Abstract
With municipalities merging, the Internet has been increasing in importance because citizens, especially those in rural areas, use it to acquire information from municipalities and participate in policy-making. As a result, many municipalities have adopted the Internet, especially social media that enables interactive communication with outside agencies and citizens. However, social media use by municipalities is still in its early stages, and it is not clear how it should be managed and what the scope of its effect will be. We chose Takeo City as our study area and clarified how they manage Facebook and the effects of the information transmission it engenders. As a result, we discovered the following: (1) a few officers take actual roles managing Facebook, and problems could arise without them, (2) Facebook increases the ability to disseminate real-time and urgent information, and (3) communication with outside agencies and citizens is vitalized while communication inside is still in progress.
