This UK-based empirical study explores the role of social media in community engagement (CE) for a significant NHS hospital project, using a novel analytical perspective that is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The project’s land-use decisions taken unilaterally by the project sponsor sparked differing opinions and opposing views within the community about what constitutes sustainable development, as defined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) amid the Climate Crisis.
The study delves into the ‘moral imperative’ of the Climate Crisis (as an existential crisis that is particularly pronounced as a cause of ‘eco-anxiety’ within Generation Z) and critiques the underlying stakeholder theory that currently dominates CE activities as typically employed by public sector sponsors in the UK. It highlights the strategic and sophisticated tactical use of social media in escalating disputes by climate change activists, prominent amongst others, that caused significant and unanticipated delays and costly disruption to the progress of the project.
By analysing publicly available social media practices, it aims to promote a deeper understanding of the actuality of the social interactions that take place during CE activities at the front end of such projects that we argue could be used to pre-empt similar future CE challenges by avoiding or at least mitigating the risk of prolonged and corrosive stakeholder and wider intercommunity conflicts and costly delays being incurred.
The study suggests that this fresh analytical perspective can enhance the delivery of crucial UK (and beyond) infrastructure projects (e.g. schools, flood defences, land-based wind farms, hospitals, water reservoirs, and transport systems, amongst others) that involve contentious land-use decisions about what sustainable development constitutes.
