Local Governments in Networked Space: Changing Social Media Networks of Local Governments During the Covid-19 Pandemic in Turkey

In the last two decades, local governments have increasingly relied on social media to communicate with citizens from spreading information to increasing popularity. In times of crises, social media appears as an important asset for local governments for emergency mitigations. During the Covid-19 pandemic, social media has been an asset that affected the scales and affinities of local governments to communicate with each other and their citizens. Local governments in Turkey have increasingly used social media networks, especially Twitter, to promote engagement with local citizens. This chapter aims at identifying the characteristics of social media networking, that is, Twitter interactions, of local governments just before and during the first months of the pandemic in the Marmara Region. Based on data extracted from Twitter accounts of municipalities in the region, the research maps the social media networks of local governments, highlighting the effectiveness, and inclusionary and exclusionary use of social media by local governments and their changing positions in the networked space. Besides describing overall Twitter activity, the findings indicate the multiplier effect of the Covid-19 on municipalities’ interactions with one another and with other institutions and personalities. It has affected local governments to perform differently in terms of characteristics and structure of their social media networks.