The use of Twitter to promote e–participation: connecting government and people. (1st January 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Al–Aama, Arwa Yousuf
• Is Part Of: International journal of Web based communities. Volume 11:Number 1(2015)
• Page Start: 73
• Page End: 96
• Publication Date: 2015-01-01
• Subjects: Twitter -- social media -- e–participation -- Saudi Arabia -- e–government -- citizen participation -- municipalities -- transparency -- e–democracy -- web based communities -- virtual communities -- online communities -- electronic participation -- online participation -- electronic government -- electronic democracy -- tweeting patterns -- tweet types -- tweet content -- follower reactions; Online social networks -- Periodicals; Social media -- Periodicals; World Wide Web -- Periodicals; 302.30285
• DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2015.067082
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1477-8394

Abstract

Twitter, the fastest growing social media tool, with its millions of users and being freely available and accessible, has become suitable for public organisations to communicate with stakeholders. Saudi Arabia has the largest percentage of online users using Twitter in the world. This paper discusses how Saudi municipalities use Twitter to communicate with citizens, by analysing tweeting patterns, tweet types, tweet content, follower reactions, and other statistics, in around 12, 000 tweets, which account for all tweets sent out from the ten main municipalities. Results show that municipalities send out nine different types of tweets, with project information and calls for action tweets causing the most user reactions. Although, these types are seldom used despite their importance in improving citizen participation. Other detailed statistics and correlations are discussed in the paper and recommendations on how to maximise benefits of Twitter as a successful e–participation tool are explained.