Involving EU Citizens Online. Case Study on Social Media Use of the European Commission.

This thesis deals with the problem of distance between EU institutions and European citizens and the potential of social media to reconnect them. An extensive research on the social media performance of the European Commission resulted into a new analysis model that may be utilized to investigate social media use of governmental or supranational organisations. With regards to the EU, many European citizens do not feel informed about European issues and do not understand the functioning and role of the European political system. European institutions have to work hard to keep citizens engaged with politics and public communication is of overall importance. Worldwide, the use of social media in the public sector has become a hot topic. Many governmental organizations have added social media networks to their communication channels. This thesis includes an explanatory single case study on social media use of the European Commission. It explores how the Commission utilizes social media networks in order to communicate about EU legislation, taking into account many factors that may influence the process. The methods include an interview and e-mail conversation with a social media officer of the DG COMM, a questionnaire filled out by some of the most active users of the Commission’s Facebook page and several discourse and conversation analysis models. The data consists of 24 Facebook posts about EU legislation and 257 following comments. The Commission’s posts are found to serve three different communicative goals: 1) inform citizens about relevant legislation during all phases of the policy-making process (informative), 2) promote EU legislation (persuasive) and 3) stimulate political dialogue (motivational). To inform citizens, the Commission frequently posts messages about all aspects of the policy-making process. To promote legislation, persuasive language is used. About political dialogues is argued that, although European citizens share their political opinions in comments, real political discussions do not take place. Social media are not the one solution for closing the gap between EU institutions and EU citizens, because they can only reach a small segment of society. However, social media can provide EU institutions with more interactive ways of communication. Although Facebook may not lead to high quality political discussions, with the start of live blogging tools and Twitter chats with EU Officials, the Commission is making great steps towards an optimal use of social media in order to involve citizens.