Social Media vs. the Public Sector

What happens when the forces of social media"collaboration, open information, participation"collide with the entrenched patterns of public sector bureaucracy such as public servant anonymity, information hoarding, risk aversion, privacy, secrecy, and organizational silos? Different public service organizations, subject to the same rules, vary widely in response: from engagement to acceptance to resistance. This chapter provides a selective survey of the literature and some guidance for those who want to fast-track social media in the public sector.