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Social media challenge to local authorities in Europe

News - 22 March 2018 - Webredactie OTB

With the use of social media, local governments hope to involve citizens more in their policy-making and decision-making. However, the speed and intensity with which citizens are active on social media requires great alertness from public administrations. 

With the use of social media, citizens and governments can reach one another better than is currently the case. OTB researchers Enzo Falco and Reinout Kleinhans find that it can also improve policy-making. They work with scientists from Austria, Cyprus and Spain for a period of three years within the EU SmartGov project (Advanced Decision Support for Smart Governance). This project is about strengthening decision-making at local level on mutual communication between citizens and governments via social media and digital platforms.

An increasing number of public services and semi-public institutions are using social media and social networks to share their policy intentions and activities with society. With this form of communication, they seek to increase the involvement of citizens in decision-making and policy implementation. Especially at local level, social media are new channels for sharing information between government and citizens. Reinout Kleinhans: “In this way citizens can play a more active role by placing subjects that are relevant to their environment on the administrative agenda.” Many governments envisage such a ‘do-it-yourself democracy’ by active citizens, but when this happens, according to Kleinhans, governments are often taken by surprise. 

Active attitude required

Working with social media requires quite a lot from governments, according to SmartGov research into the practice of these forms of communication. It requires an active, professional attitude and often also a number of adjustments within the organisation. Managing social media and analyzing social media feeds is not something to leave to unprepared civil servants; these activities require specialists. For example, departments must ensure mutual supply and processing of information. If, for example, motorists and commuters are the target group, then up-to-date information is required from the traffic, public works and public transport services. This requires a substantial intensification of cooperation between them. Response from the target group must be handled, and within an acceptable time frame. Kleinhans: “In order to make social media in a do-it-yourself democracy a successful instrument, civil servants and administrators are expected to respond immediately. Expectation management is therefore necessary.” 

Back office for coordination

Successful use of social media also depends on user frequency, the type of information they share, the quality of information and alignment with expectations of the target group. A back office of the communications department can form the connection with the other departments, because separate  accounts from various departments can be a barrier to success. Falco: “Technology is developing faster than governments can cope with. It requires leaving traditional methods behind. This will not happen overnight but will take a few years. Yet many municipalities already have a social media account. However, many of these accounts are mainly used by citizens for reporting practical problems, such as passing on damage in public spaces.

Should governments decide to actively deploy social media, it is important to analyse response in the form of posts, downloads, retweets, likes and shares in order to have an idea of how citizens assess the quality of the communication and the information provided.

Both researchers noted that their contribution to the project was appreciated. Falco: “It is gratifying that we can support the civil servants and local politicians of the pilot cities in making the transition. We can now suggest them a route to an organisation working side by side with citizens.” Kleinhans adds: “We seem to reassure civil servants when we tell them that social media technology is already available and that they don' t need to reinvent it, but that the crux is mainly in adapting working methods within their organisation. 

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