Jiang Hanchen, Tang Xiao
School of Government University of International Business and Economics Beijing China.
School of Public Policy and Management Tsinghua University Beijing China.
Public Adm. 2022 Mar 27. doi: 10.1111/padm.12845.
Improving citizen compliance is a major goal of public administration, especially during crises. Although social media are widely used by government agencies across the globe, it is still unclear that whether the use of social media can help local governments improve citizen compliance especially during crises. Based on an original daily panel dataset of 189 cities in China during COVID-19, this study provides empirical evidence for the positive effect that crisis-related social media posts published by local government agencies has on citizen compliance. In addition, this effect is mediated by the topic of prevention measures in social media posts, and is stronger in cities with higher GDP per capita, better educated citizens and wider internet coverage. The findings imply that social media is an efficient and low-cost tool to assist local government agencies to achieve public administration objectives during crises, and its efficacy is largely dependent on regional socioeconomic status.
提高公民的依从性是公共管理的主要目标，尤其是在危机期间。尽管社交媒体在全球范围内被政府机构广泛使用，但社交媒体的使用是否能帮助地方政府提高公民的依从性，尤其是在危机期间，仍不明确。基于中国189个城市在新冠疫情期间的原始每日面板数据集，本研究为地方政府机构发布的与危机相关的社交媒体帖子对公民依从性的积极影响提供了实证证据。此外，这种影响是由社交媒体帖子中预防措施的主题介导的，并且在人均GDP较高、公民受教育程度较高和互联网覆盖范围较广的城市中更强。研究结果表明，社交媒体是协助地方政府机构在危机期间实现公共管理目标的一种高效且低成本的工具，其效果在很大程度上取决于区域社会经济状况。
