The purpose of this study is to describe in quantitative and qualitative terms the use of social media by the US government. During the autumn of 2012 the researchers collected and examined over 1,500 unique social media sites used by the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. This data was collected as part of a national web archiving initiative known as the End of Term Harvest, where US government websites are web archived in anticipation of changes prompted by the election. We found that social media is used heavily across all federal agencies and that they utilize a variety of social media platforms, with the most popular being Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Flickr. The qualitative examination revealed that agencies use social media to provide the public with information and to engage the public in conversation through the feedback and comment mechanisms enabled by the social media providers. However, we did not find evidence that social media is enabling high levels of collaboration between government and citizens, which was a goal stated in Obama's Transparency Memorandum.
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