Social media adoption and use by Australian capital city local governments

Abstract

This chapter explores social media adoption and use by Australian capital city local governments. Despite digital communication with the community being an integral part of modern local government functions, the types of digital communication being used are not commonly monitored or analyzed in the Australian context. This chapter provides an investigation of the types of social media being employed by local governments and a sentiment analysis of Twitter accounts from a sample of local governments in Sydney. The results suggest that social media is being used in a variety of forms according to the size and function of the local governments and is infl uenced by the level of Twitter activity undertaken by the mayor.