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.

中文翻译：

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组织差异对公共组织使用社交媒体是否重要？德国警方使用 Twitter 进行外部交流方式的计算分析

本研究使用新制度框架，调查德国警方如何使用 Twitter 进行交流。这是相关的，因为警方越来越多地使用社交媒体来绕过媒体的把关功能，并在沟通活动中获得更大的代理权。然而，人们对他们不同的沟通策略及其对用户参与度的影响知之甚少。该分析基于对所有推文的自动内容分析（N = 137,771) 由德国警方于 2019 年发出。它确定了不同治理级别和不同类型环境中警察实体之间使用 Twitter 的不同模式，并研究了这些模式如何转化为不同级别的用户参与度。我们发现德国警察实体在使用 Twitter 方面存在差异，环境和组织方面可以解释这些差异。此外，不同的社交媒体使用模式也会导致不同程度的用户参与度。