Responsiveness

Maintaining an efficient and sustainable channel of communication for citizen feedback

Government foregrounds public values such as fairness and access. Organizational elements such as hierarchy and bureaucracy make almost no room in the design for efficient channels of communication. Digital media and communications can remediate existing forms of government communications. The networked structure of social media can facilitate horizontal and bottom-up conversations and can rescript new norms and channels of communication beyond the conventional broadcast model. Social media, by design, is open, public-facing, and fast. These affordances can stimulate effective and sustainable channels not only for government to disseminate information, but equally for citizens and residents to voice their feedback.

Responding to Citizens

Response data from Twitter was collected over 4 months. Sent to @Culture_LA via the @Mention tool on Twitter, these response content data were analyzed and sorted into 4 categories: inquiries, discussions, suggestions, and complaints

In 4 months, 11 interactions between the DCA and a resident or group of residents were registered.

4 Inquiries

3 Discussions

3 Suggestions

1 Complaint

Each of these opportunities asked for DCA’s attention and called for a response. Several of the interactions were resolved, but a few were not.

6 Responded

5 Not Responded

In instances where DCA responded, DCA’s replies effectively addressed all questions raised. The tweets that were not responded to, however, left several citizens without an answer to their questions.

For example, a resident was curious about the another LA Dance Summit, presumably because he greatly enjoyed the previous event:

Social media responsiveness can elevate the effectiveness of other social media objectives such as transparency, access, visibility, relevance, participation. Improving responsiveness is a good step to augment overall communications with the public.

Recommendation:

Listening is as important as content dissemination. Monitor closely the notification feed and proactively search for citizen outreach. Consult with DCA programming staff to explain policy or direct citizens inquiries to further information resources, whenever necessary, or share a response draft with DCA staff before sending.

In the future, response rate can be added to this rubric of assessment. Data of the time between citizens’ post and DCA’s response can be recorded as a way to measure the time-based efficiency metric. 

Provoking Live Discussions on Twitter

@Culture_LA has posted discussion topics that inspired multiple other users to engage in conversation. Some discussions are initiated by citizens, members of DCA , or the larger city family. These discussions augment citizen participation by including them in government process. They are also good opportunities to humanize government and keep a pulse on the current conversations in the civic and arts community.

General Manager Danielle Brazelle provoked a backchannel conversation with a fact and question at the #CityLab2014 event.


This post was retweeted 9 times, favorited 6 times, and received 6 replies. Other users, some with accounts that follow @Culture_LA and others that do not, began contributing to the discussion by offering their own opinions.

 

Danielle continued to develop the scope of the conversation. This was a well executed Twitter discussion because it received a lot of attention and connected users who otherwise would not have known the information. Danielle was quick to respond and acted as the facilitator. The discussion ended when Danielle stopped her responses.

Recommendation: 

Work with DCA staff, particularly those in leadership positions, to coordinate social media conversations. Listen closely to how members of DCA represent the department and participate in ways to help articulate the department’s mission and values to the public.

Social media embraces multiplicity in voices and perspectives. Encourage DCA staff members to participate on social media. Engaging the public using individual accounts can chip away at the perception of government as a monolithic, bureaucratic entity. Having a multitude of voices that articulate individual relationships to an operating department can humanize government.