Closing the Citizen-Government Communication Gap: Content, Audience, and Network Analysis of Government Tweets

Abstract

Abstract:A key task in emergency management is the timely dissemination of information to decision makers across different scales of operations, particularly to individual citizens. Incidents over the past decade highlight communication gaps between government and constituents that have led to suboptimal outcomes. Social media can provide valuable tools to reduce those gaps. This article contributes to the existing literature on social media use by empirically demonstrating how and to what extent state-level emergency management agencies employ social media to increase public participation and promote behavioral changes intended to reduce household and community risk. Research to this point has empirically examined only response and recovery phases related to this process. This article addresses each phase of emergency management through the analysis of Twitter messages posted over a 3-month period. Our research demonstrates that while most messages conformed to traditional one-to-many government communication tactics, a number of agencies employed interactive approaches including one-to-one and many-to-many strategies.

Government Social Media Messages across Disaster Phases

“…While these requests are not limited to response operations, Wukich et al. () reported a relatively low number of requests in their study of US‐based agencies across all phases. Furthermore, two‐way message strategies, in general, appear to be used infrequently across both the United States (Su et al., ) and Europe (Reuter et al., ).…”

“…Despite its growing popularity, however, not all emergency managers use social media (see Helsloot & Groenendaal, ; Hunt, Smith, Hamerton & Sargisson, ; Su, Wardell & Thorkildsen, ) and those who do demonstrate varied preferences ranging from one‐way messages to two‐way and multiway communication strategies (Mergel, ; Reuter et al., ; Wukich et al., ). Government agencies face challenges in using social media to improve the effectiveness of their communication strategies.…”

“…Wukich et al. () documented a set of messaging strategies in which agencies sought to directly engage the public and other agencies; those strategies reject one‐way communication modes and instead seek out two‐way and multiway interactions. Crowdsourcing, a practice in which government agencies request public input to solve a problem (see Brabham, ), and other resource‐seeking requests represent key examples.…”

“…Wukich et al. () reported that over a third of the government agency messages that they analysed pertained to prevention, mitigation and preparedness. Most were one‐way, education‐related messages that promoted household risk reduction.…”

“…While practitioner‐based training resources acknowledge this fact (CDC, ; FEMA, ), the academic literature largely omits the diversity of messages generated outside of large‐scale response operations. Furthermore, while researchers and practitioners prescribe interactive tactics to engage citizens in conversations and coordinated action to reduce risk (Crowe, ; Dufty, ; Sievers, ; Veil, Buehner & Palenchar, ), limited research exists that systematically addresses the extent to which emergency managers adopt and use these approaches (Atkinson & Wald, ; St. Denis, Hughes & Palen, ; Wukich & Mergel, ; Reuter, Ludwig, Kaufhold & Spielhofer, ).…”