An Empirical Analysis of Social Media Usage by Local Governments in Portugal

Abstract

Communication strategies and plans have changed with the advent and popularity of social networking sites (SNS). Possibilities for interaction and citizen engagement have become multiple and diverse and have been used by all levels of government. This paper investigates the following research question: what are the determinants of the use of Facebook by Portuguese local governments to communicate with their citizens? Our main objective is to use both descriptive and explanatory analyses to not only investigate the determinants of the activity of local governments on Facebook but also to map the activity of those governments in this social media. We use a political market framework to develop hypotheses about the influence of mayoral leadership, local government capacity, and other political traits of the local governments themselves (supply-side determinants) and socio demographic, economic, and cultural factors (demand-side determinants). We test the hypotheses derived from this theoretical framework using several metrics of the degree of Facebook activity and citizen engagement levels displayed by all 308 Portuguese municipalities in a three-month period at the end of the year 2016. Findings indicate that in larger and wealthier municipalities local executives are more likely to display increased reliance on Facebook. Facebook post activity is also positively associated with higher transparency levels and mayoral turnover.