Municipalities’ use of social media : A qualitative study of four municipalities and their use of social media

The aim of this study was to investigate how selected municipalities’ use social media, with a focus on how they are working to increase the dialogue between municipalities’ and residents. To answer the purpose of the study three questions has been formulated: how do the communicators use social media in their daily work? What opportunities and challenges are the municipalities’ experiencing with Facebook? How do they work with Facebook to increase dialogue with citizens? The theories that has been used in this study is Cutlip’s and Grunig’s public relations theories, Shannon and weavers communication model, Cutlip’s and Heath’s theory of issue management and Jenkins theory of convergence culture. The method that has been used in this study is qualitative semi-structured interviews and the analysis is done with a thematic text analysis. The material of this study contained interviews of four communicator officers that are responsible for social media in the municipalities’. The results of the semi-structured interviews showed that the communicator officers used social media to quickly, easily and cheaply connect many citizens in comparison with the traditional media. The biggest opportunity with Facebook for municipalities’ was to improve issue management by spreading the information faster and have an improved dialog with the citizens. The biggest challenge was to think more strategically how to enhance the use of Facebook. The communicator officers try to invite citizens to dialogue by presenting information that citizens want comment and debate about. Municipalities’ also will have meetings with PR agencies to improve the dialog with the citizens in Facebook