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In this paper, we consider a new discrete-time model that describes the spread of information by sharing in some kind of online environments such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter. The impact of sharing on the information amount is investigated, which is incorporated in the considered model as a supplement compartment. We consider the possible int...
Resumo Este artigo investiga as narrativas envolvendo o debate público online das comunidades gamers no Twitter durante as manifestações e mobilizações políticas do bicentenário da Independência do Brasil, realizadas em setembro de 2022. A análise se baseia em duas coletas conduzidas entre 31 de agosto e 14 de setembro, compondo um corpus de 11.607...
Many medical education journals use Twitter to garner attention for their articles. The purpose of this study was to test the effects of tweeting on article page views and downloads.
The authors conducted a randomized trial using Academic Medicine articles published in 2015. Beginning in February through May 2018, one article per day was randomly a...
Citations
... Twitter allows users to not only share their information with followers but also has an ability to easily "retweet" information from others, thus extending their own and others' reaches (Boiy & Moens 2009). As pointed out by Mergel (2012), Twitter can be used appropriately to increase inclusion of public opinion in policy formulation through information aggregation, so that updates are seen as public conversations and are increasing not only transparency but also potentially accountability. Amongst the whole range of social media applications, Twitter provides an immediate and flexible tool to disseminate information and communicate through brief public messages. ...
... Twitter strategies: push, pull, networking, and customer service (Mergel 2012). ...
... In contrast to other members of the social media family, Twitter therefore has relatively few users. However, since a comparatively large number of so-called multipliers such as journalists and politicians actively use Twitter, the spread of tweets and thus the communicative potential is much higher (see Mergel 2012;Pleil and Zerfass 2014). This is one of the reasons why Twitter has received a lot of attention as a relevant practice of communication, which has been widely discussed in the field of politics (e. g., Thimm, Dang-Anh, and Einspänner 2014, 2011; Emmer 2017), but less so in the field of management (e. ...
... It is primarily visually perceptible, it can be produced via non-place-bound media such as notebooks or smartphones, and it makes it possible to directly address a selected group of followers. This selective form of addressing of a locatable and numerable group at the meso level (see Domke 2014: 159-180) is a decisive advantage of using Twitter as interested subscribers can be addressed quickly, economically, and systematically (Mergel 2012;Pleil and Zerfass 2014). ...
... While the authors doubt that the influence of this group is important, they generally attribute a lot of potential to Twitter in addressing stakeholders and customers (Kubowicz Malhotra and Malhotra 2016: 72). This is also noted by Mergel (2012) and Pleil and Zerfass (2014), the latter emphasizing that there still seems to be no agreement on the appropriate and optimal use of Twitter (Pleil and Zerfass 2014: 3). A more recent case study of a Swedish bank CEO comes to a similar conclusion: an intensification of Twitter use is observed, albeit in a rather impersonal style. ...
... Twitter: Currently, Twitter is the most active and fastest-growing social media tool among citizens that allow users to publish a limited text of 140 characters, usually called "tweet" (Khasawneh & Abu-Shanab, 2013). Twitter consists of some functions and structures such as (#) for hashtag and RT for "retweet," which are a vital feature of the application (Mergel, 2012b). ...
... "Tweet" comprises references to online resources of public agencies in the form of general information, events, and organization's news that drives users back to the website of the agency (Mergel, 2012b). Thus, "Tweets" refer to public conversations that lead to not only the inclusion of citizen's opinions in public policy formulation but they also enhance public accountability and transparency via information aggregation processes (Mergel, 2013b ...
Social media is becoming a vital Web 2.0 technology for the effective implementation of e-governance initiatives in various countries around the world. With the vision of the Government of India in creating a digitally empowered nation, it notified a framework and guideline for the use of social media for public engagement and service delivery in both the centre and states. Although studies have given considerable attention to how e-government enhances public engagement and service delivery, few studies exist on the use of social media for the effective implementation of e-governance, especially in the case of Punjab. This study assesses the use of social media by government organizations in Punjab with the aid of Sociotechnical Theory and the concept of Social Capital and Social Cognitive Theory. The study deployed a quantitative research design to analyze and discuss primary and secondary data. The study also dwelled on a research strategy that allows the study of two organizations in Punjab. The study found that the Government of Punjab has made tremendous committed to digitalize the public sector under its vision of Digital Punjab. The study reveals that the Punjab Government and several other public agencies use Facebook and Twitter to engage the general citizenry. However, the study reveals some pitfalls associated with the use of social media by government organizations in Punjab. There is a general awareness on the framework and guideline among the general citizenry but most citizen-end-users intimated of the unnavigability and non-user-friendliness of these social media platforms. Citizen-end-users also indicated that social media use offer enormous benefits, and thus, could lead to transformation in public service delivery. Some of the benefits include participation in governance, increased bureaucratic efficiency, and building a better relationship with the public. Despite these benefits, the study identified poor internet connectivity, preference for non-regional languages and cyber-attacks and other security threats as some of the challenges to the effective use of social media by government organizations. Finally, the study recommends strong political leadership and devotion of public officials as a significant step in ensuring long-term sustainable use of social media in e-governance in Punjab.
... The figure starts by showing that how government agencies conceive of and think about social media is developed by its expert staff and that they typically see social media as a one-to-many broadcast space. Thus conceived, government organizations typically push out information quickly (Mergel, 2012). We want to be clear: this is not a bad strategy. ...
... In short, government agencies tend to use social media for information distribution using a push strategy (Mergel, 2012) or for transactions such as questions and answers (Brainard and McNutt (2010). While there has been much hope and anticipation about using social media for democratic dialogue and deliberation, studies consistently show that this has not been achieved, except in rare circumstances (Brainard, 2016;Mergel, 2013;Zavattaro et al., 2015). ...
... Instead of basing an adoption logic only on agency expertise, it is based upon millennial values such as immediacy, connection and authenticity. This moves us toward more pull and networking strategies (Mergel, 2012) instead of only push strategies. Further, it would entail creating and responding to comments and user-supplied content, providing frequent updates and interactions, and other opportunities for interaction. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a framework for understanding how millennial social media use preferences can help public administrators change their delivery ethos to foster meaningful micro-encounters in digital spaces to then create public value. Ideally, these micro-encounters encourage public values creation from both the user (government) and audience side. Traditional government social media use often is one-way push without much care for dialogue and discussion. This revised framework shifts that thinking from the social media creation phase, allowing public administrators to use the tools in a more creative way.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach to the paper is theoretical, meaning the theoretical framework brings together lines of scholarship that have previously run parallel: millennial social media use preferences, government social media, and public values creation.
Findings
The theoretical framework offers propositions for future inquiry. The framework shows how traditional public sector social media use fails when it comes to creating meaningful spaces for interaction, which ideally is the purpose of social media.
Practical implications
The framework offered herein can help practitioners change the way they set up and even currently use social media tools to engage with the public. Though the framework is based on millennial social media preferences, any generation can benefit from a more open, inclusive platform that strives to foster public values such as collaboration, dialogue and transparency.
Originality/value
The theoretical framework generated for this paper brings together usually separate literatures to create a more holistic picture of social media use for public administrators.
... Wardell and Su (2011) point out the gap between the current state and the desired state of social media usage in emergency communication and recommend one major focus for the emergency management community is examining social influences on citizen preparedness and response behavior with inclusion of the effect of social networks when coupled with various messaging strategies. Mergel (2012) particularly mention the need for an effective tool to get an assessment of how many individuals were reached by the message send from a governmental account on Twitter, instead of simply looking at the number of followers and retweets. Wukich and Steinberg (2016) point to the reticence of emergency managers and their lack of human resources (dedicated personnel to manage social media communication plans) as reasons for the uneven adoption of social media strategies by emergency managers (a separate paper by Wukich and Khemka (2017) specifically study the Red Cross and Red Crescent to this extent). ...
Social media has been widely adopted by emergency management organizations and agencies to disseminate emergency messages to the public. However, the traditional one-to-all post-and-wait practice does not serve this purpose well in the complex and dynamic environments in disasters and extreme events. In this paper, we examine an engaged social media node targeting strategy to facilitate message propagation, and propose an optimization scheme incorporating this strategy to determine the optimal sets of nodes to target with planning horizon length, source messaging capacity, social network characteristics and user behaviors considered. Experiments, computational results and managerial insights are discussed.
... The latter two uses, however, remain largely elusive in government agencies (Brainard & McNutt, 2010;Bryer, 2011;Hand & Ching, 2011;Lutz et al., 2014;Mergel, 2013b;Nam, 2014). Largely, government agencies use the tools to push information in a one-way information-provision manner (Brainard & McNutt, 2010;Mergel, 2012). As such, we offer the following proposition for this study. ...
... The rationale for government adoption of social networking sites was to open government 24/7 to increase citizen engagement, transparency, and interactivity. Early research, however, indicates that there are costs associated with meaningful adoption of the technologies (Bryer, 2011), thus revealing that government entities often do not engage with followers in two-way dialogs but rather push information in oneway monologs (Brainard & Derrick-Mills, 2011;Hand & Ching, 2011;Mergel, 2012;Rishel, 2011). The aim of this research was to determine how local governments were utilizing Twitter, and extend this line of work by adding sentiment analysis. ...
... Anything between −.05 and +.05 was deemed a neutral tweet, showing that the overall sample utilized a neutral tone. Analyzing the tweets in the sample revealed not only the neutral tone but a proclivity toward the push and pull Twitter styles (Mergel, 2012). By examining sentiment, the results indicate the social media managers have an opportunity to change this prevailing negative image by adopting a positive, rather than neutral, tone on Twitter and other social media sites. ...
... Twitter updates are seen as public conversations. Twitter can be used by government agencies for news feed, as a parallel publishing stream, an adittional channel to distribute press releases and other formal announcements, to distribute mission-relevant information, engage large number of citizens, create conversations, record public opinion for policy formulation, accelerate emergency responses and activate public diplomacy (Mergel, 2012a). Use of twitter and other social media may increase transparency, integration, communication, collaboration and accountability and revitalize dialogue between goverments and citizens (Chadwick, 2009;Drogkaris et al., 2010;Mergel, 2012a;Mergel et al., 2009). ...
... Twitter can be used by government agencies for news feed, as a parallel publishing stream, an adittional channel to distribute press releases and other formal announcements, to distribute mission-relevant information, engage large number of citizens, create conversations, record public opinion for policy formulation, accelerate emergency responses and activate public diplomacy (Mergel, 2012a). Use of twitter and other social media may increase transparency, integration, communication, collaboration and accountability and revitalize dialogue between goverments and citizens (Chadwick, 2009;Drogkaris et al., 2010;Mergel, 2012a;Mergel et al., 2009). Government agencies find Twitter as "an effective, efficient, timely and valuable tool to get the word out" claimed Wigand (2010, p. 66), and have started embodying it in their e-government strategies in order to maximize web 2.0 offered benefits and to keep upwith current trends (Sivarajah & Irani, 2012). ...
... Microblogging is a form of blogging that allows people to write brief text updates and to keep in touch with friends through the internet, mobile devices, instant messaging or third-party applications (Edman, 2007;Mergel, 2012a;Miller, 2008). Nowadays, Twitter is the most popular microblogging service. ...
The paper records government and ministries Twitter accounts for 24 EU countries. It records four indexes of Twitter performance: number of followers and following, number of tweets and number of tweets per day, and two indexes describing potential reach to citizens regarding the information tweeted by the accounts, to describe the specific accounts’ performance and influence. Two summary indexes are constructed using PCA: network characteristics and activity characteristics of the accounts. Correlations are calculated for all performance indexes with e-Government and e-Participation indexes of the 24 countries. Tweeting frequency and retweeting/mentioning represent the accounts’ activity and the community activity, respectively. Only activity indexes are strongly correlated with e-Government and e-Participation, while number of followers and following seems not to be associated with them. Performance of the Twitter accounts is not only a matter of Twitter appearance and networking of the accounts; it is mainly a matter of citizens’ active participation.
... This is in part due to President Obama's Open Government initiative (McClure, 2010;Mergel, 2013). More than 1000 agency, department, initiative, or team Twitter accounts exist within the federal government Lukensmeyer, Goldman, & Stern, 2011;McClure, 2010;Mergel, 2012). The National Archives and Records Administration reported more than 227,000 visits to its Flickr (photo sharing) page and another 18,000 more to Archive blogs (National Archives & Records Administration, 2011). ...
... Social media tools, when not designed with dialogic, knowledge sharing, engagement, co-labor (O'Leary et al., 2006) principles in mind, can expand civic capacity for collaboration, though not necessarily meaningful collaboration (Mergel, 2012(Mergel, , 2013Rowe & Gammack, 2004). Capacity, in this limited sense, might refer to the number of 'friends' or 'followers' a government entity has rather than engagement with potentially meaningful feedback or results that those advocating for genuine participation likely would envision (Arnstein, 1969;King, Stivers, Feltey, & Susel, 1998). ...
... Collectively, these traits could lead to ersatz participation because of the non-interactive, one-way focus. Now, we acknowledge that examples of well-rounded, collaborative networking opportunities online do exist (Mergel, 2012, notes success at the Department of State, for example). We mean, however, to highlight the potentially negative effects of rapid technology adoption that might not necessarily build in dialogic, engagement capabilities but encourage more one-way, push communication (Mergel, 2012). ...
... As illustrated in Figure 1, social media platforms as an extended public sphere could bridge the lifeworld and the system by allowing for the social integration, cultural reproduction, and value sharing that the lifeworld requires and the system ultimately relies upon. Some characteristics of the platforms that are applicable to the ideal public sphere include bidirectional interactions; asynchronous and synchronous communication; instant access; dialogical capabilities; networking; transparency and neutrality; and co-creation, modification, and sharing of content and knowledge (Chang & Kannan, 2008;Hand & Ching, 2011;Heng & de Moor, 2003;Mergel, 2012). Specifically, social media platforms not only allow public administrators to be part of an ongoing conversation with an engaged, networked citizenry but also provide tools that are relatively inexpensive to implement, accessible from multiple devices, and can potentially reach an unlimited number of individuals. ...
... Specifically, social media platforms not only allow public administrators to be part of an ongoing conversation with an engaged, networked citizenry but also provide tools that are relatively inexpensive to implement, accessible from multiple devices, and can potentially reach an unlimited number of individuals. Co-created information obtained from social media platforms can contribute to organizational learning and decision making (Mergel, 2012). Public organizations need to be strategic when implementing these platforms. ...
... Public organizations need to be strategic when implementing these platforms. Dialogue and interaction need to be at the forefront while also observing basic deliberation norms and remaining receptive and accountable to public opinion (Mergel, 2012;Khan et al., 2012). The commonly used institutional structure of static, one-way communication/rhetoric, or the push and pull of information is a form of distorted communication that continually threatens colonizing the lifeworld and potentially alienates citizens. ...
Previous research incorporates Habermas’ theory of communicative action with implications of social media for public discourse, yet few studies consider the theory’s relevance and applicability to public administrators. This article addresses this weak link by focusing on the administration legitimacy dilemma. While social media can be useful to public administrators facilitating collaborative interactions with citizens, these platforms are not automatically suited to public participation in governance. Habermas’ theory offers a framework for understanding these possibilities and challenges, as well as adapting social media constructively to administrative practice.
... Public-sector applications include, for example, the active distribution of missionrelevant information, information searches, emergency alerts, and public diplomacy efforts. A more indirect, almost passive, way to use Twitter includes the participation or observing of ongoing issue conversations for government organizations to understand how public policy issues are currently being discussed online (Mergel, 2012). Similar to users on Facebook and other social media platforms , Twitter users set up personal accounts and follow the updates of other users. ...
Key message How do political elites, such as the Members of the U.S. Congress, decide to use innovative forms of Information and Communication Technologies, such as social media applications? Communication between elected officials is guided by outdated rules and regulations that are focusing on paper mailings. The apparent lack of formal guidance and outdated rules are not reflecting the changing online landscape and the requirements on Members of Congress to interact with their constituents where they prefer to receive their information. New forms of highly interactive online communication tools, such as the microblogging ser-vice Twitter are challenging the existing information para-digm. First year of tweets posted by Members of Congress in combination with qualitative interviews with congressio-nal offices show that the Members are mainly using Twitter to complement their existing push communication style and automatically distribute vetted content via Twitter, using the Microblogging service as an additional communication channel for their individual appearances and issues. The awareness network among tweeting Members specifically shows that the potential for interactive conversations are not harnessed. Finally, Twitter's potential as an innovative mode for future democratizing interactions is discussed. The role of Members of Congress in the U.S. American System The U.S. federal government is comprised of three branches: Besides the executive and judicial branch, the legislative branch includes the House of Representatives and the Senate. Among other tasks Congress is responsible for rule and law making to properly execute power. The House of Representatives consists of 435 voting mem-bers. Each Member of Congress represents a congressional district and serves a 2-year term. In addition two senators, for a total of 100 senators, represent each state in the House. The representatives are voting on behalf of the citizens in their local district, work on committees to prepare legislation and stay in close contact with their constituents. The communication needs focus on interactions with professional associations, meeting with visitors from the district on Capitol Hill and generally responding to inquiries from citizens.
