National Study Ranks City Governments’ Use of Social Media - That’s the headline I stumbled across this morning on Ragan’s PR Daily. But I quickly discovered that it was not an accurate title for the report in question. The interesting new study from the University of Illinois did a nationwide ranking of city governments to determine their linkage between e-government and civic engagement (which of course goes way beyond just social media). The criteria for their findings, according to their news release were “opportunities for citizen participation and information,” which included:
• Hosting of open data portals;
• Comments allowed on blogs and social networks;
• The extent to which online discussions concerned policy as well as city services;
• Information on officials, budgets, city council meetings and neighborhood issues
The first criterion, open data portals, I think it is debatable with regards to social media savvy. Certainly it shows innovation and transparency, but I am not sure it illustrates the necessary interaction to be considered an indicator of two-way dialog. The final criterion, information on the details of the organization is definitely not an indicator of social media awareness. Rather I would consider this a basic building block of any online presence. This is just a stepping stone to social media use – if you don’t have the details posted, how can you have a fair and honest discussion about them? The middle two criteria, allowing comments and having discussions about meaty issues such as policy…that’s where the action is! The report is a very valuable catalog of cities and how well/how far they take the online discussion of policy decisions, with considerable detail about many of the highest ranking cities and the strategies they use to connect with citizenry.
With lots of ties noted, here’s the studies Top Ten results:
1. New York
1. Seattle
2. Virginia Beach
3. Portland
4. San Francisco
5. Kansas City, MO
6. Denver
7. Mesa, Ariz.
8. Louisville
9. Philadelphia
9. Long Beach, CA
9. Sacramento
10. San Jose
For more detail, you can review the news release from the University of Illinois at Chicago or the report itself (PDF). As for the summary, it identifies what many probably already knew – we’ve made progress but there is still much to be done:
“Cities provide an important wealth of information that has evolved over time. Compared to Ho’s assessment in 2002, there is greater transparency and interactivity. In contrast with the early efforts of the 1990s, cities use their websites without exception to connect citizens to their neighborhoods. Nearly half include some information about voluntary sector organizations or activities as well. Customization of information is common. But, there is little that resembles e-‐democracy as collective problem-‐solving or deliberation through technology. Accessibility is an area for improvement both in Illinois and nationally, as many local websites are not user-‐friendly for people with disabilities or with limited English. Although privacy and security have improved, not all cities have this, particularly the smaller cities that were examined in Illinois.”
I thought it was also interesting to note that while the report had a significant amount of detail and guidance for local governments, the closing paragraph of their Executive Summary showed that there is still significant questions and opportunities for more research:
“While this research examines the categories of information provided on local websites, more needs to be known about the quality of that information – for example, whether policy analyses are provided on major issues, and whether they are made available before decisions are made by government officials. Government websites can facilitate but not create citizen engagement, and so it would be useful to understand the extent to which citizens use these features on local government websites, and whether they affect knowledge, discussion, interest and participation. Finally, these rankings raise questions about why some cities outperform the others, and further analysis is needed to understand the factors associated with higher rankings on the civic engagement index.”
In other words – this stuff is still evolving like crazy, so we can’t be too sure about anything. I am not slighting the study in the least – it is a rapid and very fluid evolution. We can observe, note trends and provide recommendations, however nothing is concrete. But isn’t that what makes it so exciting? : )
