Digital communication in Swiss cities: A closer look at the low adoption and usage of social media platforms in a technologically advanced and innovative country

Abstract

While a vast majority of local governments in Europe are communicating on social media, the situation differs in few states. Although Switzerland is often depicted as a technological advanced and innovative country, cities are still largely resisting the temptation to share information on social media platforms. In this study, we rely on a survey distributed to the communication managers of all cities over 10,000 inhabitants in Switzerland to uncover the reasons explaining this behavior. This approach is preferred to understand what motivates or prevents cities from communicating on social media, focusing mainly on perceptions of risks related to these platforms. Results indicate that some factors identified in the literature on public sector organizations slow down the social media adoption and usage at the local level; but interestingly, the conservative approach to social media preferred by numerous cities also plays a major role in explaining cities’ absence on these platforms.

Information needs and seeking behaviors of Israeli citizens during the COVID-19 outbreak

“…With the increased use of social media in the last decade and their central status in various cultures and countries, they are perceived as providing an effective way to directly transfer up-to-date knowledge in order to meet citizens' various information needs (Aburumman and Szilágyi, 2020; Ayanso and Moyers, 2020). Although, not all public organizations have adopted social media as their main communication tool (Mabillard et al. , 2021), most government organizations have already implemented at least one social technology or are in the process of implementing it (Criado and Villodre, 2021).…”

“…With the increased use of social media in the last decade and their central status in various cultures and countries, they are perceived as providing an effective way to directly transfer up-to-date knowledge in order to meet citizens' various information needs (Aburumman and Szil agyi, 2020;Ayanso and Moyers, 2020). Although, not all public organizations have adopted social media as their main communication tool (Mabillard et al, 2021), most government organizations have already implemented at least one social technology or are in the process of implementing it (Criado and Villodre, 2021). Despite the fact that these media platforms do not provide a comprehensive response to populations in need of assistance (Sonnenberg, 2020), it can still be seen that they do provide a reasonable response that can reach large sections of the population, due to their accessibility, ease of use and the availability they offer their users (Hung et al, 2020).…”

The users’ point of view: towards a model of government information behavior on social media

“…Many global government ministries and public organizations operate a digital presence on a variety of international social networks ( Aburumman and Szilágyi, 2020 ; Bonsón et al., 2015 ; DePaula et al., 2018 ; Faber et al., 2020 ; Gintova 2019 ). Through online social platforms such as Facebook or Twitter , they can connect with their citizens in the digital sphere, and thus provide additional information about various activities and policies ( DePaula et al., 2018 ; Faber et al., 2020 ; Mabillard et al., 2021 ; Yavetz and Aharony 2020 ). The kind of information governments might share with their citizens via social media varies, and can include updates about policy changes, events, and guidelines, and more specific information at local or municipal levels ( DePaula et al., 2018 , Giacomini et al., 2021 , Yavetz and Aharony, 2021 ).…”

Local governments’ communication on social media platforms: refining and assessing patterns of adoption in Belgium

“…However, clarity is needed since certain public bodies maintain a presence without any activity on social media platforms. There are several reasons for this inactivity that include, for example, lack of staff, tasks achieved by interns during their time spent in an organization, completion of a "tick the box" exercise, or lack of interest for the municipality (Mabillard et al, 2021).…”

“…Initial information regarding Belgian municipalities was gathered from Statbel, the Belgian statistical office 1 in January 2020. We decided to focus on the municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants, as prior research has shown that informal channels still prevail in small entities (Mabillard et al, 2021), and that bigger municipalities are more active on social media (Haro-de-Rosario et al, 2018). Most characteristics of the Belgian municipalities have been either directly collected on the Statbel website (e.g., population size, median age), or on the regional statistics portals (e.g., turnout rate in the last elections), or on other sources (e.g., socio-demographic features of the municipal of adoption and developing the notion of "active adoption".…”