Moving Beyond "Join the Conversation" : Can Social Media Really Support Meaningful Public Engagement?

Abstract

Social media has become an inescapable tool in helping universities and community organizations communicate with stakeholders and each other, but how does it really measure up to our, often significant, expectations? Join Dave Lane of Happy City, a non-profit organization that informs, encourages, and facilitates public dialogue around civic issues in the city of St. John's, NL, Tom Cochrane, editor and founder of CornerBrooker.com, a Corner Brook, NL based community blog and information hub, and Rebecca Cohoe, Communications Coordinator for Memorial University’s Office of Public Engagement and Leslie Harris Centre of Regional Policy and Development,for a candid discussion on the uses and abuses of social media in the name of engagement. Using examples from their own experiences, the panellists will explore the potential and the limitations of social media as an engagement tool, and propose some tangible social media “rules of engagement.”