1. Social Media Use in Public Sector: A comparative
study of Korean and US government agencies
Authors: Gohar Feroz Khan, Ho Young Yoon, Han Woo Park
Presenter: Gohar Feroz Khan
School of Industrial Management
Korea University of Technology & Education (KoreaTECH),
1600 Chungjol-ro Byungcheon-myun
Cheonan city, 330-708, South Korea
Gohar.feroz@gmail.com /gohar.feroz@kut.ac.kr
Prepared for: ATHS panel during the 8th International Conference on Webometrics,
Informatics and Scientometrics & 13th COLLNET Meeting, 23-26 October 2012,
Seoul,South Korea

2. Table of Contents
Introduction
Web 2.0 & Social Media
S-government
Cultural Perspective
Research Question
Method
Results
Discussion

3. Introduction
Social Media
Based on Web 2.0 Concept
Helps to
maintain social and professional
ties
e.g., Facebook and LinkedIn
facilitate knowledge sharing
e.g., Wikipedia and blogs
create awareness
e.g., Twitter

4. Social Media & Web 2.0
One way Web 1.0
communication
All SNS
Web 2.0 are web
Enforce Two way
communication 2.0, but not
Social Media all web 2.0
are SNS!
Enforce social context
SNS, blogs,
wikis
(Khan, working paper)

5. ICT based government full picture
Paper-Based
Traditional
Government
Static ICTs & Web E-Government
1.0 Based
Mobile ICTs Based
Web 2.0 & Social
Media Based
Government 2.0
S-government M-
government
Khan, working paper

6. Why S-government?
Participative
Greater
S-government Collaborative
Transparency
Low Cost/
Convenience

7. Social Government studies
Many studies in mono-cultural settings
the U.S. (Golbeck et al., 2010; Whalen, 2012)
Korea (Cho & Park, 2012) and
the Netherlands (Effing et al., 2011)
 But, limited studies in cross-cultural
settings

8. Cultural Dimensions
Cross-cultural use of social
media in public sector
Collectivist V.S Individualistic
(Hofstede, 1984) use of social
media
Social Media use patterns and
strategies in East V.S West?

9. Korea V.S. the USA
Korea is a hierarchical, collectivistic, and
feminine society that avoids uncertainty
and emphasizes collectivism
the U.S. is a non-hierarchical,
individualistic, and masculine society that
accepts uncertainty and emphasizes
individualism

10. Research Questions (RQs)
 What is the nature of social media use in the
public sector in Western (USA) and Asian
(Korean) cultures?
 What are the social media strategies of
government agencies in Western (USA) and
Asian (Korean) cultures?

11. Method
Data
We obtained the data (Tweets) from Twitter
accounts maintained by government agencies
in Korea (40 agencies) and the U.S. (32
agencies).
We collected the data between February and
August 2011
Tweets
Profile information (the numbers of followings,
followers, lists, and Tweets)

12. Method
Analysis
Webometrics and Social Network Analysis
Key word analysis
Out-link analysis
Tools
Webometrics Analyst
NodeXL

13. Results
Follow-Following Network
Social media
are not yet a
preferred
medium of inter-
country
communications
Figure 1: Follow-following network diagram of Korean and US public sector organizations

14. Results
Follow-Following Network Properties
Table 1. Network Level Properties of Korean Twitter Networks
No. of No. of Density Average Average Average Clustering
Nodes Links Geodesic Degree Centrality Coefficient
Distance
40 1348 0.86 1.0 33 3.6 0.86
Table 2. Network Level Properties of US Twitter Networks
No. of No. of Density Average Average Average Clustering
Nodes Links Geodesic Degree Centrality Coefficient
Distance
32 255 0.26 1.45 7.9 12 0.50

15. Table 3. Correlation analysis
Correlations USA Korea
(1) Followings-followers -0.104 0.996**
Korean government institutions
(2) Followings-tweets 0.07 0.356* strategically pursued reciprocal
(3) Followers-tweets 0.524** 0.339* relationships with their followers
(4) Followings-listed -0.097 0.865**
(5) Followers-listed 0.956** 0.877**
(6) Tweets-listed 699** 0.202
Followings-Favorites 0.348 0.204
Followers-Favorites -0.111 0.183
Tweets-Favorites 0.37 0.245
Listed-Favorites -0.094 0.069
Descriptive Statistics
Reciprocity Ratio 3.96% 80.98%
*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

16. Out-links-Korea
Figure 2. Outlink diagram (Korean)

17. Out-links-USA

18. Keywords shared by ministries (USA)

19. Keywords shared by ministries
(Korea)

20. Conclusion
Different usage patterns observed in
Collectivist V.S Individualistic settings
Korean ministries
Well connected
Re-enforce collective agenda
E.g. through re-tweeting common contents
Avoid uncertainty
E.g. mostly link government sources of information
Return Favor
E.g. if you follow me, I will follow you

21. Conclusion
US Ministries
Sparsely connected
Individualist Use
e.g. retweeted messages that specifically fit the
purpose of each department
Embrace uncertainty
e.g. Link private sources of information to inform the
public of its activities
Do not Return Favor
e.g. if you follow me, I may not follow you

22. Conclusion
Other findings
Interactions based on social media in the public
sector appear to be informational in nature
• e.g. social media is used to provide links to other sources
of information, including news sites, blogs, and
government websites, and to raise awareness of public
policies.
However, future research should investigate the
potential use of social media beyond its
informational use (e.g., for transactions).

23. Thank You (Manana)
Comments & suggestions are welcomed

24. References
 Cho, S. and H. Park (2012). "Government organizations’ innovative use of the Internet: The case
of the Twitter activity of South Korea’s Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries."
Scientometrics 90(1): 1-15.
 Effing, R., J. van Hillegersberg, et al. (2011). Social Media and Political Participation: Are
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Democratizing Our Political Systems? Electronic Participation. E.
Tambouris, A. Macintosh and H. de Bruijn, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg. 6847: 25-35.
 Golbeck, J., J. M. Grimes, et al. (2010). "Twitter use by the U.S. Congress." Journal of the
American Society for Information Science and Technology 61(8): 1612-1621.
 Khan, G.F, working paper. Govt. 2.0 explained: implementation scenarios, model, relationships,
and more.
 Whalen, R. (2012). Organizational Structure as a Multiplex Network: The case of the US federal
government. International Communication Association (ICA)-2012 Communication and
Community. Phoenix, AZ.