Government–Citizen Engagement on Social Media: Sentiment Analysis of Facebook Data

Abstract

With the advancement of new technologies, internet is the core necessity of today’s world. The advent of social media proved to be the most effective medium for conveying information quickly to masses. It is important for governments to keep pace with latest technologies to connect with the public. Social media is an effective tool for democratic countries to engage public and encourage their participation in feedback which helps in making decisions. The core objective of this research is to know the engagement and response of citizens towards Pakistani government activities through Facebook and to know the public response on government posts. The study involves both qualitative and quantitative method. Sentiment analysis of public response on government posts is performed on Facebook. The findings interpret low engagement of public on posts by Pakistani ministries and mixed sentiments are given through comments by citizens who involved more criticism. The study recommends new direction for researchers to conduct and expand researches in future.