COMMITTEE PARTICIPATION: A MULTIMEDIA APPROACH
Left: Advertising was the single biggest communication cost for the committee’s public meetings, while live broadcasts (right) of proceed- ings substantially increased the audience.
out on administrative matters such as meeting or submission dates. But are there risks or drawbacks
to the multimedia approach or, specifically, to using social media? One disadvantage is that social media users often elect to remain anonymous, notably in the chat room situation.
Because chatters can use
whatever chat name, or handle, they wish, anonymity can leave the client, in our case the committee, uncertain as to the identities of the social media users.6 The implications of this for the
annual public meeting were twofold. First, it was not known whether chatters, even though few in number, were representative of Albertans at large. It is feasible that the chatters
were part of special-interest groups or associated with political parties. It is even possible that political staffers and/or people representing special interests constituted the bulk of the chatters. The result is that the committee cannot know to what extent the online chatters were representative of the Alberta public at large and, importantly, whether
the online chat therefore fulfilled the public component of the committee’s annual public meeting.7 A related implication of anonymous online participation is that the committee, by allowing social media interactions, risks losing a measure of control over its proceedings. Chatters who happen to be political insiders may take advantage of their anonymous status and pose preconceived questions to the committee which are representative of their partisan or special interest. Additionally, the anonymity may embolden chatters
to challenge the committee where they would not do so otherwise with questions or comments, some of which may be inappropriate for a public forum. This input may embarrass the
committee or certain Members who sit on it. Furthermore, it may also detract from the public purpose of the committee’s meeting by steering the meeting away from its objective, which is to provide a public forum for Albertans to discuss the fund and its performance. However, the committee is not helpless. The committee has the
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