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Par$cipa$on on the Town Square in the Era of Web 2.0 Andrea Kavanaugh and John C. Tedesco
Virginia Tech
*p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001
*p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001
RESEARCH GOALS
• Design local news aggregator that facilitates social interac$on and engagement and leverages social networks and community groups.
• Iden$fy differences in the use and impact of tradi$onal Internet for civic purposes (i.e., email, web browsing) and social media for civic purposes (i.e., blogs, microblogs, tags, comments, photos, other user generated content.
FIGURES
Confirmatory structural equa$on models (SEM) using LISREL soUware to examine explanatory power of external and media$ng variables for civic purposes.
Figure 1: Model explaining Tradi9onal Internet Use for Civic Purposes
METHODS
• Par$cipatory design with stakeholders and community partners. • Requirements analysis from random sample household surveys* and focus
group interviews. • Topic Clustering from RSS feeds using standard algorithms • Usability evalua$on of prototype website with standard usability ques$ons
We employed mul$ple survey methods to generate a representa$ve sample of Montgomery County based on 2010 Census sta$s$cs: • a random sample of Montgomery County households (N = 90), • a random sample of Virginia Tech students (N = 70), and • and purposeful sample from local community organiza$on par$cipants (N = 62).
Construct Alpha Examples of Variables in Construct Poli$cal Discussion Network (PDN)
.85 The likelihood of: a) aaending a public mee$ng on an issue of interest to you, b) speaking at a public mee$ng on this issue, c) expressing a different opinion on this issue at a public mee$ng. In the past six months: discussed poli$cs; talked to family and people outside family about: a) . local issues or concerns, b) about na$onal or global issues or problems.
Ac$vism .71 Email officials; obtain poli$cal informa$on Extroversion .88 Talka$ve; Outgoing Staying Informed .88 Get local and global news; closely follow
interna$onal, na$onal, state and local affairs Tradi$onal Internet use for Civic Purposes
.77 Post informa$on online; express opinions online; get na$onal or global news online; seek local informa$on online
Social Media Use for Civic Purposes
.85 Use social network site to: a) like or dislike a civic group, b) make a comment regarding a civic group, c) join a community group, and d) receive community news.
VIRTUAL TOWN SQUARE
Local News Aggrega$on From the Blacksburg Electronic Village hap://www.bev.net (single site for local content) To the Virtual Town Square hap://vts.cs.vt.edu • RSS feeds from many dispersed local sites • Official websites (i.e., media, local government), ci$zen blogs, tweets,
photos, local groups, Facebook posts
Local Stakeholders/Partners
• Literacy Volunteers of the New River Valley • Town of Blacksburg government • Chris$ansburg Civic League • Ci$zens First of Blacksburg • Blacksburg Electronic Village/3D Blacksburg • Montgomery County government
SOCIAL INTERACTION
Who’s talking about what? hap://vts.cs.vt.edu/#week/chaaer/twiaer
Map-‐based Displays
Map-‐based Display of News, Comments Tweets hap://vts.cs.vt.edu/#map
ABSTRACT
It has been generally well established by numerous studies that educa$on is consistently the main predictor of poli$cal and civic engagement whether offline or using tradi$onal Internet (i.e., email and web browsing). It was primarily the same 'more extroverted, more ac$vist' type of individuals (i.e., similar to opinion leaders) who were using tradi$onal Internet services for civic purposes. With social media, however, the correla$on between educa$on and civic engagement may be less strong. This may be because social media allows people to interact easily with friends and family in order to stay informed and involved in their local community. Social media (e.g., social network sites such as Facebook or MySpace, blogs and micro-‐blogs, such as Twiaer, and photo and video sharing sites, such as Flickr and YouTube) are able to leverage offline social networks online to share informa$on and ideas among trusted sources about civic issues and other topics of interest or concern. The main implica$on of our findings from a 2012 survey of residents in the geographic community of Blacksburg, Virginia and environs is that social media may represent a breakthrough in broadening community involvement.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Guided by our earlier research and our 2005 ‘civic effects’ path model, we employed confirmatory structural equa$on modeling (SEM) using LISREL soUware to examine the explanatory power of the same variables and constructs. EXTERNAL VARIABLES: Educa$on, Extroversion, Age2 MEDIATING VARIABLES: Group Membership, Staying Informed, Discussion Network, Ac$vism DEPENDENT VARIABLES: Use of tradi$onal Internet (email and web browsing) for Civic Purposes (Figure 1) or Use of Social Media for Civic Purposes (Figure 2)
Figure 2: Model explaining Social Media use for Civic Purposes
FINDINGS and DISCUSSION
We found that our key exogenous and media$ng variables predict the use of both tradi$onal Internet and social media for civic purposes. • Educa$on has a direct posi$ve effect (β=.20, p<.001) on the use of both
tradi$onal Internet and social media for civic purposes. • The indirect effect of educa$on is greater for tradi$onal Internet use (β=.
14, p<.01) than for social media use for civic purposes (β=.09, p<.05). • Group membership is posi$vely associated with use of tradi$onal internet
for civic purposes (β=.11, p<.10), although the rela$onship is much stronger for the use of social media for civic purposes (β=.17, p<.05).
• A linear combina$on of poli$cal discussion network, membership and ac$vism explained 39% of the variance in the use of tradi$onal Internet for civic purposes (Figure 1), while the same variables explained just 26% of the variance in use of social media for civic purposes (Figure 2).
Findings suggest that respondents who use social media for civic purposes are not opinion leaders – those who seemed to dominate the paaern of tradi$onal Internet use for civic purposes. Younger adults (aged 18-‐39) are more likely than older adults to use social media for civic purposes. Findings indicate that social media leads to increased civic involvement – especially for younger adults who tradi$onally have not been as involved in local issues as older adults.
!Leverage Social Networks
• What are my friends and colleagues reading and talking about? hap://vts.cs.vt.edu/#following
• What are the people in my local community groups talking about: church,
school, civic organiza$ons, neighborhood associa$ons hap://vts.cs.vt.edu/#week/chaaer/facebook
Open Source Code
The source code for VTS is open source available at: haps://github.com/colloki/colloki
Acknowledgements
• NSF Social-‐Computa$onal Systems Program [SES-‐1111239]
• Project co-‐PIs: Manuel Perez-‐Quinones, Naren Ramakrishnan
• Graduate Students: Kumbie Madondo, Samah Gad, Ankit Ahuja, Nathan Self
• Undergraduate students: Vincent Ngo, Asya Mar$rosyan
