Wrestling with Contradictions in Government Social Media Practices

Abstract

Research in government social media practices highlights expectations of co-creation and progression mirrored in maturity models, but research also documents low deployment degree and thereby points to a discrepancy. The paper suggests that the authors instead of co-creation and progression draw on a dialectical approach and understand the development of government social media practices as a wrestling with contradictions. The case of emerging social media practices in a Danish municipality used to illustrate this framework suggests three main categories of contradictions in emerging social media practices: Contradictions between service administration and community feeling as forms of practice, contradictions in organizing between local engagement and central control, and contradictions in the digital infrastructure between proprietary municipal websites and public social media platforms. The paper discusses if a paradox lens will enhance our understanding of inherent contradictions or the dialectical notion of contradiction serve the purpose. The paper contributes to a dialectical theory of contradictions through an analysis of emerging government social media practices.

The Role of Social Media in U.S. County Governments

“…Changes to organizational structure are not easy for governments that are limited by laws regarding data sharing (Gant & Gant, 2002) that prevent interaction and integration between government departments and agencies. Also, governments lack dedicated SM departments or managers (Haahr, 2013). Whereas the expected result was to find more SMP where more citizens were, given the technological challenges governments face, this finding leads to the conclusion that SM may in fact be a distraction from already established processes.…”

“…Because SM is seen as a vehicle to increase effectiveness and legitimacy by communicating with internal and external stakeholders (Mijer & Thaens, 2013), researchers have explored the adoption and use of SM in government (e.g., Hong, 2013;Mijer & Thaens, 2013;Mossberger, Wu, &Crawford, 2013;Oliveira & Welch, 2013;Reddick & Norris, 2013;Bertot, Jaeger, & Hansen, 2012;Bonsón et al, 2012). Past research concluded the same patterns for SM as EGOV in general: SM is present, can and has produced positive outcomes (Mijer & Thaens, 2013), but is largely in an early and experimental stage of development (Bonsón et al, 2012) and expectations fall short of reality (Haahr, 2013).…”

“…As county governments are comprised of many different departments and agencies, not unlike commercial enterprises, users expect "front office" integration and that the ICT masks the complexities (Kohlburn et al, 2013). However, having multiple SM accounts, one per agency detracts from the goal of integration and is more problematic when there is not at least one for the overarching county SM service although EGOV purports to be a one-stop portal (Haahr, 2013). Likewise, having a link for Fb or Tw on county home page is expected to lead to that county's SM account and not a particular agency or department within the county.…”

The Digitalization of Wrestling Basic Techniques for Learning

“…When a wrestler gets a shorter opponent, for him it will be easy to fade out his balance and the taller wrestler will control the match. The average wrestler with a higher body has a deficiency in the strength of his opponent, so to fight it requires the use of a long range to then be able to reach the opponent's ankle [29]. With this movement, usually the tall wrestlers manage to execute well and take advantage perfectly.…”

How to Overcome Transformation Barriers in IT Departments of State-Owned Enterprises

“…Kromidha 2012;Vander Elst & De Rynck, 2014), technology-related issues (cf. Cordella & Bonina, 2012;Cordella & Tempini, 2015;Gong & Janssen, 2012;Haahr, 2014;Meier, Ben & Schuppan, 2013;Mergel, 2013;Orlikowski, 1992) as well as the employer"s perspective and their individual change process (Meier et al, 2013).…”