Purpose

The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate why and how public health agencies employed social media during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak to foster public engagement and dialogic accounting.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors analysed the official Facebook pages of the leading public agencies for health crisis in Italy, United Kingdom and New Zealand and they collected data on the number of posts, popularity, commitment and followers before and during the outbreak. The authors also performed a content analysis to identify the topics covered by the posts.

Findings

Empirical results suggest that social media has been extensively used as a public engagement tool in all three countries under analysis but – because of legitimacy threats and resource scarcity – it has also been used as a dialogic accounting tool only in New Zealand. Findings suggest that fake news developed more extensively in contexts where the public body did not foster dialogic accounting.

Practical implications

Public agencies may be interested in knowing the pros and cons of using social media as a public engagement and dialogic accounting tool. They may also leverage on dialogic accounting to limit fake news.

Originality/value

This study is one of the first to look at the nature and role of social media as an accountability tool during public health crises. In many contexts, COVID-19 forced for the first time public health agencies to heavily engage with the public and to develop new skills, so this study paves the way for numerous future research ideas.

中文翻译：

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在COVID-19危机期间通过社交媒体进行公众参与和对话会计：错失良机？

目的

这项探索性研究的目的是调查在2019年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）爆发期间公共卫生机构为何以及如何利用社交媒体来促进公众参与和对话会计。

设计/方法/方法

作者分析了意大利，英国和新西兰领先的公共卫生危机公共机构的官方Facebook页面，他们收集了疫情爆发前后和期间的帖子数量，受欢迎程度，承诺和追随者数据。作者还进行了内容分析，以确定帖子所涉及的主题。

发现

实证结果表明，社交媒体已在所分析的所有三个国家中广泛用作公众参与工具，但由于合法性威胁和资源匮乏，社交媒体仅在新西兰已被用作对话会计工具。研究结果表明，假新闻在公共机构不鼓励对话会计的情况下发展得更为广泛。

实际影响

公共机构可能会对了解使用社交媒体作为公共参与和对话会计工具的利弊感兴趣。他们还可以利用对话会计来限制虚假新闻。

创意/价值

这项研究是第一个研究社会媒体在公共卫生危机期间作为问责工具的性质和作用的研究。在许多情况下，COVID-19首次迫使公共卫生机构与公众进行广泛接触并开发新技能，因此，本研究为众多未来的研究思路铺平了道路。