How do social media make government more responsive?: Evidence from network analysis of Twitter use in Seoul Metropolitan City in Korea

Despite the expectation that Twitter and other types of social media can contribute to enhancing democratic values including responsiveness, it seems that empirical studies on whether social media use leads to improvement in democratic values actually and how social media should be used to achieve expected effects have been rarely conducted. The purpose of this study is to analyze usefulness of Twitter for increasing responsiveness and to figure out the mechanism through which Twitter use leads to enhancement in responsiveness by applying social network analysis (SNA) on the Twitter network on civil administration service of Seoul Metropolitan City in Korea and doing case study on the actual interaction among Mayor, public officials, and citizens in the Twitter network. According to the research findings, Seoul City Mayor played a role of the most important bridging hub mediating citizens and public officials in the Twitter network on civil administration service of Seoul. Also, the authors find that the interaction among public officials and citizens mediated by Mayor on the Twitter network led to actual improvement in responsiveness. More specifically, the Twitter network in which Mayor plays a role of the bridging hub can function as the media through which not only disconnection among citizens and their local government, but information asymmetry among Mayor, public officials, and citizens can be overcome.