Legal administrative value of presidential actions in Twitter: Government 2.0 in Ecuador

This article analyzes the legal and administrative scope of Twitter as a mass media and institutional management tool, and how it fits in legal and institutional mechanisms using the case of the Republic of Ecuador. It is proposed that the presidential action within the social network has consequences in public administration such as the centralization of the decision-making and the political mandate. In this paper, a quantitative and qualitative study of the Twitter account of the President of the Republic of Ecuador (used as a direct management tool between citizens and government) was undertaken through the methodology of social network analysis. The data show that there is an administrative and legal mechanism that gives legitimacy to presidential actions within the social network, and that behavioral patterns of the presidential authority within the web 2.0. are a source of law that increases the perception of efficiency of the head of state’s action.