Intentional Modeling of Social Media Design Knowledge for Government-Citizen Communication

Social media can be employed as powerful tools for enabling broad participation in public policy making. However, variations in the design of a social media technology system can lead to different levels or kinds of engagement, including low participation or polarized interchanges. An effective means toward learning of and analyzing the complex motivations, expectations, and actions among various actors in political communication can help designers create satisfactory social media systems. This paper uses the i* modeling framework to analyze the impact that alternative configurations of a social media technology can have on the goals and relationships of the actors involved. In doing so, we demonstrate and provide preliminary validation for a research-informed model creation and analysis approach to assessing competing design alternatives in an online climate change debate community.