E-government services and social media adoption: Experience of small local governments in Nebraska state
Introduction
Primarily driven by citizen engagement and Open Government Initiatives, local governments are increasingly using social media for purposes such as distributing information, reaching the community, enhancing public service efficiency, reducing cost, and increasing interagency exchanges (Gulati & Williams, 2013; Mergel & Bretschneider, 2013; NASCIO, 2010; Reddick & Norris, 2013). Such prevalent use of social media represents an interactive tendency that embraces myriad benefits, yet it also has potential risks. For example, unlike traditional e-government services, social media applications are provided by third parties that are outside the direct control of government organizations (Mergel, 2013a). Moreover, the current state of social media use might harm governments' reputations since many governments see these platforms merely as additional channels to broadcast information, rather than a way for bidirectional communication (McNutt, 2008). Also, problems such as security, privacy, records management, employee use/abuse, and time free for staff constrain active use of social media in local governments (McNutt, 2008).
Most social media studies have connected to Web 2.0 or Government 2.0 concepts, such as: open government and transparency, citizen participation, interagency collaboration, and trust in government (Linders, 2012). They follow multiple theoretical frameworks such as: impact of information technology in the public sector, socio-technical and structuration theories, strategic business alignment, and innovation and diffusion (Criado, Sandoval-Almazan, & Gil-Garcia, 2013). Several gaps emerged from these studies. Among them, the apparent first one is that most studies focus on social media experiences of large cities, although the majority of local governments in the U.S. are small (Cassell & Mullaly, 2012; Feeney & Welch, 2014; Li & Feeney, 2014; Mossberger & Wu, 2012). Second, the relationship between e-government and social media technologies is poorly-defined. Some emphasize the difference by stating social media is capable of engaging citizens in collaborative and transactional activities in ways not possible with e-government (Bryer, 2011; Li & Feeney, 2014). Others, however, find that the use of social media follows the pathway of e-government, but the interactive nature continues to be overlooked (Feeney & Welch, 2014; Mossberger & Wu, 2012). Third, previous studies tend to consider Web 2.0 tools as a homogeneous block, “without fully recognizing the diversity of their technical characteristics and variation in purposes for which they are applied” (Oliveira & Welch, 2013).
As a response to these gaps, this study focuses on social media adoption by small local governments and explores the relationship between existing e-government services and the adoption of two different social media tools: Facebook and Twitter. It also touches on the question of how small local governments are using social media tools to communicate with the public.
The following section introduces a conceptual framework and four hypotheses. Data and methods used to test these hypotheses are then presented. This is followed by the results of two logistic regression models and descriptive analysis of survey data, from which the connections between e-government services and the adoption of Facebook and Twitter are illustrated. This paper concludes with a discussion of results and implications.
Section snippets
E-government service types
E-government is defined as “the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for a better government or to improve the quality of its services, especially through the use of the Internet and Web technologies” (OECD, 2003). Under e-government platforms, government is the main technology adopter, content contributor, and system manager (Mergel, 2013b; Reddick & Norris, 2013). As a result, the introduction of new platforms is “traditionally top-down driven following organizational
Data collection
This study combines data from the 2015 Nebraska City E-government and Social Media Survey, 2010 American Census, 2015 Nebraska Directory of Municipal Officials, and content analysis of Nebraska local governments' official websites. The 2015 Nebraska City E-government and Social Media Survey aimed to assess small local governments' online services and use of social media. As of the 2013 Census Bureau estimates, there were 530 cities and villages in the State of Nebraska. Among them, a total of
Descriptive statistics
Among the 87 survey respondents, 39 (44.8%) reported that their local governments are using Facebook, and 27 (31%) use Twitter (See Table 2). These adoption rates are relatively low compared with those reported by large municipalities in the 2011 ICMA E-government Survey and provide evidence to support the aforementioned argument that large local governments are more advanced in technology development (Lev-On & Steinfeld, 2015; Mossberger et al., 2013).
From a list of 18 online services
Discussion and conclusion
This paper developed hypotheses on how different e-government services relate to the adoption of the two most popular social media tools: Facebook and Twitter. Firstly, it reviewed the debates on the relationship between e-government and social media technologies and followed the institutionalization theory to emphasize connections and consistency between e-government development and social media adoption. After identifying distinct features of Facebook and Twitter, a survey of small local
Acknowledgments
Our thanks go to the survey participants from local governments in Nebraska and Dr. Yu-Che Chen and Yunseung Kim. We also appreciate the comments on editing the draft from Anthony Starke. This study is built on efforts of the Global Digital Governance Lab at the School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Endnote
A renewed survey, with additional departmental level questions on use of social media, has been successfully administered with counties in the State of Iowa between December 2016 and January 2017. Future research should enlarge the sample size and collect comparable data from more local governments on their use of interactive technology such as social media.
Xian Gao is a doctoral student at the School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her research interests include digital governance, collaborative governance, e-participation, and social media.
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Xian Gao is a doctoral student at the School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her research interests include digital governance, collaborative governance, e-participation, and social media.
Jooho Lee is an associate professor at the School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha. His research interests include e-government, e-participation, social and organizational networks in the public sector.