Maria Gintova
ABSTRACT
In 2011, the Government of Canada acknowledged the need to use social media to interact with the public for the first time. The Open Dialogue stream of initiatives within the Canada's Action Plan on Open Government called for a two-way dialogue between the Government of Canada and the public. Currently, the majority of government agencies use social media. However, they are still exploring methods for using these new tools as a part of existing communication channels. As recent studies suggest, government does not consider social media as a way to engage the public in public service delivery or policy-making, rather views it as a new means to provide information, much of which is already available on the government agencies' websites.
This paper examines how one of the federal government agencies, Immigration, Citizenship and Refugees Canada (IRCC), uses social media. As the analysis shows, IRCC interacts with the public by answering questions, providing information about its programs and services, and sharing information posted on other accounts. The findings indicate that (i) IRCC engages much more actively on Twitter than on Facebook; (ii) IRCC views Twitter as a way to answer questions that immigrants, students, workers, visitors to Canada as well as Canadian citizens and permanent residents might have about its programs and services and (iii) in general, IRCC does not seek opinions nor engage on policy development issues neither on Twitter nor on Facebook.
- Mergel, I. and Greeves B. Social Media in the Public Sector Field Guide: Designing and Implementing Strategies and Policies. Jossey-Bass/Wiley: San Francisco, CA, 2012Google Scholar
- Bonson, E, Torres, L., Royo, S. and Flores, F. 2012. Local e-government 2.0: Social media and corporate transparency in municipalities. Government Information Quarterly 29,2 (Apr. 2012), 123--132Google ScholarCross Ref
- Lathrop, D. and Ruma L. Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice O'Reilly Media, Sebastopol, CA, 2010 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Francoli, M. Independent Reporting Mechanism Canada: Progress Report 2012--13. Retrieved Jan 26, 2017 from http://www.opengovpartnership.org/sites/default/files/Canada_final_2012_Eng.pdfGoogle Scholar
- McNutt, K. 2014. Public engagement in the Web 2.0 era: Social collaborative technologies in a public sector context. Canadian Public Administration. 57,1 (Mar. 2014), 49--70.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Craft, J. 2013 The Promise and Paradox of Open Government in the Harper Era in. Doerny G. B. and Stacey C. eds. How Ottawa Spends 2012-2013: The Harper Majority, Budget Cuts and the New Opposition, McGuill-Queen's University Press Montreal, QC, 2013, 209--222.Google Scholar
- Mergel, I. 2012. The social media innovation challenge in the public sector. Information Polity. 17, 3,4 (Jul. 2012) 281--292.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Roy, J. From Machinery to Mobility: Government and Democracy in a Participative Age. Springer Science and Business Media: New York, NY, 2013Google Scholar
- Dunleavy, P., Margetts H., Bastow S. and Tinkler J. 2006. New Public Management is Dead: Long Live Digital Era Governance J-PART. 16,3 (Jul. 2006), 467--494.Google Scholar
- Weerakkody, V. and Reddick C.G. Public Sector Transformation through E-government in Weerakkody, V. and Reddick C.G.Public, eds. Sector Transformation through E-Government: Experiences from Europe and North America Routledge: NY, 2013, 1--6.Google Scholar
- Dunleavy, P. and Margetts H. 2010. The Second Wave of Digital Era Governance. Prepared for the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2-5, 2010. Retrieved Jan 26, 2017 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1643850Google Scholar
- Mickoleit, A. 2014. Social Media Use by Governments: A Policy Primer to Discuss Trends, Identify Policy Opportunities and Guide Decision Makers. OECD Working Papers on Public Governance 26, OECD Publishing.Google Scholar
- Linders, D. 2012. From e-government to we-government: Defining a typology for citizen coproduction in the age of social media. Government Information Quarterly. 29,4 (Oct 2012), 446--454.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Criado, J. I., Sandoval-Almazan R. and Gil-Garcia J.R. 2013. Government innovation through social media. Government Information Quarterly. 30,4 (Oct. 2013), 319--326.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Linders, D., Copeland Wilson, S. and Carlo Bertot, J. Open Government as a Vehicle for Government Transformation in Weerakkody, V. and Reddick C.G., eds. Public Sector Transformation through E-Government: Experiences from Europe and North America. Routledge: NY, 2013, 9--24Google Scholar
- Mergel, I. Social Media in the Public Sector. A guide to participation, collaboration and transparency in the networked world. John Wiley & Sons: San Francisco, CA, 2013Google Scholar
- Landsbergen, D. Government as Part of the Revolution: Using Social Media to Achieve Public Goals in Worrall L. ed Leading Issues in e-Government Research, Volume One, Academic Publishing International Ltd: Reading, UK, 2011, 147--172Google Scholar
- Mergel, I. 2013. Designing a Social Media Strategy to Fulfill Your Agency's Mission. Public Manager. 42, 1 (Mar. 2013) 26--29.Google Scholar
- Homburg, V. Understanding E-Government: Information systems in public administration. Routledge, NY, 2008Google Scholar
- Henman, P. Governing Electronically: E-Government and the Reconfiguration of Public Administration, Policy and Power. Palgrave Macmillan: UK. 2010Google Scholar
- Meijer A., Burger N. and Ebbers W. Citizens2Citizens: Mapping Participatory Practices on the Internet" in Worrall L. ed Leading Issues in e-Government Research, Volume One, Academic Publishing International Ltd: Reading, UK, 2011, 173--203.Google Scholar
- Meijer, A. and Thaens, Marcel. 2013. "Social media strategies: Understanding the differences between North American police departments". Government Information Quarterly, 30,4 (Oct. 2013), 343--350Google ScholarCross Ref
- Clarke, A. 2012. Open dialogue' and the Government of Canada's use of social media: bureaucratic barriers to democratic engagement in the digital age. Paper presented at the 2012 Canadian Political Science Association Annual Conference University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta June 14.Google Scholar
- Panagiotopoulos, P., Bigdeli, A. Z. and Sams, S. 2014. Citizen-government collaboration on social media: The case of Twitter in the 2011 riots in England. Government Information Quarterly, 31, 3 (Jul. 2014), 264--271.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Lu, B., Zhang, S., & Fan, W. 2016. Social representations of social media use in government: An analysis of Chinese government microblogging from citizens' perspective. Social Science Computer Review, 34,4 (Aug. 2016) 416--436. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Chase, Steven. 2012. Canada needs to get competitive to attract skilled immigrants: Harper, The Globe and Mail. Retrieved on Jan 26, 2017 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-needs-to-get-competitive-to-attract-skilled-immigrants-harper/article5179369Google Scholar
- Akbari, A. and MacDonald, M. 2014. Immigration policy in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Sates: An overview of recent trends. International Migration Review 48,3 (Sept. 2014), 801--822.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. 2017. Departmental Overview Retrieved on Jan 26, 2017 http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/departmental-overview.aspGoogle Scholar
- Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. 2017. Terms and Conditions. Retrieved on Jan 26, 2017 http://www.cic.gc.ca/English/notices.aspGoogle Scholar
- Gruzd, A. 2016. Netlytic: Software for Automated Text and Social Network Analysis. Available at http://Netlytic.orgGoogle Scholar
- Rieder, B. 2013. Studying Facebook via data extraction: the Netvizz application. In: WebSci'13 proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Web Science Conference, 346--355. New York: ACM Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Social Media Use by Government in Canada: Examining Interactions of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada on Twitter and Facebook
Recommendations
Managing social media in government
dg.o '13: Proceedings of the 14th Annual International Conference on Digital Government ResearchSocial media is an important tool for internal and external communications in government. The panel will address issues in government social media use including: management, collaboration, governance, engagement, transparency and accountability. ...
Open government and e-government: democratic challenges from a public value perspective
Special issue on Open Government and Public Participation: Issues and Challenges in Creating Public ValueWe argue that the Obama Administration's Open Government Initiative blurs distinctions between e-democracy and e-government by incorporating historically democratic practices. now enabled by emerging technology. within administrative agencies. We ...
Open government and e-government: democratic challenges from a public value perspective
dg.o '11: Proceedings of the 12th Annual International Digital Government Research Conference: Digital Government Innovation in Challenging TimesWe consider open government (OG) within the context of e-government and its broader implications for the future of public administration. We argue that the current US Administration's Open Government Initiative blurs traditional distinctions between e-...
Comments