Municipal Government Use of Social Media: An Analysis of Three Chinese Cities

Abstract

To investigate the use of information dissemination and public communication by Chinese municipal governments, we analyzed the social media use of three large cities with relatively mature social media development: Shanghai, Nanjing and Chengdu. We collected 4,429 government posts and users’ likes, shares and comments from Weibo accounts of each city’s information office. Government posts were coded into 7 types and 16 topics. We used cross-tabulation, correlation analysis and multivariate linear regression to analyze government posts, user responses and their inter-relationships. Chengdu has issued the most posts, while Nanjing has received the highest average user response to posts and exhibited the best signs of success in communication between the government and citizens.