Social Media Impact on Local Events.

For some reason, I got very interested in the recent debate in Edmonton about closing the small municipal airport located just off downtown. I think this had something to do with the alternative plan being a very transit-oriented, anti-sprawl infill development, and the thought of that actually happening here might help reduce my general discomfort at moving to a province that largely acts as an environmental dinosaur.

The "keep it open" crowd was for the most part a fairly vocal, well-organized group of business owners in the area, and others who actually used the airport (a very small minority in Edmonton, since the flight services it offers are very restricted). Most people I think were fairly apathetic in the sense that it wouldn't affect them directly. Proponents of closing were motivated I think largely by ecological and environmental sensitivities, e.g. urban sprawl.

One of the nuances to the story is the role of social media in influencing the debate. Mack Male's review and lessons post is as good a starting point as any other to get a sense of how that played out.

It's always hard to quantify the effect that social media (in this case, blogs, Twitter and Facebook) may or may not have had. I think all of the following are open questions that are worth considering.

1. It's clear that the "pro-closure" side got a bigger benefit from social media. Would that have been different were there a central, organized "old school" campaign for closure, as there was for the "keep it open" side? How might the dynamics have changed if such a campaign was present? Would that be the focus, with Twitter etc. in a supporting role? Would that be the place where people gathered to find up-to-date information, rather than searching on Twitter?
2. The culture that has evolved around Twitter use is generally polite, respectful, values logical discussion, and encourages hearing out different viewpoints. You can see this for example in how a single "hash-tag" (#ecca) was used to discuss the issue, both for and against. This differs greatly from conventions in many other systems, where participants would choose to "support" one side or the other, where people might follow blogs only from a particular side (political blogs for example), or where people may only be interested in pushing their opinion (e.g. newspaper article comments). How much impact did this have in terms of positively engaging people in sincere discussions about a highly divisive issue? How might that have been different in the past?
3. What impact did this really have? How many people got engaged in the debate because of social media? Did their engagement make any difference to the outcome? What was the actual reach of social media in this debate? What makes it different from a chamber of commerce meeting, Rotary meeting, or a bunch of old men talking about this at their local coffee shop? In either case, you've got a fairly small number of people involved in the discussion; how much impact do they carry outside their group?
4. Why now? What changed (if anything) to make social media visible on this local issue and not so many others before? How much of it was the MSM's recent (yet perhaps fleeting?) infatuation with Twitter? How much of it was having a large enough critical mass of local users all on the same sites (Twitter, Facebook), a condition that perhaps wasn't there before? (Side note: BBS users in the 80's were more locally involved by necessity, because using far-away sites cost real long distance money. When people started adopting the internet, they could effectively be dispersed around the world, at no charge. Perhaps only now we're seeing enough local activity concentrated in a small number of local sites to have an impact).
5. How do involved Twitter users differ from any other perhaps disproportionately vocal special-interest group when it comes to local events?
6. As alluded to before, I think a fair number of people found out about the social media activity surrounding this issue because of several reports in the local mainstream media. Did this result in many new people coming to participate? How was social media perceived by people seeing this coverage? Was it just another "oh, the young'uns are doing their Internet thing about the airport.."?
7. Is there anything in particular about Edmonton as a community that may have impacted the way social media was used or its effect? Things like the level of activism, willingness by different sides to engage in dialog (wait, this is Alberta right?)

I ask these things not so much because they're keeping me up at night, but because I really would like to tease out some of these dynamics. The breathless "social media changes everything" fanboy articles don't really do it for me. Thinking back on all the different collaboration technologies I've used, researched and developed over the years, I believe there is a definite benefit in having a deeper understanding of how the technologies are used in practice, and the factors that affect that practice.

Comments

[Jeff]

I know, personally, that the online factor was a huge one for me being engaged in the debate.

I could be involved in conversations with people for and against the closure of the ECCA and they'd all be floating links back and forth. The ability to be engaged in this intelligent debate while on my computer at work was a game-changer for my civic involvement.

I'd never written my councillors before, and yet here I was sending an e-mail to both. That's also thanks to the wealth of information I had in front of me thanks to the online debate.

Will this change everything at City Hall? No. There's still a lot of old-school and old style politicking happening and it won't disappear.

Edmonton's online community is going to continue to grow, but won't include a majority of the city for some time. That means there will have to be pushes in the mainstream and traditional media to gain widespread attention.

That attention, however, can be generated (as Mack and Jordan did with website and Facebook) for little or no overhead. That means city councillors won't just be hearing from connected, funded voices. That may shake things up a little.

It will have to continue to mean anything. Is Edmonton's online community going to be back, or are they a one-issue group?

[Mack D. Male]

I think Jeff is right. The best way to answer these questions is to see what happens with future issues.

There's no question that social media had a significant impact in this debate, however.

[Mark Roseman]

Thanks very much for taking the time to read the post and share your replies guys! Much appreciated.

There's no question of the effect on an individual level - many people, including me - could share their personal stories. And don't get me wrong, that's no small accomplishment, and something very worthwhile on its own.

I guess I'm always on the lookout for larger group effects. :-)

[Catherine LeBlanc]

As a middle-aged busy professional, I found that without Twitter, I would not be as connected or as informed about civic or provincial political issues. I certainly would not have e-mailed the Mayor or councillors like I have on the ECCA issue or e-mailed Dave Hancock and my MLA over Bill 44 and its impact on education.

I have found that the last two months on Twitter have reawakened my drive to be aware of what is happening in my city & province and to actually participate in the decision-making opportunities offered in a democracy (even Alberta-style), aside from voting.

Before, I would have cheered or grumbled with like-minded friends at the final decision, but I would not have been likely to try to influence the decision-making process. Now I am able to and I have all of the information I need to make a logical argument.

Many thanks need to go to Mack & Jordan for all of the work they did in organizing the website, blogs, Facebook and keeping us informed with their updates.

Change does occur slowly and traditional methods will still be necessary, but now there is another tool in the toolbox for those who are less powerful and well-connected and well-financed.