Strategic use of Twitter in Local Government - A Northern Ireland Study

Tiago Picão, Fiona McMahon, Valerie Purchase, Maurice Mulvenna

2013

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a survey of Twitter usage in Northern Ireland’s twenty-six councils. The data was gathered in Summer 2012. The research questions were developed from a review of the literature on use of social media by government and focused on the role of social media as a communication channel to local government, examining the dialogue between government and citizen and the sentiment of such dialogue. The results show significant heterogeneity in Twitter use amongst the councils; with many not engaging at all, while a small number were highly engaged with their citizens. Regardless of the perspectives of the councils, there was evidence that there was a demand from the citizens for conversations that was not being met by the councils. The paper recommends that councils need to define a social media strategy in order to maximise the use of social media, but reflects that the councils should find it easy to engage with citizens by simply asking them via Twitter.

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Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Picão T., McMahon F., Purchase V. and Mulvenna M. (2013). Strategic use of Twitter in Local Government - A Northern Ireland Study . In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Data Communication Networking, 10th International Conference on e-Business and 4th International Conference on Optical Communication Systems - Volume 1: ICE-B, (ICETE 2013) ISBN 978-989-8565-72-3, pages 249-255. DOI: 10.5220/0004499002490255


in Bibtex Style

@conference{ice-b13,
author={Tiago Picão and Fiona McMahon and Valerie Purchase and Maurice Mulvenna},
title={Strategic use of Twitter in Local Government - A Northern Ireland Study},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Data Communication Networking, 10th International Conference on e-Business and 4th International Conference on Optical Communication Systems - Volume 1: ICE-B, (ICETE 2013)},
year={2013},
pages={249-255},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004499002490255},
isbn={978-989-8565-72-3},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Data Communication Networking, 10th International Conference on e-Business and 4th International Conference on Optical Communication Systems - Volume 1: ICE-B, (ICETE 2013)
TI - Strategic use of Twitter in Local Government - A Northern Ireland Study
SN - 978-989-8565-72-3
AU - Picão T.
AU - McMahon F.
AU - Purchase V.
AU - Mulvenna M.
PY - 2013
SP - 249
EP - 255
DO - 10.5220/0004499002490255