Effects of local government social media use on citizen compliance during a crisis: Evidence from the COVID‐19 crisis in China
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| Author | Hanchen Jiang,Xiao Tang |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12845 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Effects of local government social media use on
citizen compliance during a crisis: Evidence from
the COVID-19 crisis in China
Hanchen Jiang
1
| Xiao Tang
2,3
1
School of Government, University of
International Business and Economics,
Beijing, China
2
School of Public Policy and Management,
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
3
Institute for Contemporary China Studies,
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Correspondence
Xiao Tang, Institute for Contemporary China
Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084,
China.
Email: tangxiao@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
Funding information
National Natural Science Foundation of China,
Grant/Award Number: 71804086; Tsinghua
University Spring Breeze Fund Project, Grant/
Award Number: 20201080540; Tsinghua
University, Shuimu Scholar Fellowship
Abstract
Improving citizencompliance is a major goal of public admin-
istration, 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 governmentsimprove citizen compliance especiallydur-
ing crises. Based onan original daily panel dataset of 189cit-
ies 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 edu-
cated 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 adminis-
tration objectives during crises, and its efficacy is largely
dependent on regionalsocioeconomic status.
Chinese abstract
提高公民遵从性是公共行政的一个主要目标，并且危机时
期显得更为重要。尽管社交媒体已经在全球范围内被政府
机构广泛使用，但仍不清楚社交媒体的使用是否能帮助地
方政府提高公民遵从性，特别是在危机时期的遵从性。基
于新冠疫情期间中国189个城市的日级面板数据集，本研究
为地方政府机构发布的危机相关社交媒体帖子对公民遵从
性的积极影响提供了实证证据。我们还发现这种效应受到
社交媒体帖子中关于预防措施的话题的调节，并且在人均
国内生产总值较高、公民受教育程度较高和互联网覆盖范
Received: 7 June 2021 Revised: 21 February 2022 Accepted: 10 March 2022
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12845
Public Admin. 2023;101:843–864. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 843
围更广的城市表现得更强。本研究表明，社交媒体是一种
高效且低成本的工具，它可以帮助地方政府机构在危机期
间实现公共管理目标，并且其有效性在很大程度上取决于
城市的社会经济状态。.
1|INTRODUCTION
Since early 2020, government agencies all over the world have enacted or recommended stay-at-home and social
distancing measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19, a global pandemic recognized by the World Health
Organization. However, citizen compliance with government mandates has varied significantly across the globe
(Bargain & Aminjonov, 2020). Some recent studies have found several factors that influence individuals' compliance
behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, including media viewership (Simonov et al., 2020), possession of scientific
knowledge (Algara et al., 2021), party identification (Grossman et al., 2020), elites' cues (Green et al., 2020), and trust
in government (Bargain & Aminjonov, 2020). However, research from the perspective of local public administration
is still rare. Specifically, the effect of local government's use of information and communication technology, such as
social media, on citizen compliance behavior during a crisis, has not been empirically investigated.
Social media plays an essential part in people's daily life, and government agencies also find it an effective tool
for public administration (Jungblut & Jungblut, 2021; Kavanaugh et al., 2012; Mergel, 2013). Yet few prior research
has touched upon the relationship between government use of social media and citizens' compliance of government
mandates and no consensus has been reached. One line of research emphasizes that features of social media can
enhance the performance of local government by promoting openness, transparency, and collaboration (Bertot
et al., 2010; Stamati et al., 2015). Therefore, one might speculate that during the crisis when there are overloaded
information online, governments' posts on social media can promote information openness and transparency, hence
increase citizen trust in government and encourage compliance behaviors (Im et al., 2014). Another line of research
holds a more prudent view, arguing that the effect varies by different contents of the messages and different organi-
zational and demographic characteristics of local municipalities (Bons
on et al., 2015,2017). However, little research
on the effect of governments' use of social media on citizen behavior considers the specificity of the crisis context.
The most relevant research is from Chen et al. (2020). Using the social media post data from a national health author-
ity, they have found that information related to the latest news and the governments' handling measures, as well as
the dialogic loop between government and citizens, can positively predict citizen online engagement. Our study fur-
ther expands the investigation of online citizen engagement during crises to offline citizen compliance, providing
more profound implications for policymakers in charge of crises management.
COVID-19 pandemic in China provides a new and historically unparalleled context to empirically examine
the effect. Starting from late January 2020, the spread of COVID-19 has become a national health crisis in
China. Government agencies at different levels adopted stringent policies and administrative measures to con-
tain its spread (Kraemer et al., 2020;Tianetal.,2020) and have been using social media to disseminate the lat-
est epidemic statistics and prevention policies to citizens (Chen et al., 2020). Specifically, social distancing was
required or at least advocated by all local governments. In addition, the inner-city mobility index derived from
location-based services (Kraemer et al., 2020;Tianetal.,2020) provides aggregate levelmobility data that can
be used as a reverse proxy for citizen's compliance with governments' mobility-restrictive policies during the
pandemic. Based on these data sources, the main objective of this study is to investigate the relationship
between government use of social media and citizen compliance during crises. Specifically, this study investi-
gates three questions: (a) Does local governments' social media use influences citizen compliance during cris es?
(b) How does different content in governments' social media posts influence citizen compliance during crises?
844 JIANG AND TANG
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