ABSTRACT
Digital dashboards produced by government agencies have become means to communicate complex data and reach wide audiences, making them a new and unexplored social media tool. When considering how social media is impacting governance, the first question that arises is, what constitutes a social media? We apply the United States Federal Web Managers Council's definition of social media to the use of dashboards: the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and content creation (www.howto.gov/social-media/socialmedia-types). These elements of integrating technology, social interaction, and content creation provide for a more expansive understanding of “social media” than what is commonly a term reserved for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging, and YouTube activity and content (Rishel, 2011). By the United States Federal Web Managers Council's definition, information sharing and content creation in the way data is represented can take place with the use of a wider variety of technologies, as long as there are multiple users interacting to create content. Beyond digital dashboards, additional forms of social media that share these basic characteristics include: wikis, discussion forums, and e-government (Rishel, 2011).
