Experiences and Challenges for The Digital Preservation of Social Media

A qualitative study that presents the mapping of relevant international governmental experiences of digital preservation of contents generated in social media in the countries: England, the United States and Australia. The analyzes were based on technological characteristics, which cover issues related to the social media platform, data collection technology, preservation strategy and format of stored data. The contextual characteristics sought to identify metadata related issues in order to guarantee provenance, authenticity, rights management and access types. It was possible to conclude that there is an increase in the use of social media in the governmental scope, noting that archival regulatory milestones should be considered in the preservation actions of these contents. Communicational instantaneity and citizen participation in social media have required the State to act quickly and transparently. The social media platforms do not demonstrate commitment to issues related to the collection and archiving of contents aimed at preservation. The results indicate that there are several similarities in the governmental experiences in question. The initiatives started more than 5 (five) years ago and use the main existing social media platforms. Experiments use emulation as a preservation strategy.