State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

4 Tips for Using Social Media to Address Social Division and Civil Unrest

Government Technology: A recently released report out of the Ohio State University’s Divided Community Project (DCP) offers new insights as to how government at all levels could be addressing social division and civil unrest through social modern communications tools.

During the 2017 Government Social Media Conference held April 11-13 in Dallas, Texas, DCP Executive Director Grande Lum and Associate Director William Froehlich discussed the vital and expanding role social media plays in not only informing the public, but building consensus between misaligned factions.

The report, released April 11, is meant to serve as an “off-the-shelf guidebook” for community leaders and coordinators in the event civil unrest breaks out in their backyards. The document is the result of roughly a year of input gathering from social media coordinators, civic leaders and remediators to take a deeper dive into anticipating and addressing unrest.

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