Previous studies indicate that community members connected to infrastructure projects frequently experience a lack of meaningful involvement, often due to ineffective engagement by those managing stakeholder relations. However, the rise of online connectivity and the spread of social media have empowered these groups to quickly organise around contentious project issues, sometimes resulting in disputes, demonstrations, and even project setbacks or rejections. While extensive literature exists on stakeholder engagement in traditional, in-person settings, there are few practical models offering guidance on working with external stakeholders through social media. Thus, the goal of this research is to enhance the engagement of community stakeholders by leveraging social media platforms. The webinar will discuss changes and adjustment from in-person settings for projects to identify, evaluate, and interact with project community stakeholders through social media. Using Western Sydney International Airport as a case study, the research examined posts, comments, and reactions on the project’s Facebook page to understand engagement dynamics. The findings highlight the difficulty of applying conventional stakeholder analysis approaches to online participants; however, techniques such as thematic, sentiment, and emotion analysis for stakeholder issues are workable. The resulting framework is grounded in theory and offers actionable insights for improving how projects can interact with and respond to stakeholders within social media environments.
Learning Objectives
Previous studies indicate that community members connected to infrastructure projects frequently experience a lack of meaningful involvement, often due to ineffective engagement by those managing stakeholder relations. However, the rise of online connectivity and the spread of social media have empowered these groups to quickly organise around contentious project issues, sometimes resulting in disputes, demonstrations, and even project setbacks or rejections. While extensive literature exists on stakeholder engagement in traditional, in-person settings, there are few practical models offering guidance on working with external stakeholders through social media. Thus, the goal of this research is to enhance the engagement of community stakeholders by leveraging social media platforms. The webinar will discuss changes and adjustment from in-person settings for projects to identify, evaluate, and interact with project community stakeholders through social media. Using Western Sydney International Airport as a case study, the research examined posts, comments, and reactions on the project’s Facebook page to understand engagement dynamics. The findings highlight the difficulty of applying conventional stakeholder analysis approaches to online participants; however, techniques such as thematic, sentiment, and emotion analysis for stakeholder issues are workable. The resulting framework is grounded in theory and offers actionable insights for improving how projects can interact with and respond to stakeholders within social media environments.
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