How Social Media is Changing Government and Governance Around the World

If one was to count its more than one billion users, Facebook could be considered the third largest nation in the world. Twitter’s more than 200 million monthly active global users can communicate instantly with one another about any subject at any time. In this era of social media dominance, citizens, businesses, journalists, and government officials use social media in a variety of ways: to praise or voice concern about their governments, to spread news, to engender action, and to make government work smarter and better. During this time of unprecedented social media use, how are social media innovations changing political communication, interaction between governments and citizens, and modern-day governance both domestically and abroad?

On November 25, the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings hosted an event to discuss how social media is impacting governance around the world. What effect is social media having on the public sector? How is it affecting the relationship between governments and citizens?