Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) 351–358

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Government Information Quarterly

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/govinf

Connecting citizens and local governments? Social media and

interactivity in major U.S. cities☆
Karen Mossberger ⁎, Yonghong Wu, Jared Crawford
Department of Public Administration, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Available online 14 November 2013 Changing the relationship between citizens and government is often cited as a goal for digital government, and
new tools such as social media have the potential to improve interactions with citizens through dialogue. Citizens
Keywords: are most likely to participate at the local level (Berry, Portney and Thomson, 1993; Oates, 1972; Oakerson, 1999),
Social media and the largest cities have traditionally been at the forefront in the adoption of e-government innovations (Moon,
Civic engagement 2002; Ho, 2002). We examine the use of social networks and other interactive tools in the 75 largest U.S. cities
Open government
between 2009 and 2011. During this period, the adoption of Facebook skyrocketed from just 13% of the cities
in 2009 to nearly 87% in 2011; similarly, the use of Twitter increased from 25% to 87%. We further explore
three case study cities through analysis of discussion on social networks, and interviews, and find that one-
way “push” strategies (Mergel, 2013a) predominate, although there are some signs of greater openness toward
dialogue with citizens.
© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1 . Introduction In this article, we examine social networks within the context of

How has local e-government in the U.S. changed in the past few years?
Measured by the scale of change, the unequivocal answer is social media.
While not as widespread, other tools designed to improve citizen and
government interactions, such as open data portals, have developed at
the local level as well. Changing the relationship between citizens and
government is often cited as a goal for digital government (Chadwick,
2009; Coursey & Norris, 2008; Ho, 2002; Moon, 2002; Tolbert &
Mossberger, 2006; Welch, Hinnant, & Moon, 2005; West, 2004), and
new tools such as social media have the potential to improve interactions
with citizens through dialogue and greater transparency (Bertot, Jaeger, &
Grimes, 2012). We examine the use of social media and other interactive
tools in the 75 largest U.S. cities between 2009 and 2011.
Local government is an important subject for the study of social
media and interactivity because of traditions of citizen participation
at the local level. Peters (2001) argues that local governments tend
to use more mechanisms that permit direct citizen involvement, in
part because they are more manageable at that scale (see also Fung,
2004; Briggs, 2008; Sirianni, 2009). And, the largest cities, which we
examine here, have generally been at the forefront in the adoption of
e-government innovations (Ho, 2002; Moon, 2002; Scott, 2006).
other interactive tools being implemented by local governments online
by constructing an index of interactivity and focusing on how social
networks are utilized in three case study cities. We track the use of
social media and other interactive tools using content analysis of local
government websites during spring 2009 and spring 2011, capturing a
period of remarkable growth. The rapid adoption of social media in
particular has the potential to provide convenient venues for dialogue
between citizens, and with government. Even in 2009, channels for
two-way interaction online were markedly limited in major cities, so
this is a development that is worth further investigation. In addition to
tracking trends for the 75 largest cities, we provide more in-depth
analysis of social media, more specifically social networks, for three
cities that have been early adopters of these new digital media, using
Mergel's (2013a,b) typology of push, pull, and networking strategies.
Interviews with local government officials from the three case study
cities provide further insight on opportunities and challenges for social
media use. Given the evidence from the content analysis and case
studies, we further explore implications for the future adoption of social
media tools for facilitating citizen knowledge and engagement.
2. Social media and interactive tools

The Obama administration's Open Government Directive called for

☆ We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Institute for Policy and Civic
Engagement of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
⁎ Corresponding author at: School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University,411 North
Central Ave, Suite 450, Phoenix, AZ 85003, USA.
E-mail addresses: karen.mossberger@asu.edu (K. Mossberger), yonghong@uic.edu
(Y. Wu), jcrawf6@uic.edu (J. Crawford).
greater transparency, participation, and collaboration through infor-
mation technology (Deckert, Stern, & Sack, 2011; Ganapati & Reddick,
2012; Obama, 2009), and interactive tools such as social media have
the capacity to advance such goals. This may be particularly true at the
local level, where there are traditions of citizen participation (Berry,
Portney, & Thomson, 1993; Oakerson, 1999; Oates, 1972). Previous

0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2013.05.016
352 K. Mossberger et al. / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) 351–358
studies have indicated, however, that digital government has a limited
record of use for democratic participation, and this has been true at
the local level as well. Scott (2006) concluded that local government
websites have a better record for civic information than participation,
and the channels that did exist for citizen input were one-way. A
more recent study by Holzer, Manoharan, Shick, and Towers (2008)
gave the 100 municipal governments in its sample a poor grade for
e-government use to advance online citizen participation; the study
found that only 11% of the local government websites studied had
mechanisms for citizen feedback. These studies did not include evidence
on the use of social networks. Is this pattern of limited participation
online changing over time, with the advent of social media, Web 2.0
and open government?
Tim O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 in 2005 to distinguish internet
technologies that feature generation of content by the user, participation-
enabling web structures, collective intelligence, and scalability (O'Reilly,
2005). Some examples of Web 2.0 relevant for citizen participation
include wikis, blogs, open data portals, and tools for crowdsourcing and
ranking ideas (Leighninger, 2012; Noveck, 2009; Robinson, Yu, &
Felten, 2010; Smith, 2010). Social media1 can be thought of broadly as
an extension of Web 2.0 and is described by Kaplan and Haenlein
(2010) as a “group of Internet-based applications that build on the
ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow
the creation and exchange of User Generated Content,” (p. 61). User
Generated Content is the aggregation of all media within Web 2.0
which is readily available to the public and is created by the end users,
here citizens. Unlike traditional media types, social media provide the
means for a “many-to-many” interaction (Bertot et al., 2012).
Social networks fall under the umbrella of social media and are
defined by several characteristics, which include creation of a public
profile within a defined system, the ability to connect with others, and
user-generated content (Boyd & Ellison, 2008; Kaplan & Haenlein,
2010; Mergel & Greeves, 2013). Further, social networks foster
“collaboration, joint learning, and the speedy exchange of information
between users” (Bonson, Torres, Royo, & Flores, 2012, p. 123). Thus,
social networks have the potential to provide a new platform for
communication between citizens and government officials, or for
deliberation and discussion among citizens. By soliciting ideas on social
media, governments can gather diverse viewpoints and different types of
expertise from citizens to craft more effective policy solutions (Noveck,
2009, 14, 38).
Social networks may be particularly appealing for interaction with
citizens because of the increased participation of the population on
sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. A survey by the
Pew Internet and American Life Project (Hampton, Sessions, Rainie, &
Purcell, 2011) found that 59% of American adults used at least one social
networking site. This percentage has more than doubled since 2008. The
most recent growth has occurred among adults over age 35, who now
account for over half of social network users. Prior to 2008, social
media networking sites were most popular in the under-25 age group.
Social networks have come of age, and so has their use for connecting
with governments. In December 2009, 31% of internet users reported
using social media networks such as Facebook, YouTube or Twitter or
other interactive tools such as text, email alerts or blogs, to obtain
government information (Smith, 2010).
3. Potential benefits of interactive digital government
There has been a shift toward more networked forms of governance
over the past several decades, with increased expectations that govern-
ment at all levels will work with multiple actors to deliver services or
1
There are varied definitions of what counts as social media or Web 2.0. The Pew
Internet and American Life Project (Smith, 2010) defined social media in their survey as
social networking, blogs, online video, and email and text alerts.
to formulate policy solutions, including nonprofit organizations, civic
groups, and individual citizens (Denters & Rose, 2005; John, 2001;
Pierre & Peters, 2005). An anticipated benefit of more participatory
and interactive government online has increased civic engagement on
the part of citizens (Ganapati, 2011; Leighninger, 2012; Scott, 2006).
This may be conceptualized as higher levels of citizen knowledge,
interest, discussion, and participation in government and community
affairs (Mossberger, Tolbert, & McNeal, 2008). Customization of
information through Web 2.0 features such as RSS feeds or social
networks like Facebook or Twitter may lower information costs through
sharing and alerts, and, like e-government in general, they provide
convenient and round-the-clock access to information, ultimately
contributing to citizen knowledge and interest in public affairs.
Government use of social networks and other online tools to discuss
policy issues may be viewed as responsive and accessible because
government interacts with citizens “where they are online, [and] how
they prefer to be engaged” (Leighninger, 2012, 4). This may convey
the message that government wants to reach out to citizens in a variety
of venues (Chadwick, 2009), and this may be especially true for some
groups that are currently less likely to participate in public affairs. The
use of social networks, specifically, poses the possibility of involving
young people, who were early adopters (Hampton et al., 2011). And,
while national surveys have revealed that most Americans have a
positive view of government use of social networks, African-Americans
and Latinos who are online are even more supportive than non-
Hispanic whites (Smith, 2010). For all of these reasons, features that
provide greater interactivity online may offer resources for civic
engagement, whether that is through customization of information,
one-way feedback, or two-way interactions.
Theories of citizen participation, including deliberative democracy,
however, suggest that two-way or even multi-actor deliberation is
particularly important for democratic practice (Barber, 1984; Fishkin,
1993; Gutmann & Thompson, 2004). It is this potential that sets social
networks apart from many of the ways in which governments have
traditionally gathered input from citizens online — through online
surveys, comment forms, and email. While chat rooms and discussion
boards are online platforms for dialogue that have been available for
many years, they have been little-used in government websites (Ho,
2002; Holzer et al., 2008; Moon, 2002; Mossberger, Wu, & Jimenez,
2010). The emergence of new tools online may therefore not easily
alter these patterns of government behavior, although citizen expec-
tations may be changing with the development of online discussion
on commercial websites, for newspaper commentary and consumer
rating of products.
It is possible that these trends and the popularity of social networks
may increase the adoption of social networks and other interactive tools
on government websites, and may also foster more two-way or multi-
party discussion in the government context. Beyond adoption, Mergel
(2013a) distinguishes between three possible strategies for social
media use: 1) representation; 2) engagement; and 3) networking. For
representation, governments may seek a presence on many social
media platforms, but they pursue a “push” strategy of broadcasting
the agency's message. Indicators of such a strategy include the blocking
of comments, and little investment in updating information. But, even
governments that are more active pursue a centralized approach that
disseminates press releases rather than inviting citizen participation.
Engagement strategies (also described as “pull” or “push and listen”)
solicit user-created content. There is some evidence online that govern-
ments are actively inviting feedback or contributions (for example, to
share stories, to rank ideas, or to create applications). This may also
include some response to citizen suggestions. Networking strategies
rely upon extensive discussion among citizens, where government
officials participate as one set of actors, but view discussion mainly
as an opportunity to elicit insights from citizens. Governments that
prioritize a networking strategy might pose topics for discussion and
set ground rules for otherwise open dialogue. Both the engagement
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