The social media are becoming a major channel of online interactive participation, and local governments are seizing this opportunity to enhance citizen engagement in political and social affairs. This article analyses the various forms of social media used – that is, Twitter or Facebook – by citizens in their relations with Spanish local government, to determine which of these achieves the strongest degree of commitment. We also analyse the influence of various factors on this level of commitment. The results obtained show that Facebook is preferred to Twitter as a means of participating in local government issues. Other factors that are relevant to citizen engagement are the level of online transparency, mood, the level of activity in social media and the interactivity offered by the local government website. The findings of this study contribute significantly to understanding how citizen engagement is influenced by the type of social media adopted.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine the extent of financial information made available by public administrations on their web sites and to discover whether this communications policy is influenced by the context in which the public entity operates. Design/methodology/approach – The study took as its reference the prior literature and distinguished three dimensions – information content, qualitative characteristics of information and accessibility – which were converted into a disclosure index that was used to assess government web sites. A multivariable linear regression analysis was performed in search of a relationship between seven external factors and the provision of public financial information online. Findings – The empirical research revealed that the sample municipalities were not fully aware of the potential importance of the internet in enabling the achievement of e-democracy initiatives as a tool of new public management. The factors previously found to be important in paper-based reporting seem to have no influence on the public disclosure of financial information on the internet. Only the cost of debt and access to the internet in households seem to be relevant factors in the degree of financial information transparency achieved via the internet. Practical implications – The good practices by greater online public financial transparency could improve the image of governments and the confidence of citizens. Originality/value – This paper tries to encourage a benchmarking process disseminating best practices in online government financial information and identifying the key variables that promote this process.

The social demand of transparency in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has increased. This is due to their social and economic impact and the incidences of fraudulent behavior by some international NGOs managers. In this regard, an improved and abundant dissemination of information by NGO is essential. The Internet is considered a strategic communication tool in such dissemination. Following an explanatory research line, this article aims to identify the influence of the factors “organizational size”, “organizational age”, “public funding”, “legal form”, “internationalization”, “board size”, and “board activity” in the dissemination of web page information. The results show that only the factors of “organizational size”, “public funding,” and “organizational age” are statistically significant.

Technology has changed the way public organizations relate to the public. Government's use of the Internet and other associated technologies, known as e-government, could become the instrument that makes regular timely information on public finances more forthcoming. New technologies can improve government responsiveness and empower individual citizens. By making government financial information available, the public could continuously assess a government agency through everyday interaction. The financial accountability of government and its response to public demands for information and services are thus a contribution to government openness. It is therefore relevant to determine whether public organizations are also becoming more aware of the importance of placing financial information on their Web sites to help in decision-making processes. This article focuses on the e-democracy process, specifically the transparency of government information, by analyzing governmental financial disclosures on the Web as a tool for the public to assess its financial accountability. To this end, an empirical study was carried out on regional governments in Spain.

Social networks have changed the way in which governments communicate with citizens, encouraging them to participate in decision-making processes. Nevertheless, few studies have specifically addressed the use of social networks in public sector from the standpoint of dialogic communication theory. The aim of this study is, first, to analyse the extent to which European local governments are developing dialogic strategies in their Twitter profiles in order to establish and enhance relations with their citizens and then to examine the impact of certain factors on the implementation of these dialogic strategies. The findings show that the situation is open to improvement, because local governments are mostly unaware of the benefits offered by the use of dialogic principles when establishing online relationships with stakeholders. Therefore, this paper sheds light on the dialogic potential that social networks provide in public sector, and particularly, it offers a guide regarding how local government should implement Twitter to foster the dialogic communication with citizens.