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· 3 · the crisis of listening in organizations and society Informed by the critical review of literature summarized in the previous chap- ters and concern expressed by a number of writers such as Couldry (2010), Coleman (2013a), Dobson (2014), Dreher (2009), and others in relation to specific areas of organization-public interaction, a research project was launched in 2013 that involved a two-year exploration of how, and the extent to which, organizations listen to their stakeholders and publics. The Organizational Listening Project The Organizational Listening Project was prompted in part by The Listen- ing Project (www.thelisteningproject.net), a research collaboration involving Australian and international media and cultural studies scholars that focussed attention to the importance of listening for social equity and representation of diversity in a series of events and publications produced between 2008 and 2011—albeit this project did not investigate organizational listening. More specifically, this research grew out of a 2012 study of how organizations are using social media. This found that the interactive features of Web 2.0–based social media are not being used in most cases and that, instead, most are using social media primarily for information transmission—a finding confirmed by 116 organizational listening many other studies before and since (Gibson & Cantijoch, 2011; Gibson, Williamson, & Ward, 2010; Macnamara, 2010, 2011, 2014a; Macnamara & Kenning, 2011, 2014; Macnamara & Zerfass, 2012; McCorkindale, 2010; Rosenstiel & Mitchell, 2012; Wright & Hinson, 2012). The research par- ticularly looked at social media use for engagement and public consultation (e-consultation) and found a lack of two-way interaction...