Comments for Michele Ide-Smith

Comment on Research findings and recommendations for Councils by Carol Long

Carol Long — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:52:50 +0000

Michelle (and Catherine too) your conclusions look like they are comprehensice and sensible. I hope Michelle gets to publish the full dissertation soon – the detail will help.

I’m sure that this is a great place to start for not-for-profit organisations too.

Comment on Research findings and recommendations for Councils by Tom Phillips

Tom Phillips — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:29:47 +0000

Michele, many thanks for sharing this. You have condensed do much into a short space
This is a really useful overview just as it stands. I definitely agree with you on identities.

Comment on Research findings and recommendations for Councils by Tim Davies

Tim Davies — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:22:31 +0000

More congratulations on finishing the dissertation. Lots of great food for thought here and plenty to convert into practical action as well

Comment on Research findings and recommendations for Councils by Michele Ide-Smith

Michele Ide-Smith — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:50:34 +0000

Thanks all for the encouraging and kind words. I will check with my employer and faculty if it’s ok to publish the dissertation at some point soon (with or without the transcripts).

Catherine – I have to admit I did reference your Virtual Town Hall paper! Your views were very closely aligned with my findings which, as you say, is reassuring. The option of anonymity was really important to my participants. I have to say this may have been partly because of the area they lived in. Participants feared recognition and retaliatory attacks, if they posted certain views about their local area in the public domain. Officers were concerned about the representativeness of social media. So identification, at least to the moderator, would help in terms of accountability.

The whole issue of representativeness is a tricky one though. People don’t necessarily need to actively participate to get some benefit from discussions about local issues in social media. There is quite a bit of HCI literature about the role of ‘lurkers’ on online communities, which I found fascinating. Research shows that ‘lurkers’ can transition to fully fledged participants once they grow in confidence and become familiar with a community. An interesting perspective on this idea is Preece’s and Schneiderman’s paper “The Reader-to-Leader Framework:
Motivating Technology-Mediated Social Participation” (2009).

I am really keen to know if Catherine’s research (or the Networked Neighbourhoods research) throws any light on the influence of reading about local issues, but not necessarily posting/commenting/tweeting. E.g. increased involvement in offline activities in the community. This would have a big impact on how Councils engage with communities via social media. I had a few earlier thoughts about this here: http://www.ide-smith.co.uk/?p=159

Comment on Research findings and recommendations for Councils by Catherine Howe

Catherine Howe — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:08:18 +0000

Firstly Michelle – HUGE congratulations on finishing – you must be delighted!

Its great to see some proper research emerging and would love to read the whole thing when you are happy to share.

Its reassuring to see no huge surprises in your initial findings – glad someone is working on proving some of the stuff we are all talking about

I would like to talk a but more about the point “If using social media to support deliberation or debate, ensure social media support anonymity whilst enabling identification for the purpose of accountability” at some point as this is very much along the lines that I have been thinking and it would be good to find out a bit more detail about this.

Best wishes and congrats again – gives me hope of finishing my thesis!!!

Comment on Research findings and recommendations for Councils by Ingrid Koehler

Ingrid Koehler — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 09:54:09 +0000

Excellent work Michele.

Comment on Research findings and recommendations for Councils by Hugh Flouch

Hugh Flouch — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 07:29:53 +0000

Well done on finishing Michele. Your paper looks fascinating. It will make a great companion piece to the study we're running at Networked Neighbourhoods on the impact of local citizen-led media and the implications for councils. I very much look forward to seeing the final paper and comparing notes.

Comment on UKGC10 round-up by Victor Conesa

Victor Conesa — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:40:22 +0000

The best way to involve the users in the process, IMHO, is to show them interactive prototypes of what you are going to do. My favorite tool to do that is Justinmind Prototyper (http://www.justinmind.com).

Comment on A digital engagement framework adapted for local government by Digital Strategy: How Camden will be engaging with the local community through hyperlocal websites

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 10:28:34 +0000

[...] A digital engagement framework adapted for local government (an academic overview on digital engagement and hyperlocal blogs activities and impact on citizen participation by Michele Ide-Smith from Cambridgeshire County Council) [...]

Comment on Explaining social media to senior managers by Emma Salveson

Emma Salveson — Fri, 14 May 2010 09:56:14 +0000

Hi Michele, really interesting article. Wondered whether you would mind if I linked to it in the Recommends section of our website? If you could let me know that would be great.

Thanks, Emma