Introducing Leader Profiles

In recent years, many global leaders have established a presence on social media, using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to accomplish various goals. The specific purpose of the Center for Conflict Studies‘ project, Social Media and Leadership, is twofold. One goal is to analyze  social media usage of select world leaders to better understand their personalities, their style of leadership, their approaches to conflict and conflict resolution, their decision making processes, and their responses to crises and events as they unfold in real time. The second goal is to understand the effectiveness of social media in helping leaders achieve strategic objectives.

The project began with a short trial phase during the summer of 2013, and then proceeded to a pilot phase during the fall of 2013. For the purposes of the project, only Twitter and/ or Instagram accounts of the leaders were monitored  using the software Discover Text. The project relies chiefly on qualitative analysis, although the pilot phase also aims to incorporate some type of quantitative network analysis.

The outcomes of this project (scheduled to be completed in by 31 January 2013) are:

1. This blog, Leader Profiles, which present personal life stories, life changing and other significant events in the life of the leader, important personal achievements that help us build and analyse key characteristics of the leader’s personality.

2. A digital story using the social media platform, Storify, to explore one aspect of the leader’s personality.

The Project Team comprises of 10 members, listed below together with the names of the leaders they are studying:

  1. Margaret Conant -Tammam Salam (Lebanon)
  2. Lauren DaSilva – Paul Kagame (Rwanda)
  3. Michael Houseman – Jim Inhofe (USA)
  4. Pushpa Iyer – Narendra Modi (Gujarat, India)
  5. Sean Parks – Shimon Peres (Israel), Queen Noor Hussein (Jordan)
  6. Eduardo Sanchez – Nicolas Maduro (Venezuela)
  7. Bryan Weiner – Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Argentina)

For an brief introduction of each leader please visit our page: Leader Introductions.
Please continue to visit this blog as we build the profile of leaders through short stories.

The Project Coordinators of the Social Media and Leadership project are: Shanthi Kalathil and Pushpa Iyer

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