Local governments facebook pages: do they provide a public-service?

Eiró-Gomes, Mafalda; Rodrigues, Maria de Jesus

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/17691

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Authors

Eiró-Gomes, Mafalda

Rodrigues, Maria de Jesus

Abstract(s)

PURPOSE The research aimed at a better understanding of how municipalities in Portugal (with between 20 and 30 thousand inhabitants), used their official Facebook pages, between the 1st January and the 30th April, 2024. Are they being used as a public service belonging to the realm of Public Communication? METHODOLOGY / RESEARCH DESIGN In the frame of a pragmatist world view and in order to answer the research questions both quantitative and qualitative methods have been developed. A software programme has been used to recollect and analyse the structural facebook quantitative metrics followed by a two level content analysis process (qualitative content analysis to analyse the manifest messages). FINDINGS The data showed that the research questions (derived from an international literature review) were not even the most relevant ones as, in general, the 31 facebook pages analysed could not be considered as providing a service or belonging to either public communication nor political communication categories. They seem to be used as the old placards outside the town halls where different associations, or even private companies, could display information concerning their cultural or sporting events. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS / IMPLICATIONS The research being presented here is just a small part of a bigger project that hopes to understand, in general, how municipalities use their facebook pages in Portugal as well as promoting a better understanding of Public Communication in general and the interest in seeing it as a service. ORIGINALITY / VALUE None is known about the way local governments use social media, as a service, in Portugal, in the framework of public communication studies.

Keywords

Public communication Political communication Services Local governments Facebook pages

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/17691

Citation

Eiró-Gomes, M. & Rodrigues, M.J. (2024, aug, 29-30). Local governments facebook pages: Do they provide a public-service?. Paper presented at 27th Excellence In Services International Conference (EISIC), University of Bergamo, Italy.