Wisbech Social Media Research

• These slides present the findings from research carried out by Cambridgeshire County Council and Paul Henderson

• The research took place in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire in December 2009 as part of a CLG funded project

Reactions to social media sites

Participants

• 6 focus groups in Wisbech, Cambs– Nacro – 25-40, unemployed– Urban – 25-40, employed and unemployed– Older people– Youth*– Migrant Workers*– Travellers**Data not included in these slides

Methodology

• Participants were asked about issues in their local area:– What type of issues?– Who would you tell?– How would you tell them? – What would you expect to happen?

• Participants were asked quick questions to establish their internet/media literacy

• Participants were shown various social media websites and asked:– What do you think/feel about these sites?– Which do you like/dislike?

What sort of problems are there?

Theft

Play area traffic is dangerous for kids, would be nice to have speed bumps Bus station/taxi

problems traffic

Drains and soak always are full up

Need a crossing on Norwich Road, sent in a questionnaire no further action was taken

Speeding traffic

How do I contact Highways?

Who is our Councillor?

Drunks/drugs in Wisbech Centre, who do tell? Police? If so how quick a response?

People biking to work with no lights, don’t know who contact?

Vandalism

Human mess Bins Dog mess

Worried about individual living in the woods

How can we stop speeding through my village

How can we influence planning decisions?Traffic – why do the

council dig up the road and alternate routes at

the same time?

Blogs

Easy to follow

How is it being

made?

Impressed with site

Very up to date

Informative

Keeping you up to date

Notes problems and safety issues

Needs to be brilliant to catch attention

Problem page would be better

Is it safe? Safety of my information

Dull

Doesn’t catch your interest enough, it’s too plain

Can groups and individuals set up blogs?

Like the layout

impressed at how up to date it was

lots of information on progress

Can see pictures of other people who write

about problems and you can see how they

were fixed

Nacro Urban 25-40 Older people

Flickr

Highlight local issues - picture of

a traffic jam outside asda

Use Skype to share images

Too many easier and more

accessible sites for this to interest me

everyone can see your picture even if you don’t want them

to

you can put your own picture

Only negative is kid pictures online

Can find a subject easily through tagging

Easy to use/ navigate

Very well organised

Was quite good showing a lot of different stuff

just use Google to search for a photo

Could spend a long time on it

old pictures were interesting too – people could help

identify gravestones in a local cemetery – attract volunteers

Nacro Urban 25-40 Older people

Google maps

Easy to use

Easy to understand and use

Liked you could zoom right into

your house

Had used it for directions but didn’t know about public

transport times

Don’t like someone seeing my own back garden

love itI like this site

you can get directions straight away where you want and it shows by car, walking and on public transport

Very clear and detailed pictures

Amazing details

Easy/clear instructions

All had used it

Nacro Urban 25-40 Older people

FixMyStreet

Anonymous settings

confusing I like this site

Basic (very)not much being fixed

Probably better off reporting straight to the Council/police etc

Not always sorted in good time, my report is still waiting to be dealt with after 6 months and even a year

Easy to use

Very good for people who want to move to an area you can’t see

when the problem is likely to be fixed

easy to use and a good site

Very good easier than traipsing to somewhere to report a problem

Like it, good to know it’s there

Now I know about it, will probably use it

Why do they want my email to report

a pothole?

very good

could be useful

Does it really work?

No-one heard of it

Nacro Urban 25-40 Older people

WhatDoTheyKnow

Wouldn’t use it, boring

Not sure that you could trust

statistics from the council

Don’t believe you would get the real information

Don’t think we would use it

Never heard of it

very plain boring site

Not interested

not what I expected

Positive: none, unless you want information from a specific authority

Slow/boring

No-one heard of it

Nacro Urban 25-40 Older people

Pledgebank

Never heard of it

A do-gooders website

Very good idea and needs more publicity

Basic- no confusionEasy to

use/understand

Good idea

You can write your own things, problems and chat to people to get things done

helps you if you have a problem

bad pledge fails to get enough subscriptions

Wouldn’t use it

Not interested

Only loudest voices being heard, not the

majorityDon’t think I would join in

Not used an online petition

No-one heard of it

Nacro Urban 25-40 Older people

Discussion forums

do use some discussion forums

Not used a forum like this

Where would you find one?

Looks easy to use

Would be interested in a local one (village

or small town)would use a community discussion forum website

Nacro Urban 25-40 Older people

YouTube

Good way of learning

Use this daily

talks for itself

Used all the time

Everyone uses Youtube

Excited to use it

Nacro Urban 25-40 Older people

Twitter

Interested in it – but not got time for itEveryone heard

of it/ no-one used it

irrelevant information

Very childish

Annoying- what’s it for?

What’s the point?

Need to be careful what you say on there –

especially politicians

Never been on it

Nacro Urban 25-40 Older people

Facebook fan

Everyone heard of it and one regular user

Only for Facebook for

communicating with family

Don’t log in so can’t see it being useful

Don’t belong to any fan pages or

groups

Could have an anonymous Facebook for complaining except for topics like school crossings which wouldn’t need to be anonymous.

Well used, but not for complaints

use it for everything chat, games, forumFavourite site

on the net

Nacro Urban 25-40 Older people

Community sitesactual site is boring to look at

Easy to follow

Community news and goings on

Interesting

Lots of good information

helpful if you want to move to the area

Too many tabs and links on this front sheet

User friendly

Who do I contact? Where do I complain

Too much to take in, too many links etc

who would put things on it?

want it centrally run

if it was for Wisbech it would be something I

would go on

Nacro Urban 25-40 Older people

Don’t like Like