Social Media's Growing Influence : NPR

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Social Media's Growing Influence
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text sizeAAASeptember 12, 2009
Host Scott Simon has nearly 1 million followers on Twitter. He speaks to media and technology expert Clay Shirky about the uses and implications of social media in politics, in which government collaborates with citizens to solve local problems.

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SCOTT SIMON, host:

We've emphasized other kinds of listener interaction on this program - from asking you to send us your opinion, story ideas and questions over Twitter, Facebook and our Soapbox blog. We like to think of social media as a kind of water cooler, where we can talk to you and track stories and topic trends in real time.

Someone who's thought a lot about the uses and implications of social media in government, politics and problem solving is Clay Shirky. He follows the social and economic effects of digital technology. He spoke this week at the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington, D.C. That's a conference on using technology to open up government and collaborate with citizens.

Clay Shirky joins us from our studios in New York. Thanks so much for being with us.

Mr. CLAY SHIRKY: Thank you, Scott. Thank you for having me.

SIMON: We certainly saw social media active in the presidential campaign last year…

Mr. SHIRKY: Yes.

SIMON: …to say the least. What's happening at the municipal level now?

Mr. SHIRKY: Well, municipalities are a really interesting example of these kinds of technologies in use, because municipalities are smaller, they're socially more dense, neighborhoods have a neighborhood feel. And so we're seeing groups of citizens organize themselves

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