City Employees and Social Media: A Descriptive Study

Abstract

The purpose of this applied research project is to describe the attributes of city policies and/or employee handbook sections that address employee personal use of social media. A comprehensive review of the literature was used to develop a conceptual framework composed of three descriptive categories: interaction, confidentiality, and identity. The researcher utilized the content analysis method for this framework to develop a coding protocol. Forty Texas cities of various sizes were examined. These various cities were studied to determine if they had a policy or otherwise in place that addresses the personal use of social media by city employees. Public administrators in charge with creating, maintaining, and enforcing employee use social media policies ought to consider utilizing this research for the benefit of their cities.