links for 2009-09-07

In this paper on promising practices in online engagement, we want to take a closer look at a selection of online engagement practices, from high-level national politics to our most immediate public realms, our neighborhoods. The patterns of opinion shaping, dialogue and decision making on each level have changed through the widespread availability of new communication tools. Nonetheless, the differences between scope of engagement and communication tools can be tremendous. At a national level, partisanship strongly affects the political discourse in the general online realm. We will highlight multiple approaches that try to bridge this divide and bring together individuals from all sides in meaningful dialogue.

Who is this useful for? Imagine you run an event that uses a hashtag – you could keep a permanent record of the what people were saying on Twitter about the event by saving all mentions of your hashtag with Tweetdoc. Businesses could run a daily Twitter search for their brand name using Tweetdoc and use it in marketing reports.