Twitter in local government: A study of Greater London authorities (original) (raw)
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Twitter in Local Government Pre-ICIS eGov workshop 2011
Microblogging services are considered an emerging opportunity for authorities seeking to establish new communication channels with their public. Potential benefits evolve around enhancing transparency and interactivity, as well as sharing information regularly or during emergency events. The purpose of this exploratory study is to advance our empirical understanding of microblogging in local government. In particular, we reflect on online data collected to profile the use of Twitter by 29 Greater London local authorities (LAs). The study shows that London LAs have been accumulating significant experience with Twitter mainly over the past two years. In fact, many of them appear to incorporate conversational characteristics in their Tweets other than simply disseminating information. Furthermore, an analysis of Tweets during the August 2011 riots in England indicates the usefulness of the medium for responsibly informing the public and preventing rumours. Nevertheless, the study also identifies several points of improvement in the way public authorities are building their online networks; for example, in terms of connecting with each other and exploiting even more the conversational characteristics of Twitter.
An overview study of Twitter in the UK local government
Microblogging applications are becoming a momentous element of the public sector social media agenda. The potential of Twitter to update the public with frequent, concise and real-time content has motivated many pubic authorities to create their accounts, thus generating an interesting topic for research. This paper seeks to make an empirical and methodological contribution to this new body of knowledge by presenting an overview study of general Twitter accounts maintained by UK local government authorities. Over 296,000 tweets were collected from the 187officially listed local government accounts. The analysis was conducted in two stages: an examination of the Twitter networks developed by the accounts was followed by a structural analysis of the tweets. The combination of online research and social media analytics techniques enabled us to reach important conclusions about the use of Twitter by those authorities. The findings indicate high level of maturity of Twitter in the UK local government and point to several directions for further increasing the impact and visibility of those accounts within a social media strategy.
Reflections on UK Local Government Challenges in the use of Twitter as a Communications Channel
Over the previous five years local government agencies have begun to use social media networks (such as Twitter) as mechanisms to promote engagement with local citizens. However, as identified in previous research there can be substantial challenges in relation to the use of these spaces to encourage bi-directional conversation and engagement. This paper provides a critical perspective on the challenges presented in the results of a focused research project on governmental communication through Twitter over a three month period from October to December 2011 and a one month period in August 2013. The research presented in this paper, contributes to the growing number of research papers related to the effective use of social media platforms in governmental, organisational and other community spaces. It is clear that as service provision develops, a growing maturity of usage is enabling councils to further develop their understanding of what is good practice in communicating through so...
"5 Days in August" – How London Local Authorities Used Twitter during the 2011 Riots
This study examines effects of microblogging communications during emergency events based on the case of the summer 2011 riots in London. During five days in August 2011, parts of London and other major cities in England suffered from extensive public disorders, violence and even loss of human lives. We collected and analysed the tweets posted by the official accounts maintained by 28 London local government authorities. Those authorities used Twitter for a variety of purposes such as preventing rumours, providing official information, promoting legal actions against offenders and organising post-riot community engagement activities. The study shows how the immediacy and communicative power of microblogging can have a significant effect at the response and recovery stages of emergency events.
Citizen-government collaboration on social media: the case of Twitter in the 2011 riots in England
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How social media can enable opportunities for collaboration between citizens and governments is an evolving issue in theory and practice. This paper examines the dynamic aspects of collaboration in the context of the 2011 riots in England. In August 2011, parts of London and other cities in England suffered from extensive disorder and even loss of human lives. Based on a dataset of 1746 posts by 81 local government Twitter accounts during or shortly after the riots, we explore how local authorities attempted to reduce the effects of the riots and support community recovery. Using Twitter's conversational and rapid update features, they produced a variety of informational and actionable messages with clear calls for offline or online action. In some cases, collective against the riots evolved in a mutual way: not only citizens were mobilized by local authorities, but also local authorities actively promoted actions initiated by citizens.
Authorities don't tweet, employees do!
The research presented in this paper explores government authorities' use of social media. An exploratory approach has been used to identify characteristics of online interactions over an extended period of time. The data consists of communications and interactions of Twitter accounts belonging to a multitude of Swedish government authorities, ranging from top-level accounts of formal agencies, to accounts belonging to employees stating a formal position at a government agency. The findings show that there is a large diversity in the characteristics of government accounts. The focus of the paper is to presents an account type typology that represents government authorities presence on social media services. The authors believes that acknowledging these differences are an important step in theorizing the role of social media in crisis communication and for future research on social media use in emergency and crisis management practices.
The use of twitter by mayors in Turkey: Tweets for better public services?
The use of twitter by mayors in Turkey: Tweets for better public services?, 2013
"This article aims to provide an overall picture of the use of Twitter as a significant social media tool by mayors in Turkey and to investigate using content analysis and tweet categorization, whether Twitter is used by mayors in Turkey to offer better public services. Thus, this study focuses on the impact of Twitter in Turkey on transparent, participatory and citizen-oriented local public services. Our analysis has revealed that mayors in Turkey use Twitter especially to share information, send personal messages and share their location and activities. The use of Twitter for transparent, participatory and citizen-oriented public service delivery is not common among mayors.Twitterisadoptedandusedbymayorsmostlyforthepurposesofself-promotionandpoliticalmarketing in Turkey. "
Using survey data collected from 463 local government officials from municipalities across the United States, this study examines the use of social media tools by local governments and their perceptions of social media use by their citizenry. It specifically addresses how social media are used as public relations functions to serve democratic, participatory, and transparency models across a range of government contexts. Results indicate that social media are somewhat underutilized by local governments, with about a 70% overall use rate. Perceived importance of social media predicted actual use; however, it was disappointing to find that these officials' perceptions of whether or not their citizens expected them to use social media did not predict use. Facebook and Twitter were the most commonly used tools; the vast majority of posts and tweets they write are about special events. Well over one-third used at least one research or conferencing social meia tool. Implications and im...