Social Media Use in Public Sector: A comparative study of Korean and US government agencies

Authors: Gohar Feroz Khan, Ho Young Yoon, Han Woo Park

Prepared for: ATHS panel during the 8th International Conference on Webometrics, Informatics and Scientometrics & 13th COLLNET Meeting, 23-26 October 2012, Seoul,South Korea

Presenter: Gohar Feroz Khan School of Industrial Management

Korea University of Technology & Education (KoreaTECH), 1600 Chungjol-ro Byungcheon-myunCheonan city, 330-708, South Korea

Gohar.feroz@gmail.com /gohar.feroz@kut.ac.kr

Table of Contents

IntroductionWeb 2.0 & Social MediaS-government

Cultural PerspectiveResearch QuestionMethodResultsDiscussion

Introduction

Social Media Based on Web 2.0 Concept

Helps to maintain social and professional

ties e.g., Facebook and LinkedIn

facilitate knowledge sharing e.g., Wikipedia and blogs

create awareness e.g., Twitter

Social Media & Web 2.0

Web 1.0

Web 2.0

Social Media

SNS, blogs, wikis

One way communication

Enforce Two way communication

Enforce social context

(Khan, working paper)

All SNS are web 2.0, but not all web 2.0 are SNS!

ICT based government full picture

Traditional Government

E-Government

M-governmentGovernment 2.0

S-government

Paper-Based

Static ICTs & Web 1.0 Based

Web 2.0 & Social Media Based

Mobile ICTs Based

Khan, working paper

Why S-government?

S-government

Participative

Collaborative

Low Cost/

Convenience

Greater Transparency

Social Government studies

Many studies in mono-cultural settingsthe U.S. (Golbeck et al., 2010; Whalen, 2012)Korea (Cho & Park, 2012) and the Netherlands (Effing et al., 2011)

But, limited studies in cross-cultural settings

Cultural Dimensions

Cross-cultural use of social media in public sector Collectivist V.S Individualistic

(Hofstede, 1984) use of social media

Social Media use patterns and strategies in East V.S West?

Korea V.S. the USA

Korea is a hierarchical, collectivistic, and feminine society that avoids uncertainty and emphasizes collectivism

the U.S. is a non-hierarchical, individualistic, and masculine society that accepts uncertainty and emphasizes individualism

Research Questions (RQs)

What is the nature of social media use in the public sector in Western (USA) and Asian (Korean) cultures?

What are the social media strategies of government agencies in Western (USA) and Asian (Korean) cultures?

Method

DataWe obtained the data (Tweets) from Twitter

accounts maintained by government agencies in Korea (40 agencies) and the U.S. (32 agencies).

We collected the data between February and August 2011TweetsProfile information (the numbers of followings,

followers, lists, and Tweets)

Method

AnalysisWebometrics and Social Network AnalysisKey word analysisOut-link analysis

ToolsWebometrics AnalystNodeXL

Results

Follow-Following Network

Figure 1: Follow-following network diagram of Korean and US public sector organizations

Social media are not yet a preferred medium of inter-country communications

Results

Follow-Following Network Properties

No. of Nodes

No. of Links

Density Average Geodesic Distance

Average Degree

Average Centrality

Clustering Coefficient

40 1348 0.86 1.0 33 3.6 0.86

No. of Nodes

No. of Links

Density Average Geodesic Distance

Average Degree

Average Centrality

Clustering Coefficient

32 255 0.26 1.45 7.9 12 0.50

Table 1. Network Level Properties of Korean Twitter Networks

Table 2. Network Level Properties of US Twitter Networks

Correlations USA Korea(1) Followings-followers -0.104 0.996**

     (2) Followings-tweets 0.07 0.356*

(3) Followers-tweets 0.524** 0.339*

     (4) Followings-listed -0.097 0.865**

(5) Followers-listed 0.956** 0.877**

(6) Tweets-listed 699** 0.202     Followings-Favorites 0.348 0.204Followers-Favorites -0.111 0.183Tweets-Favorites 0.37 0.245Listed-Favorites -0.094 0.069     Descriptive Statistics    Reciprocity Ratio 3.96% 80.98%

Table 3. Correlation analysis

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Korean government institutions strategically pursued reciprocal relationships with their followers

Out-links-Korea

Figure 2. Outlink diagram (Korean)

Out-links-USA

Keywords shared by ministries (USA)

Keywords shared by ministries (Korea)

Conclusion

Different usage patterns observed in Collectivist V.S Individualistic settings

Korean ministriesWell connectedRe-enforce collective agenda

E.g. through re-tweeting common contents

Avoid uncertaintyE.g. mostly link government sources of information

Return FavorE.g. if you follow me, I will follow you

Conclusion

US Ministries Sparsely connectedIndividualist Use

e.g. retweeted messages that specifically fit the purpose of each department

Embrace uncertainty e.g. Link private sources of information to inform the

public of its activities

Do not Return Favore.g. if you follow me, I may not follow you

Conclusion

Other findingsInteractions based on social media in the public

sector appear to be informational in nature• e.g. social media is used to provide links to other

sources of information, including news sites, blogs, and government websites, and to raise awareness of public policies.

However, future research should investigate the potential use of social media beyond its informational use (e.g., for transactions).

Thank You (Manana)

Comments & suggestions are welcomed

References

Cho, S. and H. Park (2012). "Government organizations’ innovative use of the Internet: The case of the Twitter activity of South Korea’s Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries." Scientometrics 90(1): 1-15.

Effing, R., J. van Hillegersberg, et al. (2011). Social Media and Political Participation: Are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Democratizing Our Political Systems? Electronic Participation. E. Tambouris, A. Macintosh and H. de Bruijn, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg. 6847: 25-35.

Golbeck, J., J. M. Grimes, et al. (2010). "Twitter use by the U.S. Congress." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 61(8): 1612-1621.

Khan, G.F, working paper. Govt. 2.0 explained: implementation scenarios, model, relationships, and more.

Whalen, R. (2012). Organizational Structure as a Multiplex Network: The case of the US federal government. International Communication Association (ICA)-2012 Communication and Community. Phoenix, AZ.