Global Perspectives on Social Media Usage Within Governments

Social Media And Government

The phenomenon known as social media has swept across the globe with unprecedented force, witnessing an exponential growth trajectory. This is evident from the fact that radio took 38 years to garner 50 million users, television achieved the same milestone in 14 years, and the internet accomplished it within just 4 years (Liao et al,. 2020). The iPod reached this mark in 3 years, while Facebook astonishingly added 100 million users in less than 9 months. Social networking has risen to become one of the predominant activities on the internet, with virtually every major global brand establishing a presence on social media platforms. This has become a new marketing tool at their disposal, even prompting governments, which were initially hesitant, to embrace social media as a communication channel (Croucher, Nguyen, & Rahmani, 2020).

Social media encompasses web-based and mobile technologies that transform communication into interactive dialogues among organizations, communities, and individuals. In the words of Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein, it encompasses “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.” Its accessibility is nearly universal, powered by scalable communication methods (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2020).