Social Media in Local Administration: An Empirical Study of Twitter Use in Flood Management

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to provide an understanding of how the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) in Thailand has adopted Twitter to communicate with residents in its approach to flood management. Specifically, we examine 3,453 BMA tweet messages in terms of quantity, tweet content, reactions and engagement. Results indicate that BMA actively provides information of various types that bring about various reactions from its followers. BMA employs Twitter as a one-way communication channel to disseminate information, thus neglecting a method of engagement with its residents.