Understanding the Tools Available for CED Professionals: How Far Do NC Local Governments Go in Social Media Presence?

<p>This past Friday, at the Southeastern Conference for Public Administration 2016 Annual Conference in Raleigh, second year UNC MPA graduate student Sabrina Willard accepted the Robert Klein Award for her paper on the presence of social media in North Carolina jurisdictions. The results of her paper raise significant questions about the adoption and use of social media in local government, including its ability to support or detract from community and economic development (CED) work. Willard’s paper, including the full dataset, is attached with permission.</p> <p>Image is obviously important for economic development efforts, and strong community engagement helps community development efforts. How does social media fit in? Lisa Baker called it “A Brave New World” in an article on social media for CED professionals in the Journal of Housing and Community Development in 2012. Baker argues social media is here to stay and CED professionals will need to figure out how to manage the new landscape. North Carolina seemed up to the challenge. In a 2010 report, the North Carolina Association of State Chief Information Officers described the state as moving ahead aggressively with social media adoption.</p> <p>Willard quickly found out that not only was there little available research on the impact of social media for public engagement on any issue, let alone CED, but there was little documentation of even the presence and types of social media being used by local government in North Carolina. Her effort, therefore, first focused on detailing the existence and growth of social media use by the local government overall.  She [...]</p>