The use of Twitter to promote e-participation: connecting government and people
by Arwa Yousuf Al-Aama
International Journal of Web Based Communities (IJWBC), Vol. 11, No. 1, 2015

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.

Online publication date: Mon, 26-Jan-2015

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Web Based Communities (IJWBC):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

    Username:        Password:         

Forgotten your password?


Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com