Posts By Ines Mergel

Calgary Police’s Twitter account displays #SMEM best practices during #yycflood

During the floods in Calgary, Canada, this weekend, the social media manager of Calgary’s police did a fantastic job answering questions, diffusing rumors, using social media to pull in additional help, point people to volunteer opportunities, and to activate officers to work extra shifts via Twitter. It was important to get information into the socialRead… Read more »

Special issue “The Public Manager” on ‘Government Embraces New Social Media Tools’

The Public Manager “The Public Manager” has just published its Winter 2012 edition. The whole issue focuses on how government embraces new social media tools. Contributors are among others: Andrew Krzmarzick, who talks about how government embraces social media as new communication tools; Scott Horvath (USGS), who presents an overview of the past, present andRead… Read more »

New Public Administration Review article out: A Three-Stage Adoption Process for Social Media Use in Government

Together with my co-author Professor Stuart Bretschneider I wrote an article that was just published for early view by Public Administration Review (PAR). In this article, we develop a model of social adoption in the public sector. Here is the abstract: Social media applications are slowly diffusing across all levels of government. The organizational dynamicsRead… Read more »

Information Week Review of our Social Media Field Guide

This week, David Carr from Information Week wrote a very comprehensive and thoughtful review of the Field Guide that he titled The Government Leader’s Guide To Social Media. He did a great job of pulling out some of the core elements that we hope to get across to readers with regards to culture change, policyRead… Read more »

CfP: Transformation of Citizenship and Governance in Asia (Special Issue)

Call for Papers (Special Issue) Transformation of Citizenship and Governance in Asia: The Challenges of Social and Mobile Media Guest Editors: Marko M. Skoric (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), Nojin Kwak (University of Michigan, USA), Ines Mergel (Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University), and Peter Parycek (Danube University Krems, Austria) The proliferation ofRead… Read more »

Book announcement: “Studying Social Networks”

I am happy to announce a new book “Studying Social Networks”. I was honored to be a co-author on this book with Marina Hennig, Ulrik Brandes, and Juergen Pfeffer who took on a leading role publishing the book. It’s available on Amazon.com in February 2013 and will be distributed by Chicago University Press. In EuropeRead… Read more »

Review of #DNC2012 social media coverage

Air Force Two is wheels down in Charlotte instagr.am/p/PKmoy6hktF/— Carrie Dann (@CarrieNBCNews) September 04, 2012 The hardest-to-find button at #DNC2012. Should we run a contest and give it away? yfrog.com/obcrfnttj— (@DNC2012clt) September 05, 2012 The #dnc2012 has begun! @dwstweets gavels open the convention — watch live at demconvention.com instagr.am/p/PKve08FAee/— (@DemConvention) September 04, 2012 Before BarackRead… Read more »

NextGov.com post: How to Engage the Public to Promote Your Mission

[I wrote this post for NextGov.com where it was published today] While everyone is watching the social media memes erupting on Twitter and Facebook around the presidential campaigns, the question remains how social media can enhance governing to provide regular government operations with a human face. In my conversations with social media directors I hearRead… Read more »