Municipal Government Use of Social Media: An Analysis of Three Chinese Cities

Abstract

To investigate the use of information dissemination and public communication by Chinese municipal governments, we analyzed the social media use of three large cities with relatively mature social media development: Shanghai, Nanjing and Chengdu. We collected 4,429 government posts and users' likes, shares and comments from Weibo accounts of each city's information office. Government posts were coded into 7 types and 16 topics. We used cross-tabulation, correlation analysis and multivariate linear regression to analyze government posts, user responses and their inter-relationships. Chengdu issued the most posts; Nanjing received the highest average user response to posts and exhibited the best signs of success in communication between the government and citizens. IntroductionThe emergence of social media has triggered a change in communication with a considerable impact on developing countries such as China. At present, social media have become one of the most important sources of information for many Chinese, especially young people, and also a new channel of communication for government information disclosure, image construction, and public dialogue.Among the first and still most important social media channels to appear in China is Weibo. By the end of 2018, Weibo's users have exceeded 350 million, an increase of 10.9% over the previous year, and the usage rate by Internet users has reached 42.3%. The Chinese government opened an account on Weibo at the end of 2009. So far, it has developed more than 130,000 certified Weibo government channels, involving national, provincial, municipal and county  *This work was also supported by the China Scholarship Council and CTG, University at Albany, SUNY.

Social media for government information dissemination: content, characteristics and civic engagement

“…Previous studies conducted in Israel used this method to examine information distribution and presentation on social media by political leaders and parties (Bar-Ilan et al , 2015; Bronstein et al , 2018) and local governments (Lev-On and Steinfeld, 2015). As it was presented earlier, similar studies have focused on the relationship between government authorities and social media (Chen et al , 2020; Gintova, 2019; Gu et al , 2020; Lovari and Bowen, 2020; Silva et al , 2019). One prominent aspect of research in this field focused on government ministries' use of these online technologies to disseminate information and strengthen their ties with citizens (Bellström et al , 2016; DePaula et al , 2018).…”

“…For example, a study conducted in Greece found that government ministries are using social media as a tool to disseminate messages that have informative value for citizens concerning services, programs and activities (Lappas et al , 2018). However, findings of a similar analysis conducted by Gu and colleagues (Gu et al , 2020) on the social media activity of three large municipal authorities in China showed that the government usually provides information concerning instructions, behavioral guidance, values and publicity that contains a favorable display of the authority. Interestingly, information about government's work and transparency was the least frequently published by all authorities in this study (Gu et al , 2020).…”

“…However, findings of a similar analysis conducted by Gu and colleagues (Gu et al , 2020) on the social media activity of three large municipal authorities in China showed that the government usually provides information concerning instructions, behavioral guidance, values and publicity that contains a favorable display of the authority. Interestingly, information about government's work and transparency was the least frequently published by all authorities in this study (Gu et al , 2020). The types of messages might be important, but there is also great importance to the media types used (Bonsón et al , 2019).…”

Information under lockdown: A content analysis of government communication strategies on Facebook during the COVID-19 outbreak

“…For example, a content analysis conducted among three large municipal authorities in China examined 4429 different posts by government bodies on social media while identifying seven main categories of government content: Publicity, guidance, information disclosure regarding government affairs, reminders, announcements, citizens interaction, and others [ 18 ]. Similarly, DePaula and his colleagues [ 19 , 20 ] priorly implemented this method of analysis on publications of government bodies throughout the United States and suggested different categories of government content: Information provision, input seeking, online dialogue/off-line interaction, symbolic presentation and marketing and changed accordingly to the government's goals.…”

Investigating social media spatiotemporal transferability for transport

“…On another perspective, social media have also been used mainly from transport providers, for the direct communication that their platform allow with the end users (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2021). Such usages are oriented towards public engagement (Gu et al, 2020;Williamson and Ruming, 2020;Haro-de Rosario et al, 2018;DePaula et al, 2018;Bons on et al, 2019) and for information sharing (Bokings et al, 2020;Purnomo et al, 2021;Georgiadis et al, 2020;Manetti et al, 2017;Gal-Tzur et al, 2014).…”