1. Social Media is not only the new Town Crier
…It is a significant tool for Public Value creation
Research Team:
Khayri Omar, Rosemary Stockdale, Helana Scheepers

2. (Council’s Director Corporate Services)
2
“How best to use them, when
to use them, when not to use
them, what they can help
with, what they can’t help
with?”
“How do we respond
to it?”
“How do they
respond to issues?”
What the council thinks

3. (Council’s Director Corporate Services)
3
What the council thinks Cont’d..
“Once you move into that
space quite heavily you need
to service it, and in servicing
it, how do you measure the
benefit of what you get
back?”
“it is challenging for council
because it sometimes means more
work and be more responsive and
governance needs to be in place,
but overall, if you do it properly
and carefully you can achieve
amazing benefits.”
“… the questions you’ve
asked, I’m going to have to
think about a lot more of these
things as well because it will
impact in how we think about
our service delivery in the
social media stuff.”

4. Accountability
Adaptability
Citizen involvement
Friendliness
User Democracy
Dialogue
Robustness
Equity
Fairness
Timeliness
Honesty
Integrity
Listening to public
opinion
Openness
Professionalism
Reliability
Responsiveness
User orientation
Self-development
Social cohesion
Stability
Common good
Public interest
Quality of
Public
Services
OutcomeTrust
PV
Source: Kelly et al.(2002)
Jørgensen and Bozeman (2007)
“There is no more important topic in public
administration and policy than public values.”
Bozeman (2007: 355)
4

5. OPENNESS
5
“I think it [council openness] does come
across in the online services. Obviously, as
I said before, I expect their information to be
current and for everything to be online for
me to access so I know what’s going on
with them… definitely [social media
platforms make the Council] more open and
transparent.”
“You can access more
information. In some ways it
will be harder for them to
hide things from you or not
tell you about things. I think
it empowers the user more
because you can find out
more.”
“Because it’s been noted and it’s been
recorded, what time residents have made a
comment or a question, or just made some
kind of statement that requires the councillor
to provide them with feedback, or just kind of
reply to. So if they leave that sitting there for
two months, it’s for everybody to see. If
you’re on vacation that’s a different story, but
again, it is completely transparent.”
citizen

6. DIALOGUE
6
“Yes, and I would make that a regular kind of
appointment [the past Mayor was up on
Facebook]. A couple of times I put up comments
or responded to comments, and I was interested
in the exchange, in reading it. So I would read it
like I would read a local newspaper. I’d check it
out. The current Mayor is going around different
places to meet people face to face. Now I’m not
going to go around to those places.”
“Well you can be more informed about the
range of opinions, whether it necessarily
leads to a consensus in terms of agreement.
But you can see other people’s issues and
sides of things more easily, because in
public meetings and things people just tend
to get up and just sound off and then it’s a
bit like a Parliament, like it’s an oppositional
kind of thing. Whereas with social media you
can have more of an exchange of opinion –
you can take on board a wider range of
opinions.”
“I would be concerned about [putting
negative comments] on the Council
Facebook page with my name saying that..
If they're not getting positive comments,
that can indicate they're not doing things
well. Yes. Just because you haven't got
any negative comments doesn't mean
that.. If people just ignored it, yep, you
might have to rethink whether that was a
good idea or not.”
“It’s just ads, so it
doesn’t encourage
people to be involved,
it’s just another ad from
council.”
citizen

7. CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT
7
“Because you can access and see other people’s
opinions and comments, you get a sense more of the
people about you. It [Facebook] attracts you to go to
events – I went to a concert, I went to a lecture, I went to a
garden demonstration all last year, which I wouldn’t have
gone to otherwise, and met people from the community
that I wouldn’t have met otherwise, and we exchanged
information about things. Yeah, but again it’s a means of
putting you in touch with people face to face,
personalising the community a bit more for you.”
“The Facebook led me to the meeting. It was
the main motivator… I wouldn’t have gone to
the Council meeting if it hadn’t been for having
the Mayor’s Facebook page, using the web
page, getting the alerts from the Council, that
sense that I felt I had almost like a duty to go.”
“Well I suppose I’m beginning to feel
more that it’s the only level of
government that you can connect with,
and so really all my efforts I suppose in a
way would be directed to living more in
this community and trying to improve
this community and connect with the
people in this community.”
citizen

8. SELF-DEVELOPMENT
8
“you can learn about the
people you’re voting for,
you can learn about the
people who are actually
making decisions about
your life.”
“More services as well because before you
mightn't know what – it sounds silly, but you
mightn't know what you wanted to know. So,
online you can hunt around and look at everything
and you might find 50 different things that you can
find the answers to, that you mightn't have even
known existed with the Council… So, with online
you can be aware of more things than you would
have been before… I often didn't know things were
on or I missed out on them. This way [Facebook] it
creates more awareness.”
“I’ve been interested in some of the
comments on Facebook, because
people are doing things they’re just
useful ideas, themes that you can
adopt yourself.”
“I don’t want to go and sit through
Council meetings and community
meetings, spend hours and hours a
week doing that to get that breadth of
knowledge.”
citizen
“I suppose you have a lot of other
people’s input as well in other
parts of community members
contributing to it [social media].
So you’re not only depending on
[Government].”

9. USER DEMOCRACY
9
“A feeling that your opinion is more
important… When they have that have your
say column down the left hand side, it really
does project an idea that your opinion is
being sought and is going to be important.”
“Absolutely, I think that’s the perfect
platform [to have resident’s opinion
taken into account]. Again, because
you can voice your opinion, someone
has to hear you, someone should
reply to give you information
especially if you’re ill informed”
“There are certainly social media campaigns
that have happened in the last 12 months in
[council X] that if they didn’t happen we would
have had a very different result and that those
campaigns sway – they put pressure on
Council to make different decisions.”
citizen

10. ACCOUNTABILITY
10
“I think they can be held to account more, …
yes, this councillor was elected on the
promise of doing X and now they’re doing Y,
and point that out to people. It also gives
them a chance to perhaps say why they’re
behaving like that.”
“… if I make a Facebook comment, or like or
unlike, or – it’s for everybody to see. It’s not just
putting it in an envelope, and putting it through
the mail slot, it is for everyone to see, and then
other people can say, yes I agree, no I don’t
think that’s a good idea. So it’s a public open
conversation for everyone… they are too loud.”
citizen

11. LISTENING TO PUBLIC OPINION
11
“Now you can say “Well really this is
important for these reasons and I’ve spoken
to my neighbours,” or “The people in my
group think this, that and the other”. So it
does enable them to perhaps re-prioritise
things if they understand reasons for things.”
Well I think that’s the aim [having residents’
opinions taken into account].”
“It may be more of a distraction but it
may in fact enable them [the council] to
kind of put their finger on the pulse a
bit more and see what’s important to
people…and get a feel of what people in
the community are thinking”
“If Facebook is used the right way it’s a very
powerful tool and if people use it correctly
they’ll get that instant feedback, straight away.
….. all that instant feedback that this is
happening right here, right now so then
Council would be able to be more flexible and
respond to that…Yes, that’s what social media
is about, community definitely.”
citizen

12. RESPONSIVENESS
12
“I find it a lot quicker online, and Yes, I
think it is [social media]. It's quick and
immediate.”
“I think it can be an
easy way of gaining,
quickly, quite a lot
of comment.”
“I’m happy with the responses…Yeah more
people see it, and if they don’t respond right
away, someone will go you haven’t responded,
you’re obviously hiding something. So yeah
they’ve got to…Whereas beforehand I’ll
probably just go, you know, wouldn’t have
known it, wouldn’t have cared, wouldn’t have
had feedback.”
citizen
“The most important thing for me would
be to stay on top of any pressing issues
or emergencies, so I would trust on
Council to provide that information via
the social media. So I think it’s important
to me, depending on what you’re looking
for, but for urgent information. ”

13. EQUITY
13
“I think it does allow more residents to have
access to council information. Yes, I do
think that it increases the equality for
residents.”
“Well it’s much more equitable … so in a
community event, or if you have to meet the
councillors in [X] street or go to the [X] festival,
I’m not going to get a say because I’m small,
middle-aged and I’m female, and their attention is
going to be focused on males, younger people,
people with louder voices. I just know what
happens. So I’ve got more equitable access in
terms of having a conversation or having my
input, which I wouldn’t have face to face.”
“No one's getting different
information from a different
person behind the counter.”
citizen

14. SOCIAL COHESION
14
citizen
“A healthy community as being a
community that's happy and
harmonious. I think social media and
online services can promote that
sense of understanding for one
another which makes the community
healthier.”
“Social media should be light-hearted and
as a Council it is all about community,
bringing community together so if you can
get the community to provide feedback on
stuff within their community in a positive
manner, I think that is the best way to use
social media from a Council.”
“you can be made to feel like you're part
of a community with being on Facebook
and you feel like you're being invited to
things whereas if it's in the paper or
something that's sent out you might
miss it, whereas on Facebook you
actually feel like "Oh, they're asking if I
want to go.”
“I think Facebook's so amazing because
it does provide that connectivity...I think
that's where the council Facebook page
could be so powerful because it could
really, really create that [social cohesion]
and that's so important for a healthy
community.”
“Yeah I think it has [create a
sense of community], and it’s
put me more in contact with
aspects of the community I
hadn’t experienced before.”
“ I think it’s the perfect platform for
that [creating a sense of
community] because you’re not
alone in the sense that other
people are sharing information with
you and sharing your concerns
etcetera, so I think it would improve
that for sure.”
“Because more people can agree
with that or disagree with that. If
you’re all agreeing on one thing,
then you’re all kind of combining
your views, and that is a sense of
community I guess, when
everyone feels in a group.”
“Because they can – they’ve
obviously had to understand their
community by getting a Facebook
page, understanding that that’s the
way the world’s moving. And then we
understand them because they’re
giving us more information, kind of
closing that gap a little bit more.”
“Yeah, for your active life, yeah,
you can because there’s a lot
more opportunities than you
think…once you look it up you
realise how many more things
there are that you can join.”

15.  Motivators: professionalism, adaptability, user-orientation,
self-development, reliability, responsiveness, dialogue, citizen
involvement, social cohesion and friendliness.
 Negatively or very low: Honesty, Integrity, and Common Good.
 Dominating: Openness
 Citizens themselves playing a significant role.
 Through Social Media platforms, Public Value can be
generated by government, citizens, and technology.
 Public value could be created even though the local
governments do not have direct aim to create it.
 Citizens perceive most of the values examined.
 Professionalism perceived in a different way.
 Facebook is the most used.
15
Summary

16. THANK YOU
Khayri OMAR
PhD Candidate,
Tel: +61 415178473
Office: EN611c d1
Email:
OKHAYRI@yahoo.com
Helana SCHEEPERS
Associate Professor,
Tel: +61 3 9214 5422
Office: EN607b
Email:
hscheepers@swin.edu.au
16
Rosemary STOCKDALE
Department Chair,
Tel: +61 3 9214 4529
Office: EN607c
Email:
rstockdale@swin.edu.au
For more information about SM and
Public Value creation contact
Swinburne University of Technology,
Faculty of Business and Enterprise,
Swinburne Business School,
Department of Information Systems and Logistics