Government, Media and Public Engagement

This report discusses the implementation of digital technologies and use of social media platforms in organizations and governments, with a focus on citizen engagement and democratic participation. The case study examines Commonwealth Bank and its strategies for communication and customer engagement.

Running head: GOVERNMENT, MEDIA AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
Government, Media and Public Engagement
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1GOVERNMENT, MEDIA AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
Executive Summary
The following report will look after the implementation of digital technologies and use of social
media platforms in the organizations and governments. Two important issues that have been
discussed in this context are citizen engagement and democratic participation. The organization
that has been chosen to focus on the issues of implementing digital technologies is
Commonwealth Bank. It is one of the giants in the banking and financial services industry.
Therefore, the importance to communicate with customers instantly and making faster
transactions will be effective in case of organizational growth as well. Therefore, all these issues
have been properly discussed in this report by analyzing the above mentioned issues. The
reasons for implementing digital technologies have been highlighted as well.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Brief background of the organization..............................................................................................3
Digital strategies for the organization..............................................................................................4
Social media governance of Commonwealth Bank.........................................................................5
Citizen engagement in social media................................................................................................6
Public relations and democratic participation..................................................................................7
Social media communication problems for organization................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References and Bibliography.........................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The use of social media has been one of the most contemporary trends by organizations
to get the attention of their customers. Various organizations and even the Government are trying
to convince people about their projects of welfare for the common people. It is, therefore, the
liability of both the Government and the organizations to take care of the common people. The
main purpose of the organizations is to make a proper communication between the people and
organization. Eventually, it will yield good results for the organizations to connect with their
customers and get to know the things that they promptly desire and wish to have.
The responsibility of the organizations is to provide customers with those things to hold
their market. When organizations get to know the desires of their customers, it will be helpful for
them to provide them with those things and also let the customers be aware about the new
services of products the organization will bring in (Balestra, Gordon & Baldwin-Philippi, 2013).
The organization chosen for this paper is Commonwealth Bank and their use of social media and
digital technology will be discussed in this paper. The important steps that Commonwealth Bank
has taken up to communicate with their stakeholders and customers will be highlighted with the
flaws that are identified.
Brief background of the organization
The headquarters of the organization is located at Sydney in Australia. It is one of the
leading companies in the banking and financial services industry. It has over 1000 branches all
over the world (Commbank.com.au. 2019). It is one of the big four banks in Australia along with
Westpac, National Australia Bank and ANZ. The organizational culture of the bank has been on
the talking point in the last few months. The use of social media and digital technology has been

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considered as one of the premium reasons for their overall success. They have taken part in the
digital transformation of the banking and financial services industry in the last few years. It has
impacted on the growth of the organization in a positive manner (Commbank.com.au. 2019).
Their purpose is to build a proper strategy that will make them the industry leaders. In order to
do this, they will work on creating a better and simpler bank through their operations.
Digital strategies for the organization
The main focus of the Commonwealth Bank will be to implement their digital strategies
that will make differences in their way of handling the customers and creating a proper
networking medium through communication. They must communicate with all their stakeholders
and work towards a better future (Balestra, Gordon & Baldwin-Philippi, 2013). The impact of
proper leadership capabilities on the customers and stakeholders will be of great importance for
the success of organizations. They need to redefine the future of the industry through making the
new innovations within the industry. They need to provide the seamless experiences to their
customers with the help of the digital technology within their service industry. They value their
customers’ needs therefore they need to communicate with their customers properly. This will
impact positively on the lives of their customers. Some of the strategies they need to implement
in their service are:-
Innovation: They feel their employees are very skilled and full of potential. This is why they
have endless opportunities for breaking the grounds by making experimentations in the industry
and their operations. They will create new things within their organization so they can gain
higher chances of customer profits.

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Leadership: The impact of proper leadership can be felt when Commonwealth Bank will
implement new strategies for digital media. They want to create new experiences for all
customers through initiatives like introducing things like Commonwealth Bank official app,
offering cashless transactions, providing faster options for fund transfers (Balestra, Gordon &
Baldwin-Philippi, 2013).
Impact on lives: The impact of several products and services will be very helpful for the
organization in new ways. They believe they can reach out to millions of customers every day.
Their new products and service offerings through their contents and apps will delight their
customers.
Social media governance of Commonwealth Bank
The social media policies of the Commonwealth Bank have not been effective enough for
them in terms of making benefits. Therefore, they will have to learn from their past mistakes on
how they can improve their experiences. Commonwealth Bank is very much present in the social
media platforms (Balestra, Gordon & Baldwin-Philippi, 2013). It is due to the fact that many
employees of the bank are young people and they have a good amount of expertise in handling
the social media platforms. Their activeness has provided positive opportunities for the
organization. The online communication has been highly helpful for Commonwealth bank over
the years.
The organization has imposed some guidelines on their employees on how to use the
social media platform for the betterment of the organization. They have to complete several
financial and commercial activities (Linke & Zerfass, 2013). In order to safeguard them, they
have to implement many online communication strategies that will provide better outcomes.

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According to the organization, some of the social media channels are online discussion groups
and forums, tools for sharing videos and photos, micro-blogging tools, social networks, chat
rooms and others (Linke & Zerfass, 2013). The managers of Commonwealth Bank have noted
that use of social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and others have a negative impact on
their work. Therefore, they will have to make important contributions to the betterment of the
organization (Balestra, Gordon & Baldwin-Philippi, 2013).
The managers of the organization have also opined that use of social media platforms can
be permitted if it is used for group business activities. This will create better communication and
engagement with the customers precisely. In this manner employees have to comply to the
guidelines imposed by Commonwealth Bank. The purpose of the organization is to indulge in
better communication facilities with their customers. Authors like Avery & Graham (2013), have
argued the fact that use of social media will create a better understanding between the
stakeholders and management precisely (Papacharissi, 2002). In this situation, employees of the
organization should not breach or violate the rules made by the organization.
Citizen engagement in social media
Another crucial aspect to be analyzed is the role of social media in engaging the citizens
of the country. The common people of the country are not only customers of a particular
organization, but they are also citizens of the nation (Linke & Zerfass, 2013). Therefore, they
have a responsibility towards the organization to make it recognized by the entire world. The
chosen organization Commonwealth Bank and Government will have to work together for a
better country in the future (Hansen, 2018). In order to do this, they must engage in social media
platforms so they can uphold their national pride. The establishment of e-government will be a

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big factor for citizens to engage with the social media (Westerman, Spence & Van Der Heide,
2014). The government will update the citizens about the new services they will bring in for the
welfare of citizens from different contexts. The common citizens of the country have their
demands and wishes. If they can voice these demands through social media channels, responses
can be faster than traditional mediums. It is also true for the organizations as well (Macnamara &
Zerfass, 2012).
It is recommendable that use of social media and web based services will help both the
government and private organizations to collaborate with their stakeholders and bring out better
plans for their success. The collaborative practices with their stakeholders will surely benefit
customers because they will be able to send their requests in a faster way. According to (), it is
quite relevant that citizens should interact with the government to make their demands clear. It is
similar in terms of private organizations. They will have to be quite cautious while dealing with
the customers (Macnamara & Zerfass, 2012). If the organizations like Commonwealth Bank do
not revert to the customers positively, they will feel many setbacks due to this.
Public relations and democratic participation
The establishment of good public relations is one of the most important factors in both
the organization and government. Public relations should be improved so all customers can voice
their opinions regarding the product or service delivery of the organization Jussila, J. J.,
(Kärkkäinen & Aramo-Immonen, 2014). In this context, employees will have to find some ways
how they can identify the faults of the organization. Corporate communication is also one of the
most important issues within organizations so stakeholders of the organization can make better
and faster product and service deliveries (Macnamara & Zerfass, 2012). In the case of public

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relations, use of social media platforms is regarded as one of the biggest revolutions in history.
Therefore, it will be crucial for everyone to indulge in a collaborative practice.
In turn it will be highly impactful in the context of better services from the end of
organizations. The governments can also opt to make the use of social media platforms to
connect with citizens (Macnamara & Zerfass, 2012). This might have several purposes. The
citizens will be able to take part in different projects that are implemented by the Government. In
democratic countries, they will also make their contributions in the same (Katz & Halpern,
2013). Therefore, it will be highly important that companies like Commonwealth Bank should
also opt for collaborative practice in social media to attract their customers towards this
democratic practice, Thus they will also be able to establish smooth public relations through
proper feedbacks (Westerman, Spence & Van Der Heide, 2014).
Social media communication problems for organization
In some cases, the decision to communicate through the social media platforms might not
be that helpful as well. It is because employees sometimes might breach or violate the guidelines
to use social media. Although use of digital technology and digital media is regarded as a
revolutionary step, it might be problematic for the organization in different aspects as well. In
this case of Commonwealth Bank, there are several important materials that are stored in their
websites like their financial records, account details of their customers and other things. Their
employees have not been able to store and safeguard their data properly. So, this has hampered
the privacy of their confidential data (Gillespie, Boczkowski & Foot, 2014).
Apart from that citizen participation has also impacted negatively as well. It is only
because managers have not carefully listened to the comments of the customers and changes that

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have been requested to be made. Due to these reasons, the organization has not been able to
implement organizational changes properly. It should be recommended that citizen participation
should be highly valued by the organizations both in the case of government and private
organizations (Gillespie, Boczkowski & Foot, 2014). The use of digital technology should be
made to make faster and smoother communications between the employees, customers and
stakeholders of the company. Invariably, this will improve the performance of the service
providers. The online social media channels will play a big part in the democratic participation of
their customers.
Conclusion
On a concluding note it can be said that employees of the organizations should look to
implement the digital technology properly so this can be helpful to all the customers. The
democratic participation and citizenship engagement will be highly valuable in this concern as
well. It has to be mentioned that social media and digital technology are crucial to keep the
organizations updated. Therefore, it will be seriously important to note how organizations can
cope up with difficulties faced in their respective industries. An organization like
Commonwealth Bank will have to take proper measures on how they can communicate with
their customers and seek their feedbacks instantly through the use of social media platforms.
Banking companies like Commonwealth Bank will have to use the updated digital technologies
to help the customers in making faster communications. Apparently, the Governments will have
to take care of this factor as well so they can get better feedbacks from citizens and meet public
demands all the more.

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References and Bibliography
Aichner, T., & Jacob, F. (2015). Measuring the degree of corporate social media
use. International Journal of Market Research, 57(2), 257-276.
Avery, E. J., & Graham, M. W. (2013). Political public relations and the promotion of
participatory, transparent government through social media. International Journal of
Strategic Communication, 7(4), 274-291.
Balestra, M., Gordon, E., & Baldwin-Philippi, J. (2013). Why We Engage: How Theories of
Human Behavior Contribute to Our Understanding of Civic Engagement in a Digital Era.
Retrieved from https://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2013/why_we_engage
Commbank.com.au. (2019). Personal banking including accounts, credit cards and home loans -
CommBank. Retrieved from https://www.commbank.com.au/
Ellison, N., & Hardey, M. (2014). Social media and local government: Citizenship, consumption
and democracy. Local Government Studies, 40(1), 21-40.
Gillespie, T., Boczkowski, P. J., & Foot, K. A. (Eds.). (2014). Media technologies: Essays on
communication, materiality, and society. MIT Press.
Hansen, A. (2018). Environment, media and communication. Routledge.
Jussila, J. J., Kärkkäinen, H., & Aramo-Immonen, H. (2014). Social media utilization in
business-to-business relationships of technology industry firms. Computers in Human
Behavior, 30, 606-613.

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Katz, J., & Halpern, D. (2013). Political and developmental correlates of social media
participation in government: A global survey of national leadership
websites. International Journal of Public Administration, 36(1), 1-15.
Linke, A., & Zerfass, A. (2013). Social media governance: regulatory frameworks for successful
online communications. Journal of Communication Management, 17(3), 270-286.
Macnamara, J., & Zerfass, A. (2012). Social media communication in organizations: The
challenges of balancing openness, strategy, and management. International Journal of
Strategic Communication, 6(4), 287-308.
Ngai, E. W., Tao, S. S., & Moon, K. K. (2015). Social media research: Theories, constructs, and
conceptual frameworks. International Journal of Information Management, 35(1), 33-44.
Papacharissi, Z. (2002). The virtual sphere: The internet as a public sphere. New media &
society, 4(1), 9-27.
Tiago, M. T. P. M. B., & Veríssimo, J. M. C. (2014). Digital marketing and social media: Why
bother?. Business horizons, 57(6), 703-708.
Von Lieres, B., & Piper, L. (2014). Mediated Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan.
Westerman, D., Spence, P. R., & Van Der Heide, B. (2014). Social media as information source:
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communication, 19(2), 171-183.