Exploring repost features of police-generated microblogs through topic and sentiment analysis

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to explore the repost features of microblogs acting to promote the information diffusion of government-generated content on social media. Design/methodology/approach This study proposes a topic−sentiment analysis using a mixed social media analytics framework to analyse the microblogs collected from the Sina Weibo accounts of 30 Chinese provincial police departments. On the basis of this analysis, this study presents the distribution of reposted microblogs and reveals the reposting characteristics of police-generated microblogs (PGMs). Findings The experimental results indicate that children’s safety and crime-related PGMs with a positive sentiment can achieve a high level of online information diffusion. Originality/value This study is novel, as it reveals the reposting features of PGMs from both a topic and sentiment perspectives, and provides new findings that can inspire users’ reposting behaviour.

Unpacking the black box: How to promote citizen engagement through government social media during the COVID-19 crisis

“…Secondly, scholars have extensively studied the influences of content type (Bhattacharya et al, 2017;Bons� on et al, 2015Bons� on et al, , 2019; Bons� on & Bedn� arov� a, 2018; Lee & Xu, 2018;Rahim et al, 2019;Tang et al, 2019), multimedia feature (Bhattacharya et al, 2017;Bons� on et al, 2015Bons� on et al, , 2019Lee & Xu, 2018;Rahim et al, 2019), emotions (Bhattacharya et al, 2017;Haro-de-Rosario, S� aez-Martín, & delCarmen Caba-P� erez, 2018;Tang et al, 2019;Zavattaro et al, 2015), del Mar G� alvez-Rodríguez et al, 2018;Haro-de-Rosario et al, 2018) on CEGSM. Only one study by del Mar G� alvez-Rodríguez et al (2018) employed the DCT to investigate citizen engagement through the Facebook accounts of local Latin American governments; their results confirmed that the generation of new visits, dialogic loop and information of interest to stakeholders, which belongs to the principles of DCT, promotes citizen engagement (the weighted statistics of likes, shares, comments and posts).…”

“…Zavattaro et al (2015) indicated that government agencies like to release posts with positive emotions to encourage citizen engagement, and that citizens prefer to interact with government Twitter accounts which deliver posts containing positive emotion. Tang et al (2019) analyzed 97,205 records from 30 provincial police micro-blogs and found that content with positive emotions was more likely to be shared, while posts containing negative emotions decreased the amount of sharing. Xu and Zhang (2018) demonstrated that tweets with positive emotions can increase the level of retweets, but content showing anger reduced those retweets.…”

“…Social media research by public relations scholars has shown that the principles of dialogue communication are important determinants for online communication effects (del Mar G� alvez-Rodríguez, S� aez-Martín, García-Tabuyo, & Caba-P� erez, 2018;. Previous studies on CEGSM have demonstrated that content types, multimedia features, and emotions, significantly affect citizen engagement, although with varying results (Bhattacharya, Srinivasan, & Polgreen, 2017;Bons� on et al, 2019;Lee & Xu, 2018;Rahim et al, 2019;Tang, Li, Gu, & Tan, 2019;Zavattaro, French, & Mohanty, 2015). This study employs Media Richness Theory (MRT) and Dialogic Communication Theory (DCT) to investigate the effects of media richness, dialogic loop, and content type, on Chinese citizens' engagement on the social media account of the National Health Commission of China (NHCC) during the COVID-19 crisis.…”

Factors Driving Citizen Engagement With Government TikTok Accounts During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Model Development and Analysis

“…However, few studies have investigated the moderating effect of emotional valence [ 33 ]. Tang et al [ 34 ] studied the official Sina Weibo accounts of 30 provincial police departments in China and identified that emotional valence moderated the influence of content type on reposting behavior. Child-friendly content with positive emotion increased reposting the most.…”

Factors Driving Citizen Engagement With Government TikTok Accounts During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Model Development and Analysis (Preprint)

“…However, few studies have investigated the moderating effect of emotional valence [33]. Tang et al [34] studied the official Sina Weibo accounts of 30 provincial police departments in China and identified that emotional valence moderated the influence of content type on reposting behavior. Child-friendly content with positive emotion increased reposting the most.…”