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This article investigates two examples ofcitizen cyber-organizing in the context ofthe literatures on social capital and organizing. It asks, What can cyber-organizations teach us about the current state of social capital? What are the implications ofcyber -organizing for the context ofpublic administration? What implications do cyber-organizations hold for the role of the public administrator? The author concludes that the continuous communication ofparticipants in cyber-organizations, as well as their transitory and informal roles and rules, their social and emotional support, and their development of a shared understanding of the issues they face function as forms of social capital that facilitate civic engagement. Furthermore, cyber-organizations add to the fragmented and fluid social and political environment confronting public administration. Finally, to realize the potential power and significance of cyberorganizing, public administrators should begin to see such organizations through a lens that is different fromthe professional orientation to interest groups that has pervaded the field. Public administrators must reimagine themselves as agents of the social bond.

Social media technologies present a new way for government agencies to connect with, and potentially collaborate with, their residents. Police departments (PDs) are a setting ripe for use of social media as an extension of their community policing efforts. In this article, we explore the use of social media by PDs in the top 10 most populous U.S. cities. We analyze police-initiated posts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube over a 3-month period to determine what accounts PDs use, if they use social media for information transmission or interaction, and if they use the accounts for dialogue that might make collaboration possible. We find that while PDs have and use social media, and while citizens are responsive, there is much less interaction in part due to nonresponsiveness of PDs themselves. We thus conclude that though the existence of some PD-resident dialogue is promising, very little was collaborative.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a framework for understanding how millennial social media use preferences can help public administrators change their delivery ethos to foster meaningful micro-encounters in digital spaces to then create public value. Ideally, these micro-encounters encourage public values creation from both the user (government) and audience side. Traditional government social media use often is one-way push without much care for dialogue and discussion. This revised framework shifts that thinking from the social media creation phase, allowing public administrators to use the tools in a more creative way.


Design/methodology/approach
The approach to the paper is theoretical, meaning the theoretical framework brings together lines of scholarship that have previously run parallel: millennial social media use preferences, government social media, and public values creation.


Findings
The theoretical framework offers propositions for future inquiry. The framework shows how traditional public sector social media use fails when it comes to creating meaningful spaces for interaction, which ideally is the purpose of social media.


Practical implications
The framework offered herein can help practitioners change the way they set up and even currently use social media tools to engage with the public. Though the framework is based on millennial social media preferences, any generation can benefit from a more open, inclusive platform that strives to foster public values such as collaboration, dialogue and transparency.


Originality/value
The theoretical framework generated for this paper brings together usually separate literatures to create a more holistic picture of social media use for public administrators.

Public administration theory and practice suggest that e-government, citizen participation, and government–citizen collaboration are contributing to a movement toward New Public Service—as opposed to Old Public Administration and New Public Management. We explore this by focusing on the relationship between the Washington, D.C., police and local residents via online discussion groups. We ask, How do police interact with citizens virtually? How are these interactions structured? and Are they informational, transactional, or collaborative? Using descriptive data and thread analysis, and drawing distinctions between districts, we conclude that the bulk of activity is informational, a fair amount of activity is transactional, and less activity is collaborative. Thus, the relationship most closely approximates Old Public Administration, rather than New Public Management or New Public Service. The evidence offers some cause for hope for the future of police–community relations in virtual space and ideas for future research.

This article explores how information technology affects the forms and possibilities of voluntary efforts. Specifically, the authors examine the emergence of grassroots organizations in cyberspace. An analysis of two cyber-grassroots organizations (CGOs), Afghanistan Online and Rebuild-Afghanistan, highlights CGOs' similarities, differences,and relative strengths and weaknesses compared to their traditional physical-space counterparts. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for our understanding of grassroots organizations generally. Traditional characteristics such as size, scope, and the nature of communication need to be refined to better account for new forms of grassroots organizations.

This article identifies two models of nonprofit organization roles: the economic model, which emphasizes business-like methods, and the voluntary spirit model, which emphasizes participation and membership. Highly visible, professional nonprofit organizations must constantly struggle with the extent to which they are to emphasize their role as efficient and competitive economic actors or their role as institutions important to our democracy. After years of shifting toward the economic model, professional nonprofits may be ripe for reform. Simultaneously, they are confronting and engaging with the Internet. This article draws on examples of health-based citizen cyber-organizations to derive lessons for how professional nonprofit organizations can recapture their voluntary spirit generally and places an emphasis on participation and membership. Also derived are specific lessons on how professional nonprofits can use cyber-strategies to do so.