Interaction of public audit institutions with users through social communication media
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2021.ene.09Keywords:
Social networks, Social media, Web 2.0, Facebook, Twitter, Information and communication technologies, European public sector audit institutions, Supreme audit institutions, Public administration styles, Open government, Transparency, e-Participation, Public managementAbstract
The interaction of public audit institutions with users through social media is analyzed. In addition to determining explanatory factors for the adoption of these platforms by supreme and regional European public audit institutions, a comparative analysis of the most commonly used social media is carried out to answer the following research questions: How do European public audit institutions use social media? What is the level of follow-up and interaction of their users? This paper analyzes 92 European public audit institutions: 28 supreme audit institutions (SAIs), 63 regional audit institutions (RAIs), and the European Court of Auditors (ECA). The results of this study indicate that the level of social media use by these institutions is low, with higher levels of adoption by SAIs and in areas with larger populations and Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, and Eastern public administration styles. The results also show that social media are mainly used to disclose information on their activities and that publications seeking to improve the image of the institutions have the greatest impact on users. Publications aimed at starting a dialogue with users are the least frequent. Users interact more on Facebook than on Twitter, "likes" being the most common user reaction and comments the least frequent.
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