Internal Social Media

Abstract

Internal social media (ISM) is a web‐based communication arena that provides all members of organizations with a communication opportunity. ISM has emerged in organizations since 2004, and is increasingly seen as a way of giving employees a voice that can benefit their organization in terms of knowledge sharing, collaboration, and employee participation and engagement. The first wave of studies of ISM was primarily from an information‐systems perspective and focused more on ISM's adoption, its affordances, and the outcome of its introduction. The second wave of studies was more concerned with studying the dynamics of communication on ISM, in order to understand coworkers as strategic communicators and how communication on ISM can constitute the organization. With the successful introduction of ISM, coworkers can become co‐authors of organizations, so the media offers new challenges and opportunities for internal strategic communication.