How do Public Sector Workers in the UK Leverage Collective Identity to Engage
Local Communities
Sarah Williams
University of Wolverhampton, UK
sarah.williams@wlv.ac.uk
social media; public sector; community engagement; identity
The concept of identity has become so much a part of the common lexicon that it is
difficult to arrive at a single academic definition for the term. Stryker and Burke (2000:
284) consider that there are three main meanings for identity theory in existence;
identity as a culture of a people, identity as a common identification with a collective, or
social identity theory, and identity as being “self composed of meanings that persons
attach to the multiple roles they typically play in highly differentiated contemporary
societies” (ibid).
Identity theory provides the theoretical framework for this paper, in particular the
intersection between Stryker’s (1980) work on symbolic interactionism and the links
between social structures and identities, and Burke’s (Burke, 1991; Stets & Burke,
2000) positioning of identity as the internal process of self-verification. This paper
explores professional identity at the point at which social identity theory and selfverification theory meet. This intersection, described by Stryker and Burke (2000: 284)
as “the relation of social structures to identities influences self-verification, while the
process of self-verification creates and sustains social structures”, provides an
interesting perspective for the analysis of public sector workers uses of social media to
create and engage local communities online.
In considering how identity works in an online context, many authors (including
Calvert, 1999 and Turkle, 1997) consider that online identity does not necessarily have
to reflect offline identity and, indeed, may bear little resemblance to it. The notion that
online identities may exist in isolation to offline identities is interesting when
considered in the context of a person representing an organisation; must the online
identity reflect the institution or the person, and how do the workers’ themselves
manage this dilemma?
This paper considers how institutional versus personal identities appear to work on
social media, in particular considering whether the most successful initiatives are the
ones where people are communicating as individuals with their own identity, talking
from a personal perspective, or whether institutional accounts are most effective at
engaging communities, or indeed whether a combination of the two works best. In
particular the paper considers which strategies are being employed by public sector
workers in their use of social media, for what reasons are these strategies being adopted,
and how effective do they seem to be? Finally, the paper considers how imposed social
media use affects workers’ representations of their professional identity.
The study employs qualitative research methods in order to explore how public sector
workers seek to play on collective identity to engage local people through social media.
A case study approach is adopted to explore the role of identity in public sector
workers’ uses of social media, therefore for the purposes of the study the public sector
in the UK was loosely defined as a work group based on shared challenges and
objectives (Daymon and Holloway, 2002: 105). The public sector case was compiled
using a mixed-methods approach combining unstructured interviews with 11 public
sector communications practitioners and two representatives of community groups,
coupled with the use of two hall meetings to test the initial findings and allow for wider
discussion.
In discussion the paper considers if the multiple roles inhabited by public sector workers
can really be said to be ‘highly differentiated’ as suggested by Stryker and Burke (2000:
284) and further considers if the concept of online identity as being distinct from offline
identity (Turkle, 1997; Calvert, 1999) can be said to be true of public sector workers in
the UK.
Bibliography
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Calvert, S. (1999) Identity on the Internet in Annenberg public policy center conference
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Daymon, C. & Holloway, I., (2002) Qualitative Research Methods in Public Relations
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Turkle, S (1997) Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet New York: Simon
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Stets, J. E., & Burke, P. J. (2000). Identity theory and social identity theory. Social
Psychology Quarterly, 63(3), 224-237.
Stryker, S. (1980) Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version. Menlo Park:
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Stryker, S. & Burke, P (2000) The Past, Present, and Future of an Identity Theory.
Social Psychology Quarterly vol. 63, n°4: 13, pp.284-297