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.