Social media adoption in the police: Barriers and strategies

Public organizations often face numerous barriers when it comes to adopting and using social media to communicate and engage with the broader public. This research aims to better understand how barriers to social media adoption can be tackled by zooming in on one specific type of organization: the police. Our research answers the following question: to what effect do police forces manage barriers to the adoption of social media with social media policies? Firstly, by systematically reviewing previous studies using a typology of barriers to ICT adoption, this study identifies the types of barriers that the police are often faced with. Secondly, by qualitatively analyzing two frontrunner cases, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, this study analyzes how social media policies address and can help overcome these barriers. The empirical analysis indicates that in addressing barriers to social media adoption, a combination of exploration and exploitation is needed to address both structural and cultural barriers to social media adoption. We argue that this fits an approach of the ‘perpetual beta’: ongoing technological innovation requires organization capacity to continuously adapt to socio-technical change.     

Social media in public health care: Impact domain propositions

This paper investigates the impacts of social media use in Danish public health care with respect to capabilities, interactions, orientations, and value distribution. Taking an exploratory approach, the paper draws on an array of quantitative and qualitative data, and puts forward four propositions: social media transform the access to health-related information for patients and general practitioners, the uptake of social media can be a cost driver rather than a cost saver, social media provide empowerment to patients, and the uptake of social media is hindered by legal and privacy concerns.     

Social media affordances in the context of police transparency: An analysis of the first public archive of police body camera videos

As more police departments adopt body cameras (BCs), there is a hope that the devices will help usher in a new era of police accountability. Turning to the first online archive of BC footage, this article examines the emergent possibilities and problems that arise when human actors interact with technical designs in applied contexts. Communication affordance theory is used as a framework to situate the archive within discussions about police use of social media, visibility, transparency, and police–community relations. A web application using YouTube’s public API was used to analyze the usage and interaction statistics of the archive. Then, a focus group was conducted to discuss the usability of the archive and its benefits and drawbacks for police–community relations. Findings show that despite the visibility of social media, the videos have low view counts, little interaction, are not easily searchable, and raise more questions about police–community relations than they answer.     

Social media in Chinese government: Drivers,challenges and capabilities

By the end of 2012, Chinese microblogging accounts had reached 309 million. Among them, over 176,000 accounts were opened and managed by Chinese government agencies, as new channels to disclose government information provide public services and interact with citizens. This study investigates the external drivers and challenges that Chinese government agencies are faced with and the internal capabilities of Chinese government agencies in using social media. The study further discusses the relationship and dynamics between the external environment and internal capabilities of Chinese government agencies in using social media. Based on the findings, the paper provides some recommendations to government agencies in China and other countries faced with similar challenges.     

Social media,legacy media and gatekeeping: the protest paradigm in news of Ferguson and Charlottesville

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the site of intersection between legacy and social media, whereby it asks how local legacy media (St Louis Post-Dispatch and Richmond Times-Dispatch) invoked social media (Facebook and Twitter) discourse within their coverage of the Ferguson (2014) and Charlottesville (2017) events. It thus explores how gatekeeping is manifested and, consequently, how the protest paradigm emerged in a news landscape of proliferating social media. Thematic textual analysis indicates that coverage of Charlottesville and Ferguson clearly relied on indulging the social media sphere in important ways. Common themes of social media as multipurpose platforms, as interfacing with law and order, and as reconciling material and digital modes culminating in social activism were revealed. The study shows that the protest paradigm that has long characterized legacy media’s coverage of social protest is not as “pure” as it may once have been, since a social media component is helping define the contours and content of legacy media’s landscape.     

Social media use in the U.S. Executive branch

In 2009, the Obama administration issued the Open Government Initiative that directed Executive agencies to improve transparency, openness in government, and public participation with government. The Obama administration views transparency and openness in government as a cost-effective and efficient process capable of improving public participation with government and public access to government information. To address the initiative in part, many agencies adopt social media as the means to disseminate information out to the public and to increase public participation with agency website content and activities. This exploratory study examines Executive agency use of social media and public participation with the media. Findings indicate that most agencies reviewed do use social media. The public does interact with the media and some agencies experience high overall participation levels; however, there are some issues with agency use of social media and public participation with the media.     

Local e-government 2.0: Social media and corporate transparency in municipalities

Various authors have highlighted the potential contribution of the internet to enhance the interactivity, transparency, and openness of public sector entities and to promote new forms of accountability. The search for new styles of governance which promote higher levels of transparency and the engagement of citizens is viewed as a way of improving citizens' trust in governments. As the social media are becoming ubiquitous, both academics and practitioners need some initial and reliable background data about the deployment of this kind of technology at all levels. The aim of this work is to provide an overall view about the use of Web 2.0 and social media tools in EU local governments in order to determine whether local governments are using these technologies to increase transparency and e-participation, opening a real corporate dialog. In addition, the paper tries to identify which factors promote the level of development of these tools at local level. Our results show that most local governments are using Web 2.0 and social media tools to enhance transparency but, in general, the concept of corporate dialog and the use of Web 2.0 to promote e-participation are still in their infancy at the local level.     

Social media communication strategies of government agencies: Twitter use in Korea and the USA

This study examines Twitter use by the central government in Korea and the federal government in the USA by employing the webometric technique to extract their Twitter activity (basic Twitter statistics such as the numbers of followers, followings, and Tweets) and the social network analysis technique to map the relationship between their Twitter accounts and the direction of outlinks in their Tweets. The results of the initial analysis indicate some differences in Twitter strategies between the two governments. For example, Korean ministries were well connected through a dense network, engaged in collective cooperation, and retweeted common content to reinforce their collective agendas regardless of their main administrative functions, whereas US government departments were less collective and more individualistic and retweeted those messages that specifically fit the purpose of each department. In addition, the results for outlinks indicate that US government departments preferred private sources of information, whereas Korean ministries, government sources.     

Social media use by government: From the routine to the critical

Social media and online services with user-generated content (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube) have made a staggering amount of information (and misinformation) available. Government officials seek to leverage these resources to improve services and communication with citizens. Significant potential exists to identify issues in real time, so emergency managers can monitor and respond to issues concerning public safety. Yet, the sheer volume of social data streams generates substantial noise that must be filtered in order to detect meaningful patterns and trends. Important events can then be identified as spikes in activity, while event meaning and consequences can be deciphered by tracking changes in content and public sentiment. This paper presents findings from a exploratory study we conducted between June and December 2010 with government officials in Arlington, VA (and the greater National Capitol Region around Washington, D.C.), with the broad goal of understanding social media use by government officials as well as community organizations, businesses, and the public at large. A key objective was also to understand social media use specifically for managing crisis situations from the routine (e.g., traffic, weather crises) to the critical (e.g., earthquakes, floods).     

Understanding risks,benefits, and strategic alternatives of social media applications in the public sector

Social media such as blogs, microblogs or electronic social networks can transform the ways in which we relate to other people and organizations. Government organizations are experimenting with social media to communicate with their constituents, and many analysts see in these media a powerful set of tools to reinvent government–citizen relationships. In this paper, we present the perceptions of risks, benefits and strategic guidelines about social media applications gathered from 250 public servants from Central Mexico, most of them working in information technology, as web masters or responding to Freedom of Information Act requests. The conclusions of the analysis are 1) that governments' participation in social media may result in improved communication and citizen participation, more transparency, and transfer of best practices among government agencies; 2) that a good implementation strategy is necessary to realize these benefits and to avoid risks; and 3) that the implementation of social media highlights the importance of updating laws and regulations, and of promoting changes in government culture and organizational practices.     

Social media campaigns,electoral momentum,and vote shares: evidence from the 2016 Hong Kong Legislative Council election

By studying candidates’ Facebook fan pages and rolling poll data during the Hong Kong Legislative Council election in 2016, this article aims at examining the relationships between candidates’ campaign performance on social media, electoral momentum, and vote shares. We contend that, under specific contextual conditions, social media campaigns could affect candidates’ momentum during the election period, which can in turn affect vote shares. We also examine how the relationships between social media performance and electoral momentum vary according to the candidates’ background characteristics, including age, political affiliation, incumbency status, and scale of the campaign of the political group to which the candidates belong. The results show that candidates’ social media performance can indeed predict vote shares indirectly via the mediation of electoral momentum. The predictive power of social media performance is stronger for pro-democracy candidates, incumbents, and candidates belonging to political groups with larger election campaigns.     

Social media adoption and resulting tactics in the U.S. federal government

In 2009, the departments in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government received the presidential marching order to “harness new technologies” in order to become more transparent, collaborative and participatory. Given this mandate, this article sets out to provide insights from qualitative interviews with social media directors to understand the factors that influence internal adoption decisions to use social media applications, such as Facebook, Twitter, or blogs. Three distinct factors influence the adoption decisions of social media directors: information about best practices in their informal network of peers, passive observations of perceived best practices in the public and private sector, and “market-driven” citizen behavior. The resulting adoption tactics include: (1) representation, (2) engagement, and (3) networking. The findings point to the need for higher degrees of formalized knowledge sharing when it comes to disruptive technology innovations such as social media use in highly bureaucratic communication environments. Recommendations based on the lessons learned are provided for practitioners and social media researchers to develop social media tactics for different organizational purposes in government.     

Understanding government social media users: an analysis of interactions on Immigration,Refugees and Citizenship Canada Twitter and Facebook

Social media is being adopted at a rapid pace by governments around world and across different levels of government. In Canada, federal, provincial and municipal governments created social media accounts in 2000s and are now using them to interact with the public. Studies to date, however, focus primarily on social media strategies and practices of government agencies while government social media users' behaviors and perspectives remain understudied. This study analyzes experiences of government social media users and how they interact on Twitter and Facebook accounts maintained by a Canadian federal government agency – Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). It also explores why users chose to interact on social media as well as their perspectives. The findings suggest that Canadian immigration agencies are using social media as a customer services tool, and migrant social media users are turning to government social media to hear directly from the government agencies and are expecting personalized answers.     

Social capital and relationship maintenance: uses of social media among the South Asian Diaspora in the U.S.

This study uses the framework of bridging and bonding social capital to explore how South Asian immigrants to the U.S. negotiate relationships amongst three social groups: their ties in their home country, their ties to Americans, and their ties to other South Asian immigrants living in the U.S. In so doing, it develops a model for immigrant social media use that contributes to an ongoing reassessment of the notion of community.     

Social media in Egyptian government websites: Presence,usage, and effectiveness

This paper examines the presence, usage, and effectiveness of Egyptian government social media websites. The adoption of social media technology provides an illustration of the application of New Public Service (NPS) theory to public administration. The first phase of this study examined the presence of social media applications on these government websites. The second phase analyzed the use of Facebook by governmental entities in Egypt. The use of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were the top social media applications in Egyptian government websites, which is consistent with other government surveys of social media found in developed countries. In terms of effectiveness of these social media websites, they were used mainly to post information, with very little two-way interaction between citizens and government. The analysis in this paper shows that social media in Egypt is not much in line with the NPS theory.     

Social media use in local government: Linkage of technology,task, and organizational context

Social media technologies have begun to enter the governmental workplace as tools to accomplish improved public service and engagement. Widespread recognition of the potential of social media technology for achieving public outcomes does not match our understanding about how and why specific tools are being used for specific purposes. This paper makes use of newly collected national survey data from local government managers in five different agencies to address the questions: which social media tools are being used, for which tasks or purposes; and what organizational characteristics influence the coupling of task and technology. Findings reveal patterns of social media tool application for particular purposes, although organizations do not all use social media tools in the same way. Moreover, regression analysis shows that different organizational factors – work characteristics, innovativeness, technology and management capacity and stakeholder influence – predict each of the four technology–task couplings — social media for dissemination, social media for feedback on service quality, social media for participation, and social media for internal work collaboration. This study demonstrates that social media tools are not a monolithic group and calls for greater research attention to the complex interactions among social media technology, task and organizational context.     

以学术工作坊推进临床医学类期刊与临床科室合作办刊模式探索——以《中华创伤骨科杂志》为例

针对我国临床医学类期刊实现真正意义上"专家办刊"的现实困难,探讨通过成立学术工作坊实现临床医学类期刊与临床科室合作办刊的模式及效果.模式包括:重点学术工作坊策划、组织重点刊;共同举办学术活动,进行学术交流及技术扶持;学术工作坊负责扩大杂志的征订及广告业务,并享有稿件"快速通道"等权利.通过合作办刊取得了以下效果:提高了期刊的学术质量;扩大了期刊的影响力,取得了良好的社会效益和经济效益;对基层骨科进行学术扶持、技术支援,承担了科技期刊的社会责任;提升了学术工作坊在当地乃至全国的影响力.     

How China-based foreign reporters' aggressiveness changed: The honeymoon effect of the Chinese government's media relations strategies

This study analyzes how the aggressiveness of China-based foreign reporters when questioning Chinese officials changed as a function of the macrolevel international media relations strategies of the Chinese government. Over the past decade, the Chinese government has increasingly relaxed regulatory policies for foreign reporters and gained knowledge of modern public relations, particularly media relations. This study found that the level of foreign reporters' aggressiveness did not decrease in a linear fashion but rather displayed a ‘V’ shape. Implications for future initiatives by the Chinese government regarding foreign reporters are also discussed.     

ICT与社会资本研究的现状与未来趋势——正反两派学者的研究成果与困境

本研究试图从过往研究成果中厘清ICT与社会资本之间的关系。尽管过去,国际学术界在ICT和社会资本研究领域已经产出了不少重要成果,但该领域仍然处于研究的初级阶段,研究者还需要借助不同的研究视角及研究方法从整体上解释ICT和社会资本之间的互动机制。     

网络传播与认知风险:社交媒体环境下的风险信息搜索行为研究

在风险社会中,科技的发展不仅是衡量现代性的核心要素,同时也是催生不确定性的重要原因。社交媒体的发展很大程度改变了风险传播的景观,使得风险认知和媒介信息之间的关系更加复杂。本研究采用问卷调查法对临近核电站建设区域社交媒体用户进行调查,旨在探讨社交媒体环境下的信息对受众风险信息搜索行为的影响。本研究采用结构方程模型的分析方法,从社会认知理论出发考察社交媒体环境中信息的质量对受众反应的作用过程。结果显示信息质量可以通过影响用户的风险认知、风险知识水平和自我效能三个变量影响其风险信息搜索行为,从而证明社交媒体所构建的信息环境会显著作用于人们对于风险的认知和行为反应。本研究的发现期待可以为风险传播中的有效公众沟通策略以及线上风险信息管理提供参考。