ICA 2011: Social media for public policy - the AdvanceMI case
This document summarizes a case study of Michigan State University Extension's (MSUE) attempt to use social media for public policy purposes through a site called AdvanceMI. The study found several inherent barriers to the use of social media for policy including disparities between who does the work and benefits, issues with critical mass and participation, disruption of social processes, and difficulties with evaluation. Interviews with MSUE directors revealed awareness of AdvanceMI but not investment in it as they saw it as a bad match for their audiences and processes and were unclear on the benefits. Lessons learned included the importance of audience matching, organizational readiness, functionality of the software, appropriate timeframes, and ensuring social media fits the tasks.
ICA 2011: Social media for public policy - the AdvanceMI case
- 1. Inherent Barriers to the Use of Social Media for Public Policy Informatics Cliff Lampe Robert LaRose Charles Steinfield Kurt DeMaagd Michigan State University
- 2. Michigan State University Cooperative Extension
- 3. MSU Extension Established in 1912 Offices in all 83 MI counties Serve residents of Michigan Policy at local levels
- 6. Needs assessment goals Collect feedback on MSUE org goals Identify new service needs Intro MSUE mission to new audiences Show social media savvy
- 8. AdvanceMI Timeline January 2010 Decision to use social media April 2010 Site creation, soft launch May 2010 Grand launch July 2010 Site closed September 2010 Data analyzed, reported
- 9. Framing literature E-government Technology adoption Social media and e-government
- 10. “Grudin problems” Grudin 1994 Disparity between who does the work and who gets the benefit Critical mass and Prisoner’s dilemma problem Disruption of social processes Exception handling Unobtrusive accessibility Difficulty of evaluation Failure of intuition Managing the adoption process
- 11. Method - Case study approach - Analysis of content - Interviews with MSUE directors flickr: jpwbee
- 12. Site content 561 unique comments Constant comparative technique 771 action themes No real discussion, rather one-off points
- 13. Structured interviews 40 structured interviews across diverse set of counties Awareness, but not investment Saw as a bad match for their audience Threatened their current process Not clear on benefit flicker: kuminiac
- 14. Lessons from AdvanceMI Audience matching Organizational readiness Thinking about new audiences Motivation to participate Software functionality Timeframe appropriateness Task fit
- 16. Thank you! Cliff Lampe [email protected] Twitter: @clifflampe Slideshare: clifflampe Robert LaRose [email protected] Charles Steinfield [email protected] Kurt DeMaagd [email protected]