The Use of a Social Networking Site in the Facilitation of Internationalization in Higher Education: A Case Study Using the Actor Network Theory Perspective

Internationalization is a growing area in world-wide higher education. In order for local and international students to develop into responsible global citizens, they need to interact while they are on the university campus together. With the aim of facilitating local and international student interaction, a Facebook Page was set up by the international office at a university. The page was monitored over a two and a half year period to see what types of interactions would occur and Actor Network Theory was used as the main, high level lens for analyzing these interactions. The page showed evidence in the page posts that key stakeholders were interacting with each other online.