Dialogic Connections: An Analysis of Groundwork Anacostia River, DC's Use of Facebook and Twitter

Abstract

The recent development of social media websites makes it much easier for organizations to interact with the community they are trying to reach. Research has been done regarding the most effective types of social media for this task, as well as how those websites can be used best to benefit the organization.This essay analyzes the Facebook posts and tweets of Groundwork Anacostia River, DC (GWARDC) and uses frameworks laid out by Lovejoy and Saxton to determine whether or not GWARDC is creating dialogic connections with their audience.To do this, the Lovejoy and Saxton framework,originally designed to analyze tweets made by organizations, is applied to Facebook posts. I analyze Groundwork’s use of Facebook and Twitter and determine that they are on the right track to forming dialogic connections with their audience, however their practices still need to be refined for dialogic connections to occur.