Facebook in Local Governance: A Missed Opportunity for Two-Way Communication, Service Customization, and Democratic Enhancement

Hila Schwartz, Yarden Kozer, Zohar Barnett-Itzhaki and Gal Hagit Carasso Romano

International Journal of Public Administration, 2025, vol. 48, issue 10, 631-641

Abstract: This study assesses how local authorities utilize their Facebook-pages to promote civic involvement, enhance democracy, and tailor services to residents’ needs. Methodology includes questionnaires for Facebook-page admins and 431 residents in Israel, analysis of 1,600 posts from 32 municipal Facebook pages, and a “hidden-customer” experiment assessing responsiveness. Results indicate that while 81% of residents follow their municipal pages, only 26% engage actively, and merely 31.8% of inquiries are answered. A significant negative correlation between posting frequency and engagement was also observed. These findings collectively suggest an underutilization of Facebook’s potential for enhancing two-way communication and democracy.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01900692.2024.2395886 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:lpadxx:v:48:y:2025:i:10:p:631-641

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/lpad20

DOI: 10.1080/01900692.2024.2395886

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Public Administration is currently edited by Ali Farazmand

More articles in International Journal of Public Administration from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().