Investigating Social Media Utilization and Challenges in the Governmental Sector for Crisis Events

Waleed Afandi

doi:10.14569/ijacsa.2019.0101028

Abstract

The use and utilization of social media applications, tools, and services enables advanced services in daily routines, activities, and work environments. Nowadays, disconnection from social media services is a disadvantage due to their increasing use and functionality. The use of social media applications and services has provided different methods and routines for communications that ranges from posting, reposting, commenting, interacting, and live communication that can reach a mass population with minimum time, effort, and expenses compared with traditional media systems and channels. The current benefits of using social media can assist in providing better services in terms of communication and guidance for civil protection services within governmental sectors, as reported by different research studies. The use of social media has been found to be critically important by governmental agencies in different situations for directing, educating, and engaging people during different events. This study investigates the use of social media services in Saudi Arabia in governmental sectors to outline the opportunities and challenges faced, given the challenging situations faced annually during the Hajj and Ramadan rituals, and sporadic flood crisis events. This research focuses on defining the current stand and challenges of using social media services for providing mass communication and civil engagement during hazardous and challenging events in Saudi Arabia. The results of this study will be used as a roadmap for future investigation in this regard.

Highlights

Nowadays, many governmental sectors are seeking to enhance their services through providing direct communication with the public via e-government facilities
The aim and importance of this study is to investigate the current use of social media services in Saudi Arabia in governmental sectors, to be able to outline the opportunities and challenges faced, given the challenging situations faced annually during the Hajj and Ramadan rituals, and sporadic flood crisis events
The results offered in this paper are just a part of a larger research investigation carried out concerning governmental entities’ utilization of social media services in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)

Summary

Introduction

Many governmental sectors are seeking to enhance their services through providing direct communication with the public via e-government facilities. Different governmental authorities worldwide have realized the potentials of using these services in providing better far superior means of communication than traditional communications systems for general use or those for emergencies and hazardous events. The use of traditional communication systems is inefficient and does not provide engagement for active communication with the public. With the advent of mass internet usage since the 1990s, different solutions embodying the use of social media systems have been utilized by official agencies during extraordinary events to overcome the problems of traditional communication systems and go beyond their abilities in providing real-time communication channels, employed for sharing valuable government-to-citizen and citizen-to-citizen information among users

Methods

Results

Conclusion