Government Social Media Engagement Strategies and Public Roles

Through social media, public officials share information with the people they serve. Related scholarship has centered on open government goals such as transparency, participation, and collaboration to characterize such efforts, relying on the directional flow of information between government and community members, as opposed to the underlying message content as illustrated by public roles (i.e. public managers’ view of residents as customers, partners, or citizens). Hurricane Florence provides a critical case to examine how cities in three U.S. states leveraged public roles for engagement purposes. Content analysis of Facebook data from 62 cities reveals their customer and partner-oriented focus as evidenced by frequent customer service updates and coproduction prompts. Citizen involvement efforts were far less common; few cities convened conversations about their exposure to risk or discussed how to build stronger communities. In all, this article clarifies engagement opportunities based on public roles and more explicitly tethers social media content to foundational concepts in public administration.