Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/287912 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Citation: 
[Journal:] Public Administration [ISSN:] 1467-9299 [Volume:] 100 [Issue:] 4 [Publisher:] Blackwell Publishing Ltd [Place:] Oxford, UK [Year:] 2021 [Pages:] 821-840
Publisher: 
Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford, UK
Abstract: 
Using a neo‐institutional framework, this study investigates how German police use Twitter for their communication. This is relevant, because the police increasingly use social media to bypass the media's gatekeeping function and attain increased agency in communication activities. However, little is known about their different communication strategies and their impact on user engagement. The analysis is based on an automated content analysis of all tweets (N = 137,771) sent out by the German police in 2019. It identifies different patterns regarding the usage of Twitter between police entities on different levels of governance and in differing types of environments and examines how these patterns translate into different levels of user engagement. We find that German police entities differ in their use of Twitter and that environmental and organizational aspects can explain these differences. Moreover, different patterns of social media usage also lead to differing levels of user engagement.
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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