Language and identity in public administration : a case-study of the City of Belfast

Organizations within the UK public sector have been subjected to a rapid change which has penetrated every aspect of organizational management. This change is mainly due to a philosophy centred on the key role of competition and market forces in encouraging efficiency and quality of service. As a result, the organizations have become more business-like, adopting business strategies, formulating mission statements and strengthening marketing and customer-oriented functions. Thus, the communicational activity carried out by Public Administration qualifies both as institutional and informative as well as relational and promotional. This study explores the discursive construction of local authority image and institutional identity through the analysis of a variety of texts available on the city of Belfast website. Firstly, the focus is on whether and to what extent the discourse strategies – and ‘strategic discourse’ – displayed reveal that an “old” administrative orientation has been replaced by a new managerial logic in the public sector in order to attain the (im)possible goal of effective integration between citizens and governments. Secondly, the impact of the Internet on public agencies is analysed, especially in terms of information source and communicative medium potentially creating higher levels of accessibility, availability, and transparency to the public