Evaluating Advanced Forms of Social Media Use in Government

Government agencies gradually start moving from simpler to more advanced forms of social media use, which are characterized by higher technological and political complexity. It is important to evaluate systematically these efforts based on sound theoretical foundations. In this direction this paper outlines and evaluates an advanced form of automated and centrally managed combined use of multiple social media by government agencies for promoting participative public policy making. For this purpose an evaluation framework has been developed, which includes both technological and political evaluation, and focuses on the fundamental complexities and challenges of these advanced forms of social media exploitation. It has been used for the evaluation of a pilot application of this approach for conducting a consultation campaign concerning the large scale application of a telemedicine program in Piedmont, Italy, revealing its important potential and strengths, and at the same time some notable problems and weaknesses as well.

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