Social Media and Civic Engagement

So far, most of the topics on this blog have dealt with physical public spaces within an urban environment (ie: Los Angeles.) However, I'm hoping to change the direction of this blog a bit, focusing on public spaces and how we interact with each other in urban environments, but I will be focusing more on technology and the internet (the most public of spaces) and how those can contribute (if they contribute) to how citizens of an urban environment engage with each other.)

Here's a review on an article I read about how local governments are trying to use social media to create civic engagement in their communities:

Mann, Bonnie. "Cities embrace social media for public engagement." Nation's Cities Weekly 13 Sept. 2010: 3. Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2010.

Bonnie Mann’s article on social media as a tool for public engagement argues that social media, a product of web 2.0, has enabled the development of activities that integrate technology, social interaction and content creation. However, in spite of this, many local government’s have been slow to pick up on this technology as a way of engaging with citizens and allowing citizens to engage with each other.
Mann brings up examples of certain local governments who have adopted this technology and the effectiveness of the social media. The authors relies mainly on facts and data to develop her argument (which, in essence is that social media can create lively and productive communities.) This article is more about presenting information rather than arguing the theoretical implications or what it means for the future of local politics in terms of their use of social media as a tool for productive civic engagement. Nonetheless, Mann’s tone seems optimistic, or at the very least, she is convinced that social media, as it continues to develop, will become a common tool utilized by local governments.
The article’s main strengths are its use of examples and its data, which could be utilized in a research paper about social media and civic engagement because of the empirical data it presents. Also, the article refers to various organization dedicated to the study of technology and government (Public Technology Institute, Fels Institute of Government,) which would be useful resources for a research paper. This is very current article, written a little more than a month ago so as far as the field of social media is concerned, which seems to be transforming and evolving constantly, is pretty relevant. Because of it’s brevity and length, the article serves as a good introduction to the topic of social media/civic engagement.