Crisis management through citizen engagement on Twitter: The case of the covid-19 pandemic in Latin American municipalities

Abstract

COVID-19 created significant challenges in crisis management worldwide, especially for local governments that needed to communicate with citizens about health risks, policy decisions, and real-time information related to the pandemic. We analyze the evolution of the engagement between citizens and local governments on Twitter during the different phases of the first wave of the pandemic in Latin America, employing social media intelligence techniques to analyze 106,925 tweets from 103 local governments. Our results show enhanced engagement, especially in participation and collaboration, during the phases studied. Moreover, the increased use of social media as a communication channel was associated with mobility restrictions during the pandemic. Our research contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of social media as a communication channel between governments and citizens in the different phases of crisis management.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported as beneficiaries of the “Programa Operativo FEDER Andalucía 2014–2020”, by the The identifier of the research project must be indicated: Regional Government of Andalusia (Spain), General Secretary for Universities, Research and Technology [Research Projects UHU-1253498].

Notes on contributors

Jeimi Maribel Leon-Silva

Jeimi Maribel Leon-Silva is a Professor at the Faculty of Public Accounting of Universidad Externado de Colombia. She received a Ph.D. in Accounting and Corporate Finance at the Universitat de Valencia. Her current research analyses disclosure practices and determinants of public entities’ financial and non-financial information. She is also interested in studying sustainability and social media communication in national and local governments.

David Perea-Khalifi

David Perea-Khalifi is an assistant professor of the Department of Economics and Business Administration of the University of Malaga (Spain). He holds a PhD degree with an international mention in Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) to corporative disclosure of public administration from the University of Huelva, (Spain). His main research interests are in the field of local governments, social media, qualitative analysis and engagement.