Determinants of the Use of Social Media in Crisis Communication: An Analysis of Microblogging by Chinese Local Government

The public sector increasingly adopts social media to respond to crises. We utilize the technology-organization-environment theory to examine factors influencing the performance of social media use in crisis communication during the pandemic. Based on data from China, we find four factors that significantly impact the performance of social media use: organizational resources, policy environment, severity of COVID-19, and leadership. Performance is also found to be better for those places led by leaders from younger generations with medical science or mass media experiences. The study shares implications for swift government responses to pandemic health emergencies through effective information collection and dissemination.