| Abstract [eng] |
In recent years, extraordinary events have shaken the whole world which affected private and public sectors. The world has been shaken by a new crisis situation, the Russian-Ukrainian war, which is considered to be the biggest since the Second World War in Central Europe. The extraordinary crisis situation caused more anxiety in the former Soviet Union states, against which aggressive statements directly led to the increased anxiety of the population about their own and the entire state security. In crisis situations, the public sector shapes the public's attitude to the situation, emerging risks, and creates an action plan that would help reduce the impact of the crisis on the population. The local government, which is closest to the citizens, helps them understand the situation and prepares them for possible surprises. In such extraordinary situations, in the management of risks and crises, communication of public management institutions becomes the main and potentially the most important component. In order to manage crisis, they must react and communicate quickly and efficiently. For this, social media is used. It is considered to be one of the most important tools as it has huge potential and reach. It ensures that communication during a crisis will be effective and that the public will not underestimate the situation, the emerging risks, and will cooperate with the authorities. A number of foreign authors have analyzed the use of social media in public administration. Recent years have seen an increase in research on government crisis communication. Researchers draw attention to the ever-increasing potential of social media in crisis situations. Social media is constantly and rapidly changing, improving and becoming an integral part of public administration. These days, one cannot imagine the communication between government representatives and citizens without social media platforms. There are not many studies on this topic in Lithuania, especially in the context of crisis situations. Local government crisis communication on social media remains a hot topic that merits continued research. This is due to improving technologies, the growing potential of social networks, which requires an update of knowledge and attitude. Also, different crisis situations require individual research and improvement of their management. The Russian-Ukrainian war has created a gap for new research on local government crisis communication in social media. In this final project, the research problem is posed by the question: how Marijampolė and Vilnius city municipalities carry out crisis communication on Facebook during the war between Russia and Ukraine. The object of the research is the crisis communication of Marijampolė and Vilnius city municipalities on Facebook during the war between the states of Russia and Ukraine. The aim of the project is to analyze and compare the crisis communication of Marijampolė and Vilnius city municipalities on Facebook during the war between Russia and Ukraine. Tasks set to achieve the goal: 1. perform an analysis of the theoretical context of local government crisis communication in social media; 2. to analyze the crisis communication possibilities of Marijampolė and Vilnius city municipalities on Facebook; 3. compare local government crisis communication on Facebook. Methods used in the project: analysis of scientific literature, analysis of legal acts and statistical data, content analysis. The first chapter of the project analyzes the theoretical context of local government crisis communication. The second chapter analyzes the practical possibilities of crisis communication on Facebook of Marijampolė and Vilnius city municipalities. In the third chapter, the investigation of the crisis communication of Marijampolė and Vilnius city municipalities, which is carried out on Facebook, is carried out. The results of the conducted research revealed that the main purpose of the investigated municipalities crisis communication is to inform citizens. It was established that the municipality of Vilnius city communicates better on Facebook than Marijampolė. It has been discovered that Vilnius city municipality promotes positive emotions and expresses solidarity with Ukraine more often in its communication, which increases user engagement. Vilnius uses a variety of content creation tools that help reduce the volume of published messages, making them more attractive to users. The crisis communication carried out by both municipalities can be evaluated positively, but certain shortcomings have been identified, the elimination of which would help to improve the crisis communication of Marijampolė and Vilnius city municipalities on Facebook. After evaluating the results of the conducted research, conclusions and recommendations are presented. At the end of the project, lists of used scientific literature and information sources are provided. |
