1. Inherent Barriers to the Use
of Social Media for Public
Policy Informatics
Cliff Lampe Robert LaRose
Charles Steinfield Kurt DeMaagd
Michigan State University

2. Michigan State University Cooperative Extension

3. MSU Extension
Established in 1912
Offices in all 83 MI
counties
Serve residents of
Michigan
Policy at local levels

4. MSU Extension Structure

5. MSU Needs Assessment
[

6. Needs assessment goals
Collect feedback on
MSUE org goals
Identify new service
needs
Intro MSUE mission to
new audiences
Show social media
savvy

8. AdvanceMI Timeline
January 2010
Decision to use social media
April 2010
Site creation, soft launch
May 2010
Grand launch
July 2010
Site closed
September 2010
Data analyzed, reported

9. Framing literature
E-government
Technology adoption
Social media and e-government

10. “Grudin problems”
Grudin 1994
Disparity between who does the work and who gets the benefit
Critical mass and Prisoner’s dilemma problem
Disruption of social processes
Exception handling
Unobtrusive accessibility
Difficulty of evaluation
Failure of intuition
Managing the adoption process

11. Method
- Case study approach
- Analysis of content
- Interviews with MSUE
directors flickr: jpwbee

12. Site content
561 unique comments
Constant comparative
technique
771 action themes
No real discussion,
rather one-off points

13. Structured interviews
40 structured interviews
across diverse set of counties
Awareness, but not
investment
Saw as a bad match for their
audience
Threatened their current
process
Not clear on benefit
flicker: kuminiac

14. Lessons from AdvanceMI
Audience matching
Organizational readiness
Thinking about new audiences
Motivation to participate
Software functionality
Timeframe appropriateness
Task fit

16. Thank you!
Cliff Lampe
lampecli@msu.edu
Twitter: @clifflampe
Slideshare: clifflampe
Robert LaRose
larose@msu.edu
Charles Steinfield
steinfie@msu.edu
Kurt DeMaagd
kdemaagd@msu.edu