Government Activities on Facebook: A Content Analysis of Selected Government Ministries’ Facebook pages in Bangladesh Shaharima Parvin Assistant Librarian East West University, Bangladesh Email: [email protected] Abstract: Social media sites are the world’s biggest information dissemination platform and today’s we cannot imagine to share our any information without these sites. It has been a leading manifestation in our lives in the past several years. Various profit and non-profit organization in Bangladesh are using Facebook to promote their services and highlight their roles to community. Now, government different ministries have accepted the opportunities of using Facebook to deliver better services as well as engage with citizens. The present study intends to examine the government ministries’ Facebook pages in Bangladesh to explore what types of information are disseminated on their Facebook pages, how effective these pages are in reaching out to citizens as well as engagement. Qualitative content analysis of four selected government ministries’ Facebook pages has conducted to fulfill the research aims. Content analysis allows describing the material only on selected aspects, on the other hand method is highly flexible as coding frame is always adjustable to the material. The researcher has selected four ministries Facebook pages and among these pages, two are verified and another two pages are not verified. The researcher has developed the categories and codes according to fulfill the research aims. Data collection has started by identifying the usage Facebook of each ministries and found that each ministries has incorporated Facebook logo in their website. After that, the information provided on ‘about’ section was put down, the number of likes/followers, the existence of profile picture, cover photo, and other applications has been identified. The data collection for content analyses was conducted in six months posting messages between October 2017 to March 2018 were recorded as well as organized and analyzed by using Microsoft Office Excel program. Keywords: Facebook, Information Dissemination, Content Analysis, Government Institution, Civic engagement, Bangladesh Prologue: Social media sites are the world’s biggest information dissemination platform and today’s we cannot imagine to share our any information without these sites. It has been a leading manifestation in our lives in the past several years. These sites have transformed our communication media from conventional forms to participatory forms and now we can express and share our opinions using these tools. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) define social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content.” (p. 61). “Social media are internet-based applications designed to facilitate social interaction and for using, developing and diffusing information through society” (Kavanaugh et al., 2012). Therefore, the emergence of social media is acting as vital role to accelerate social communication between indigenous communities and global communities. As citizens have been empowered by the use of social media, governments have found themselves obliged to listen and interact with them to a higher degree (Warren et al., 2014). Openness, accountability, and honesty delineate government transparency and it is very imperative as well as government’s commitment to share information with citizens in time. Government’s use of social media leads not only to establish open government improving transparency, participation, and collaborations with public but also “designs public policies, innovation in public services delivery in more iterative, collaborative and responsive ways” (Mickoleit, 2014). Governments around the globe have started utilizing various social media, such as blogs, Wikis, social networking, and microblogs to disclose the policy process subsuming bidding and contracting to the public, to facilitate citizens' monitoring of functionaries' activities, to build channels for functionaries to disseminate information to citizens, and to allow citizens to monitor their interactions with functionaries (Bertot et al.,2012). The total population of Bangladesh is 165.5 million and the internet penetration rate is 49 percentages whereas active social media users’ rate is 18 percentages (We Are Social, 2018). According to Alexa, the ranking of top websites based on the number of pages viewed on each site per visit, Facebook has placed on third position after Google and YouTube in Bangladesh. Various profit and non-profit organization in Bangladesh are using Facebook to promote their services and highlight their roles to community. Azad et al. (2017) found that government organizations used Facebook page and groups with different goals and objectives such as “to communicate with the public in a new way; develop internal communication and encourage service innovation, knowledge sharing and problem solution”. The present study intends to examine the government ministries’ Facebook pages in Bangladesh to explore what types of information are disseminated on their Facebook pages and how effective these pages are in reaching out to citizens as well as engagement. Literature Review: The study concentrates primarily on two research areas-information dissemination by government using social media and the significance of using social media for citizen engagement. The main characteristics of social media are participation, openness, conversation, engagement and connectedness (Eltantawy and Wiest, 2011; Kim et al., 2014; Zheng and Zheng 2014). In addition, Freeman (2016, p. 197) stated that digital technologies are redefining understandings and practices associated with democratic participation. Openness, accountability, and honesty delineate government transparency and it is very imperative as well as government’s commitment to share information with citizens in time. Government’s use of social media leads to establish open government improving transparency, participation, and collaborations with public. However, government institutions have policy about what types of information to be shared and the manner of sharing in order to maintain government transparency. When, social media has achieved popularity among people then government institutions did not consider using social media as they deemed that social media is demonstrating for recreational purpose. But now most governments have changed their opinions and they are using social media as they are not a place for discussion rather, they have become a vehicle for the institution of collective action (Mickoleit, 2014). ​ O’Really (2010) describes that web 2.0 technologies assist government leaders to be elected as well as to get a better job and this movement is called Government Web 2.0. “A more open, social, communication, interactive and user-centered version of e-government” (Meijet et al., 2012, p. 23) is described as Government 2.0. As, Web 2.0 is recognized as the advent of social media so government has huge possibilities to employ this platform. Bertot et al. (2010) points out the four major possibilities of using social media: “collaboration, participation, empowerment, and time” (p. 239). In addition, Criado el al. (2013) highlight that “Social media in government is becoming one of the major trends in electronic government research, and practice worldwide. Many researchers agree that using social media by government for information dissemination and citizen engagement has various benefits for both government and citizen and these benefits are effective to transform the e-government movement to we-government” (Linders, 2012, p. 464). Government can use social media to design public policies, innovation in public services delivery in more iterative, collaborative and responsive ways. (Mickoleit, 2014). Social media can assist government to improve communication, both regular and emergency e.g., earthquake, flash mob gathers, protests, traffic for the public safety and improve the quality of daily life. Besides, by using social media government can manage information and facilitate interaction to achieve board public participation than is possible through normal channels (Kavanaugh et al., 2012). The citizens of USA get information about what’s going on not only in their community but also national and global current events through social media (Kavanaugh et al., 2012). “Social media offers an especially compelling environment for engaging with news, information and discussion about political issues” (Duggan and Smith, 2016). However, Mickoleit (2014) specified that government institutions are not clear about the aim of using social media therefore, they felt uncertainty about the proper demonstration of social media and the implications for strategic objectives as well as daily activities in social media. The government can engage not only with the citizens but also with international community. Roseland and Mark (2010) consider social media as a powerful tool for sustainable community development. Nevertheless, government needs to professionalize their behavior in social media (Margel, 2012) and to prepare themselves to overcome the challenges of social media subsuming privacy, data security issue, quality of information, public perception and so on. The perceptions of using social media by government can be very different from country to country or within countries. Government