My Phd project aims at studying every day interaction in social media within local municipality, with a focus on e-democracy. An increased openness of the work practice and new ways to collaborate imply organizational change, new ways of working and perhaps new ways of relating to knowledge and development. Research literature is agreeing on the potentials with social media for transparency and trust for government but there is little practical evidence on how it can be used in an every day working practice. 

AR would be a suitable research approach for many reasons. First every local government is unique to its size, geographical location, demography and politics, which are all parameters related to the degree of uptake of new technology. They have so to speak their own culture and the research subjects I am interviewing say it’s very difficult to apply general guidelines for how to use social media for their specific purpose.  It is not only the culture that is unique, the technology is also all the time changing and there is a constant need for learning and staying up to date with new services and forums and the practitioners are very eager to learn about new research and new ways of how social media could be used.

AR would also be suitable for the reason that it is in the activity of the use of social media that the learning will take place. You can’t just talk about how to use social media, you have to do it and analyze the practice and the effects of the practice, then try again. An AR-project together with the municipalities studied would drive the development further for the practitioners and it would give me as a researcher a chance to try new functionality of social media in the municipality context.