673
3
3
0
2,89
3.207,32
19,20
7
BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group
@big_builds
B
309
322
13
404.765
439.985
35.220
251
255
4
1,94
8.461,64
50,24
LOCAL 7 (Turkish)
1
GAD Architecture
@gadarchitecture
C+
388
460
72
12.265
14.292
2.027
965
970
5
2,18
305,00
7,00
2
Emre Arolat
@emrearolat
B-
1432
1501
69
44.739
48.460
3.721
611
691
80
3,24
1.553,96
15,20
3
Autoban
@autoban212
C+
471
530
59
22.670
23.723
1.053
849
894
45
1,55
364,36
2,92
4
Erginoglu&Calislar
Architects
@ecarchitects
C+
516
526
10
10.970
11.532
562
2
2
0
1,98
227,04
1,08
5
TA_
@tabanliogluarchitects
C+
172
175
3
17.902
18.381
479
167
167
0
2,71
493,32
4,00
6
Cinici Architects / Can
Cinici
@ciniciarchitects
C+
508
509
1
9.842
9.934
92
342
340
-2
2,50
246,84
1,64
7
TONER
@tonerarchitects
C+
41
41
0
4.934
4.960
26
368
391
23
5,20
253,60
4,48
F 24-29: February 24-29th
J 6-7: June 6-7th
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pandemic by their Instagram posts?’ all 14 architects’ Instagram posts during the period
of late February to June are observed according to the content analysis framework
formed. Keywords selected for this framework are checked in the descriptions under
the visuals or on the visuals, including hashtags related to these keywords. Video clips
are checked for its content as well as the history parts, if they are attached to the account
page which would otherwise be deleted automatically by the system in a couple of days.
Results of this scan is shown on Table 2. The numbers shown on Table-2 shows
different number of reactions expressed by the architects/architecture offices. These
responses bring us to the our third research question: ‘Q3: How did the architects react
to the pandemic?’.
The response frequency is not parallel to the number of posts made by the architects in
the research period. In the global architects section, Studio Gang and Foster+Partners
are the most profound firms to the pandemic with seven different shared medium each.
While Foster+Partners have 7 posts referencing the crisis, Studio Gang has 6 posts and
a permanent link under their bio that consists an announcement for a mask design
invitation dedicated to the by the pandemic. In these posts, Foster+Partners mentions
their work to transform a central courtyard of a university building into a covid-19
emergency ward. Some of their posts refer designing visors for the medical workers
and the campaign in the UK with the ‘#clapforcarers’ hashtag that aims to thank and
motivate health workers. Studiogang posts tackle with the popular expression ‘social
distancing’ which is frequently used as a single most powerful measure to avoid the
virus. These messages underline the importance of being social for the human kind and
it should be ‘physical distance’ instead of being socially distant. The earliest but indirect
response from the global architects also comes from Studio Gang. Within their post,
dating March 20th, they mention ”…staying safe and healthy through this challenging
and uncertain time”.
However, the most Instagram active architecture companies in this section, MAD
Architects and MVRDV seem to be muted except a few shared documents each.
MVRDV’s shared documents are being reached by a link in bio, that include an update
on Corona virus and a ‘post-Corona capacity study’. MAD Architects, which is a Bejing
and USA based country founded by a Chinese architect Ma Yansong, released only 2
posts related to their office closure and re-opening. The date for MAD Architects office
closure is April 20th. When most popular keywords used in the global architects group
are checked the first one is covid-19/corona virus followed by face shield/visor and
mask combination. Some of the architects show their interest to design face shields and
3D print them voluntarily to help the medical staff on the frontlines of the fight against
the virus. Third place for the most frequent used keyword is shared by ‘social
distancing’, ‘lockdown’ and ‘difficult times’.
In the local group, the earliest response came from somewhat ‘Instagram shy’
Tabanlıoğlu Architects as they have only 3 Instagram posts during the period.
Announcement of their office closure and home office transformation dates on March
18th. This post is Tabanlıoğlu Architects’ only related post through their Instagram
account aside a link attached to their bio that gives more information about this shift.
Some of the other offices followed Tabanlıoğlu, as office closures of Autoban is
announced on March 20th, Emre Arolat on March 25th and GAD on March26th. Most
Instagram active architects GAD Architecture has 8 and Emre Arolat Architecture has
7 posts related to the pandemic and its outcomes. In their posts, GAD Architecture
announces their office closure on March 26th. Other posts include an online discussion
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Table-2: Shared documents by the architects and traces of pandemic under the selected keywords for the period of late February to early June 2020.
Posts Total
Total evidence
Posts related
History attached
Link attached
Used Keywords
covid-19 /corona
stayhome / evde kal
social distancing / sosyal mesafe
faceshield / vis(z)or / siperlik
mask / maske
lockdown /eve kapanma
quarantine / karantina
crisis / kriz
difficult times / zor zamanlar
remote work / uzaktan çalış.
stay safe&healthy/sağlıklı ve
güvende kal
other
GLOBAL 7
--------------------------------------- keywords expanded--------------------------------------
1
MAD Architects
@madarchitects
44
2
2
2
1
1
office return
2
MVRDV
@mvrdv
39
2
2
0
3
Studio Gang
@studiogang
33
7
6
1
12
5
1
1
1
2
1
1
4
Foster + Partners
@fosterandpartners
22
7
7
10
5
1
2
1
1
NHS #clapforcarerers
5
OMA
@oma.eu
17
0
0
6
ZAHA HADID DESIGN
@zahahadiddesign
17
0
0
7
BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group
@big_builds
13
3
1
1
1
2
1
1
10
1
2
3
1
2
0
1
2
1
1
2
LOCAL 7 (Turkish)
1
GAD Architecture
@gadarchitecture
72
8
8
19
9
2
5
2
1
missed construction
sites'
2
Emre Arolat
@emrearolat
69
7
7
11
8
3
3
Autoban
@autoban212
59
1
1
2
1
1
4
Erginoglu&Calislar
Architects
@ecarchitects
10
0
0
5
TA_
@tabanliogluarchitects
3
1
1
3
1
1
1
6
Cinici Architects / Can
Cinici
@ciniciarchitects
1
0
0
7
TONER
@tonerarchitects
0
0
0
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series of “Covid Crisis and Education” that put forward the need for a new perspective
for architectural education in the post-covid era, and promotion of some of their
previous architectural designs with regard to social facilities these projects have.
Autoban and Tabanlıoğlu have only one posts each announcing their office status as
mentioned above. No traces about the pandemic have been found in Çinici, Toner and
Ergionoğlu&Çalışlar Architecture offices Instagram accounts during this period.
Despite other indirect or more superficial responses, Emre Arolat Architecture’s
message from the very first response is quite predicting:
Corona days...This unforeseen plague flattened the whole world. It does
not discriminate, distill or extricate. It does not distinguish social classes,
does not care richness. The world will be different after all.#coronadays
Discussion and Conclusion
This research started with three main questions to identify the reactions of the architects
during the lockdown period. First, assessing the performance of the two selected group
of architects in a certain timeframe, we looked for the architects’ reactions towards the
covid-19 pandemic in their official Instagram accounts. The content analysis of the
Instagram posts show that architects showed different reactions against the period of
lockdown. Apart from their origin or Instagram performance in general, some of the
architects shared some implications on the unexpected effects of the pandemic in their
Instagram accounts. In most cases it started with the announcement of their office
closure (@madarchitects, @mvrdv, @gadarchitecture), and shift to the home-office
work arrangements (@big_builds, @studiogang). Further, most of them reflected their
concerns (@studiogang, @gadarchitecture) and some of them tried to motivate their
followers to monitor the guidance being made by the authorities (@big_builds,
@emrearolat, @autoban212, @tabanlıoğlu) or showing solidarity with the health care
providers. Some of the architects showed their support for the efforts to provide
supplies such as producing face shields (@fosterandpartners, @studiogang,
@big_builds). However, there were also 2 global and 3 Turkish architects who did not
respond to the crisis at all (@oma.eu, @zahahadiddesign, @ecarchitects,
@ciniciarchitects, @tonerarchitects). In this unresponsive group, @tonerarchitects did
not share any posts and @ciniciarchitects had only one post during the lockdown period
which may make sense. But, both @oma.eu and @zahahadiddesign shared 17 and
@ecarchitects shared 10 posts during the same period without any clue about the
pandemic or the crisis caused by the pandemic.
One of the significant discussions captured by this study is the one that is put forward
by Studio Gang (@studiogang). Is ‘social distance’ the correct expression to identify
the needed distance between individuals to avoid the infectious particles, or is it the
‘physical distance’ that we are looking for? This gripping viewpoint has a considerable
amount of startling connections with the discussion of architecture and built
environment. Another discussion is about the future of architectural education. Global
Architectural Development (@gadarchitecture) is promoting the discussion on this hot
debate adding the uncertainties of the post-covid era. The sudden and compulsory shift
towards the digital mediums in this lockdown period created an inevitable leap for the
online education efforts. Moreover, it seems we will be facing more online education
challenges in the near future and the distinct characteristics of the architectural design
education will escalate the pressure on this already hot debate.
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Although it is a relatively new digital medium, this research shows that, both global
and Turkish architects seem to make an effort to gain ground in the digital mediums
such as Instagram. Turkish architects’ performance does not fall short of and have
higher engagement rates than their global counterparts, but the Global 7 have more
followers resulting higher interaction outcomes such as comment and likes. As the
number of followers in total increase like a snowball in SNS world, the followers of the
Global 7 are soaring more significantly during the period of pandemic compared to the
followers of the Turkish 7. This difference may be linked to the scale of the architectural
firms and rather low presence of the Turkish architects in global markets, compared to
their local existence despite their increasing efforts. In that sense SNS seem to be the
right platform to reach the globe. Moreover, the performance of the Turkish 7 is not the
same for all the architects just as the global group. Emre Arolat Architecture
(@emrearolat) seems quite close to the Global 7 in most performance measures. Again,
that can also be associated with the increasing presence of the firm in global markets
with their latest work.
As we are entering the third decade of the 21st century, SNSs are starting to come more
and more forward both on our personal and business lives. World leaders are putting
forward important issues in their personal social network accounts before official
announcements, universities are putting forward their SNS popularity as a criteria
boasting their popularity. Ironically, we are more into our social networks in the days
of so-called ‘social distancing’. On the other hand, SNSs are constantly evolving and
their popularity is also fluctuating. The findings of this study may be different under a
different SNS or another selection of architects in a different timeframe. However, it
becomes evident that, social media use in AEC will be worth considering for further
research in the near future.
References
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architects-instagram/. Date of access: 24 June 2020.
Aral, S., Dellarocas, C. and Godes, D. (2013) ‘Social media and business
transformation:A Framework for research’, Information Systems Research, 24(1), 3-
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Furman, A. N. (2019) ‘The Social Media Monster: Dangers and Thrills Only Partially
Glimpsed’, Architectural Design. 89(6), 80–87.
Harwood, T. G., & Garry, T. (2003). An overview of content analysis. The marketing
review, 3(4), 479-498.
Krippendorff, K. (2018). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Sage
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Lee, I. (2014). Social Media for Business Model Improvement. In Integrating Social
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Miles, J. (2013). Instagram power. McGraw-Hill Publishing.
6th International Project and Construction Management Conference (e-IPCMC2020)
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