From Bowling Alone to
Tweeting Together: Technology-
Mediated Social Participation

Harry Hochheiser University of Pittsburgh | [e-mail]

Ben Shneiderman
University of Maryland | [e-mail]
[ 1] Putnam, R. Bowling
Alone: The Collapse
and Revival of American
Community. New York:
Simon and Schuster,
2000.

March + April 2010

Many observers suggest that the remarkable growth of social media is reversing the 40-year decline in civic and community-group participation [ 1]. Mobile phones, email, blogs, wikis, tweets, and social networks are transforming the way families and friends relate, while offering new mechanisms for neighbors and colleagues to collaborate. Even more important, the payoffs from technology-mediated social participation may be able to save lives in disasters, improve health by promoting wellness, and restore economic vitality by accelerating business innovation.

The challenge is whether designers, civic leaders, and community managers can deploy the right social media interfaces to restore participation in social, civic, political, and economic institutions. Building on early visions of the Internet as an open platform for communication and information exchange, these new social and civic-participation tools provide people with the ability to work together to address mutual concerns, solve problems, and build consensus—potentially restoring the social capital that has been lost and improving the lives of citizens in every country. These ambitious goals present a challenge to the HCI community: Can we develop evidence-based scientific theories that yield actionable guidelines for usability and sociability?

interactions

Evolution of Social Media for Community Needs
Computing tools in the service of community
needs have a long history, dating back to Berkeley,
California’s Community Memory project in the
1970s. Recent efforts have shown the possibilities
for technologically mediated social participation in
the Web 2.0 era. The Obama administration, which
may owe its election victory to effective use of
social media, has been a leader in using websites,
You Tube videos, and participatory strategies to dis-
seminate and advance its agendas. It began with
the Change.gov site during the 2008 presidential
transition, and then continued with efforts such as
data accessibility ( data.gov) and stimulating blog
discussions of policy issues. A potent example is the
lively discussion on the blog run by the Office of
Science and Technology Policy ( blog.ostp.gov), which
solicits citizen input on policy priorities and opera-
tional definitions of transparency initiatives. The
$787 billion economic stimulus plan, the American
Recovery and Revitalization Act, has also become
social and transparent with extensive data and
requests to report fraud and abuse ( recovery.gov).