This paper presents the case of Australian government use of Facebook (FB) pages. This research-in-progress paper investigates six Australian Government FB pages to assess visible government and audience online participation. It seeks to provide a general understanding of the types and forms of FB uses by government and audience participation visible in government FB pages. FB page wall posts and comments are analysed quantitatively using genre analysis to determine what type of online participation is visible in these sites and what the agencies are trying to achieve. Findings show that the Facebook page participation varies across the agencies and the pages are being used for the purpose of announcing, informing and involving type of online engagement. The pages are being used for communication, compliance, recruitment, promotion and crowdsourcing. Some pages show strong audience engagement and have successfully served as a platform for its audience to share and communicate and respond to queries. However the engagement of the agencies has been limited. The paper concludes with further insights into agency FB strategies and highlights some concerns that may rise within the usage of these sites as evidenced from wall posts and comments analysis. The paper aims to contribute to better understanding of the government FB phenomenon on the public Social Network Site (SNS) that can lead to useful conclusions for government agency deployment, adoption and usage of SNSs.
History
Event
Australasian Information Systems. Conference (22nd : 2011 : Sydney, Australia)
Pagination
1 - 12
Publisher
ACIS
Location
Sydney, Australia
Place of publication
[Sydney, Australia]
Start date
2011-11-30
End date
2011-12-02
ISBN-13
9781742102399
Language
eng
Publication classification
E1.1 Full written paper - refereed; E Conference publication
Copyright notice
2011, The Authors
Title of proceedings
ACIS 2011: Identifying the Information Systems Discipline : Proceedings of the Australasian Information Systems 2011 Conference