PurposeThis paper considers the potential of social media for developing public services. The paper approaches social media as a context that can provide information that might otherwise be unattainable. The focus of analysis is on a special hard-to-reach group of marginalized youths who appear to have isolated themselves from society.Design/methodology/approachThe authors answer the question: How can the experiences of socially withdrawn youth as shared on social media be used to enrich the knowledge base relating to the initiation phase of co-creation of public services? The data retrieved from the Finnish discussion forum are analyzed using the combination of unsupervised machine learning and discourse analysis.FindingsThe paper contributes by outlining a method that can be applied to identify expertise-by-experience from digital stories shared by marginalized youths. To overcome the challenges of making socially withdrawn youths real contributors to the co-creation of public services, this paper suggests several theoretical and managerial implications.Originality/valueCo-creation assumes an interactive and dynamic relationship where value is created at the nexus of interaction. However, the evidence base for successful co-creation, particularly with digital technology, is limited. This paper fills the gap by providing findings from a case study that investigated how social media discussions can be a stimulus to enrich the knowledge base of the co-creation of public services.

Artikkelissa rakennetaan systemaattinen lähestymistapa sosiaalisen median keskustelujen tutkimukseen. Tarkastelemme artikkelissa puhujaposition käsitteen avulla lapsi- ja perhenäkökulman ilmenemistä korona-aiheisissa sosiaalisen median keskusteluissa maalis–huhtikuussa 2020. Tarkoitamme puhujapositiolla niitä tapoja, joilla keskustelijat rakentavat argumentointiaan, käyttävät retorisia keinoja ja muodostavat puheenvuoroja. Puhujapositiot ovat ihmisten itselleen joko tietoisesti tai tiedostamattomasti valitsemia tapoja osallistua keskusteluun. Aineistolähtöisen sisällönanalyysin tuloksena artikkelissa muodostetaan kaikkiaan yhdeksän puhujapositiota: ’riidanhaastaja’, ’ilveilijä’, ’arvostelija’, ’ahdistuja’, ’huolestuja’, ’laajentaja’, ’tietäjä’, ’selviytyjä’ ja ’auttaja’. Puhujapositiot kuvataan artikkelissa yleisön, median, päätöksentekijöiden ja tiedeyhteisön yhteisvaikutuksesta syntyvinä affektiivisina hybrideinä sosiaalisen median performansseina.

Co-creation assumes an interactive and dynamic relationship where value is created at the nexus of interaction. Co-creating value is challenging with marginalized youths. In this article, social media is seen as an underutilized resource for developing services. This article approaches social media as a context from which it is possible to derive information that would otherwise be unattainable. Using data from a Finnish discussion board, this article answers the following question: How can the experiences of socially withdrawn youth shared on social media be used to enrich the knowledge base on service co-creation processes? The empirical data consist of messages on the Hikikomero discussion forum, which were analysed using a combination of unsupervised machine learning and discourse analysis. The results show that social media provides a window into the everyday lives of socially withdrawn youths, offering information that could be used to develop public services