icegov2012 proceedings

Exploring Social Media Usage in Saudi E-Government
Websites
Hend S. Al-Khalifa, Muna S. Al-Razgan, Nora I. Al-Rajebah and Ameera M. Almasoud
Information Technology Department
College of Computer and Information Sciences
King Saud University
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
{hendk;ma;razgan;nrajebah;amma;masoud}@ksu.edu.sa
ABSTRACT
Many governments worldwide have employed social media
services to increase their openness and transparency. These
services have played an important role in bridging the gap
between governments and citizens and increase the interaction
with each other. This paper explores the prevalence of social
media services in Saudi e-Government agencies' websites and
analyzes their patterns of usage.
Using a comprehensive analysis of 170 Saudi government
websites, we found that Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were the
most commonly used social media services among e-Government
agencies, and they were utilized as a one-way communication
channel.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
J.4 [Computer Applications]: Social and Behavioral Sciences –
sociology, psychology.
General Terms
Management
Keywords
Social Media, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blog, E-government,
Saudi Arabia.
1. INTRODUCTION
With the proliferation of an array of different social media
services such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter, people became
more connected to each other. Social media services are defined
as “media for social interaction, using highly accessible and
scalable communication techniques. It is the use of web-based and
mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive
dialogue” [1].
In fact, there are many categories of social media sites based on
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ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA
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243
the service they provide, for instance: Blogging services (e.g.
Wordpress/Blogger), Media-sharing services, (e.g. YouTube
"Video", Flickr "photos"), Social networking (e.g. Facebook and
LinkedIn) and Micro-Blogging services (e.g. Twitter).
Social media services are gaining popularity worldwide. Based on
Alexa 1 ranking for top visited sites in the world, we can notice
that 50% of the top ten most visited websites are social media
services, which includes: Facebook, YouTube, BlogSpot and
Twitter.
Recently social media websites have been used to improve the
relationship between government agencies and their citizens and
to increase interaction. They provide good means of eparticipation,
which offers "the opportunity to achieve and satisfy
the need to be heard by politicians and participate in the decisionmaking
and policy formulation processes through the use of ICT"
[2]. In this respect, social media services were widely adopted in
e-Government websites because they created fast and readily
available communication channels with the citizens.
Given the importance of employing social media services in
today's e-Government websites; in this study we present the
results of analyzing the prevalence and usage of social media
services in Saudi Arabia e-Government agencies websites.
In order to explore the prevalence of social media services in
Saudi e-Government agencies websites, we first need to know
what are the widely used social media services in Saudi Arabia?
According to Alexa website, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and
Blogspot, respectively are among the top ten most visited websites
in Saudi Arabia 2 . Also the statistics presented in the "Internet
World Stats" 3 show that there are more than 4.5 Million Saudi
Facebook users on Dec 31, 2011; with a penetration rate equal to
17.4%. Most of these users are under 30 years old. On the other
hand, in September, 2011 the number of Saudi Twitter users has
reached 127,457 users according to Arab Social Media Report [3].
The previous numbers show an increased usage of social media
among young Saudi citizens.
Knowing these facts about the usage growth of social media
services in Saudi Arabia, this study will answer the following
questions:
1
The top 500 sites on the web by Alexa.com on March 26, 2012
2
Top sites in Saudi Arabia by Alexa.com on March 26, 2012:
http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/SA
3
http://www.internetworldstats.com/middle.htm, Date Accessed 26 March
2012.