Exploring Big Data and Privacy in Strategic Communication Campaigns: A Cross-Cultural Study of Mobile Social Media Users’ Daily Experiences

Abstract

Mobile communications have played an indispensable part in contemporary human experiences. The combination of social networking and mobile technologies presents an interesting phenomenon because the pervasive nature of mobile technologies significantly impacts on users’ privacy concerns about highly personal social media like Facebook. The massive amount of data collected from users’ mobile social media usage behaviors is beneficial to strategic communication professionals and practices. However, there are significant privacy concerns as a result of these big data applications. Because cultural context provides what is considered to be private and how individuals should respond to any infringement with their own privacy, Geert Hofstede’s 5-D cultural dimension framework was used as an interpretive framework to understand cross-cultural data collected from the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). The data were analyzed by examining country-specific differences in mobile social media users’ experiences, particularly, concerns over privacy among these cross-cultural mobile social media users. Individualism/Collectivism index was found to explain cross-cultural variations in our study. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.