Mining government tweets to identify and predict citizens engagement

Siyam, Nur; Alqaryouti, Omar; Abdallah, Sherief

doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2019.101211

Cited by 47 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Another potential explanation is that hyperlinks direct people to another webpage, at which point they may forget about the original message. Second, in contrast with previous reports supporting the positive effect of media on public engagement [49][50][51][52], we found that the inclusion of multimedia content (eg, photographs and videos) was negatively associated with public engagement. This finding is similar to that of Chen et al [53], who also found that media richness was negatively associated with public engagement with government social media during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Section: Principal Findingscontrasting

confidence: 99%

The Saudi Ministry of Health’s Twitter Communication Strategies and Public Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Content Analysis Study

Alhassan¹,

AlDossary²

2021

JMIR Public Health Surveill

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Background During a public health crisis such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, governments and health authorities need quick and accurate methods of communicating with the public. While social media can serve as a useful tool for effective communication during disease outbreaks, few studies have elucidated how these platforms are used by the Ministry of Health (MOH) during disease outbreaks in Saudi Arabia. Objective Guided by the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication model, this study aimed to explore the MOH’s use of Twitter and the public’s engagement during different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia. Methods Tweets and corresponding likes and retweets were extracted from the official Twitter account of the MOH in Saudi Arabia for the period of January 1 through August 31, 2020. Tweets related to COVID-19 were identified; subsequently, content analysis was performed, in which tweets were coded for the following message types: risk messages, warnings, preparations, uncertainty reduction, efficacy, reassurance, and digital health responses. Public engagement was measured by examining the numbers of likes and retweets. The association between outbreak stages and types of messages was assessed, as well as the effect of these messages on public engagement. Results The MOH posted a total of 1393 original tweets during the study period. Of the total tweets, 1293 (92.82%) were related to COVID-19, and 1217 were ultimately included in the analysis. The MOH posted the majority of its tweets (65.89%) during the initial stage of the outbreak. Accordingly, the public showed the highest level of engagement (as indicated by numbers of likes and retweets) during the initial stage. The types of messages sent by the MOH significantly differed across outbreak stages, with messages related to uncertainty reduction, reassurance, and efficacy being prevalent among all stages. Tweet content, media type, and crisis stage influenced the level of public engagement. Engagement was negatively associated with the inclusion of hyperlinks and multimedia files, while higher level of public engagement was associated with the use of hashtags. Tweets related to warnings, uncertainty reduction, and reassurance received high levels of public engagement. Conclusions This study provides insights into the Saudi MOH’s communication strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results have implications for researchers, governments, health organizations, and practitioners with regard to their communication practices during outbreaks. To increase public engagement, governments and health authorities should consider the public’s need for information. This, in turn, could raise public awareness regarding disease outbreaks.

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Section: Principal Findingscontrasting

confidence: 99%

The Saudi Ministry of Health’s Twitter Communication Strategies and Public Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Content Analysis Study

Alhassan¹,

AlDossary²

2021

JMIR Public Health Surveill

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A recent study analyzed 85,000 posts content from 38 Swedish municipalities found that using integrating images and videos creates more citizen interaction and engagement (Baltz, 2020). This finding aligned with the finding of a study on Dubai's government in the United Arab Emirates use of Twitter to contact citizens that tweets containing videos and images generate greater citizen attention and engagement in terms of comments or retweets (Siyam et al, 2020). Another factor that would seem relevant to citizen engagement is posting at the right time to can bring the attention of citizens.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Unearthing citizens' acceptance factors for e‐participation initiatives through Facebook

Alarabiat

Wahbeh

2021

E J Info Sys Dev Countries

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This study aims to investigate the determinant factors for citizens' acceptance of e‐participation initiatives that are sponsored by local governments through Facebook. The study proposes a model integrating the task‐technology fit theory and technology acceptance model with two additional factors: perceived outcome and government truthfulness. A self‐developed questionnaire was designed, and the conceptual model proposed was tested by applying the structural equation modeling method to a sample of 414 citizens from Jordan using a random sampling technique. The results indicated that citizens' attitude was the strongest predictor of citizens' acceptance, followed by the perceived outcome. The results also revealed the importance of task‐technology fit and perceived usefulness in shaping and explaining citizens' attitudes, which further lead to citizens' acceptance. Government truthfulness had no direct effect on citizens' acceptance. However, it positively affected the perceived outcome. The study makes a valuable contribution to the existing body of e‐participation research as it contributes to recent efforts toward understanding the citizen perspective of e‐participation initiatives. This study heeds the call to enrich e‐participation via theoretical underpinnings, particularly via the behavioral science approach of information systems. The study followed this approach by understanding the impact of citizen's beliefs, technological capabilities and the expected outcome to predict citizens' acceptance behavior toward e‐participation. Finally, the study provides several recommendations to help local governments in their pursuit to increase citizen participation.

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“…Thus, data mining from social media platforms is based on the growing awareness of its ability to provide insight into public opinion, extract hidden information, and identify trends. In public health crises such as epidemics, social media can be used to investigate public awareness, attitudes, and reactions [ 29 ].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-Platform Comparative Study of Public Concern on Social Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Empirical Study Based on Twitter and Weibo

Deng

Yang

2021

IJERPH

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The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global health crisis that has affected economies and societies worldwide. During these times of uncertainty and crisis, people have turned to social media platforms as communication tools and primary information sources. Online discourse is conducted under the influence of many different factors, such as background, culture, politics, etc. However, parallel comparative research studies conducted in different countries to identify similarities and differences in online discourse are still scarce. In this study, we combine the crisis lifecycle and opinion leader concepts and use data mining and a set of predefined search terms (coronavirus and COVID-19) to investigate discourse on Twitter (101,271 tweets) and Sina Weibo (92,037 posts). Then, we use a topic modeling technique, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), to identify the most common issues posted by users and temporal analysis to research the issue’s trend. Social Network Analysis (SNA) allows us to discover the opinion leader on the two different platforms. Finally, we find that online discourse reflects the crisis lifecycle according to the stage of COVID-19 in China and the US. Regarding the status of the COVID-19 pandemic, users of Twitter tend to pay more attention to the economic situation while users of Weibo pay more attention to public health. The issues focused on in online discourse have a strong relationship with the development of the crisis in different countries. Additionally, on the Twitter platform many political actors act as opinion leaders, while on the Weibo platform official media and government accounts control the release of information.

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Mining government tweets to identify and predict citizens engagement

Cited by 47 publications

References 25 publications

The Saudi Ministry of Health’s Twitter Communication Strategies and Public Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Content Analysis Study

The Saudi Ministry of Health’s Twitter Communication Strategies and Public Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Content Analysis Study

Unearthing citizens' acceptance factors for e‐participation initiatives through Facebook

Cross-Platform Comparative Study of Public Concern on Social Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Empirical Study Based on Twitter and Weibo

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