Social networks as a tool for involving citizens in governance (using the example of the official pages of local administrations of cities in Central Russia)

Roslyakova Marina Valentinovna PhD in History Educator, Department of Management Theory, Ivanovo Branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration 153002, Russia, Ivanovo, Pereulok Posadsky 8 strateg.Obl2014@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

The expansion of citizens' participation in public administration is considered as a global trend in the development of the state ^{[8, p.79]}. For modern public administration, the participation of interested groups of the population in making managerial decisions is a recognized necessity ^{[15, p.105]}. Some authors turn to the concept of "soft management" to explain the changes that are taking place, which is based on the principles of dialogue interaction and partnership ^{[9, p.216]} and is associated with multilevel management, in which horizontal rather than vertical connections between participants prevail ^[3]. The general approach is to use management mechanisms involving the participation of citizens and organizations in making managerial decisions ^{[1, p.34]}. In Russia, the involvement of citizens in public administration is defined as a priority direction for improving the quality of public administration (The main activities of the Government of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2024, approved. September 29, 2018).

Digital transformation actualized the transition to digital technologies in the interaction of citizens (businesses) with government agencies and institutions ^{[18, p.35]}. The new generalizing concept, which is called the "digital public administration paradigm", involves the expansion of digital interaction between the state and society, including the digital participation of citizens in decision-making, the "digital binding" of citizens to state information platforms, the release of digital interaction into the space of Internet social networks ^[13].

The sources describe the possibilities of using digital tools to organize public participation in management: informing citizens about the actions of the authorities; clarifying the opinion of the population about the decisions taken by the authorities; involving citizens in a joint decision-making process with the authorities ^{[19, pp.160-161]}. Involving citizens in the decision–making process is a resource-intensive and expensive event, but the introduction of social media technologies contributes to fundamental changes in how civic participation takes place ^[21].

The social network is considered as a way of interaction, "a kind of communicative practice that realizes the need of users for free communication on the Internet" ^{[10, p.93]}, we agree that "the interactivity of Internet communication allows citizens to move from the role of passive consumers of information to the role of active content creators, which provides a dialogical, debatable nature of communication" ^{[10, p.93]}. In addition to interactivity, social networks allow you to quickly distribute an unlimited amount of information with minimal costs, and use various types of content.

The transformation of global social networks from a channel of everyday communication into strategic communications leads to the optimization of professional communications and is used for competition at different levels ^{[12, pp.65-66]}. There are 106 million social media users in Russia, which is 73 percent of the population (Digital 2023: The Russian Federation). The participation of Russians in social networks corresponds to the global average – 64 percent use social networks for communication (for comparison: in the UK – 76%, in Germany – 54%; in France – 42%) ^[17].  81 percent of Russians visit social networks at least once a month, 71 percent – daily (Mediascope, 2022).

A distinctive feature of the Russian Internet space is the presence of independent regional networks. The largest social network in Russia in terms of the number of users is VKontakte, 40 percent of the population uses the network daily (Mediascope, June 2023) The audience of VKontakte in Russia is 79.5 million, in the world – 101.7 million users per month (report vk.com , data of the IV quarter of 2022). In 2022 the rules of operation of social networks have changed, the activity of part of global networks in Russia has been discontinued. At the same time, public authorities and subordinate organizations have a legally established obligation to create official pages on VKontakte or Odnoklassniki social networks to post up-to-date and reliable information about their activities. It is obvious that the space of online network activity has been formed, as its influence expands, the assessments of this space on civic participation change, the practice of active communication of citizens on the network leads to both constructive and destructive consequences ^{[14, p.69]}.

These circumstances confirm the relevance of the use of social networks in public administration. We emphasize that digital technologies can create new opportunities for dialogue between the government and society, as well as new control tools ^[11]. Similar risks were realized on Facebook (the network is recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the territory of the Russian Federation), in this network the principle of "openly cooperate, not manage" was changed to the opposite: "secretly manage under the guise of cooperation" ^{[12, p.68]}.

Literature review

Social networks are considered as an actual subject of research in the social sciences. The number of publications is increasing, while social media analytics is a separate, young field of research that does not have a single methodological approach ^{[22, p.1064]}. In Russia, the use of social networks in public administration is studied by V. V. Zotov ^{[6, 7]}, including in collaboration with A.V. Gubanov ^[4], L. V. Vasilenko ^[5], in particular, it is argued that a new type of social network relations between authorities and citizens is being formed in the public space of communications, in these conditions, a new methodology of public administration is required, taking into account the digital realities of the modern world. The authors note that social networks create new opportunities for dialogue and public participation in state affairs ^[2]. There are few studies that consider the specifics of the interaction of local governments with the population in social networks, mainly attention is focused on the level of federal and regional authorities, the accounts of regional leaders in social networks.

Foreign studies are diverse in subject matter, we note the work of I. Mergel ^[29], in which the theoretical and practical issues of the use of social networks in the public sector are studied in detail. The works indicate the potential of social networks to expand civic engagement ^[25], it is proved that continuous monitoring, collection and analysis of social network data helps to gather valuable information for decision-making in public administration ^[27]. For the purposes of our work, articles by E. Bons?n, M. Ratkai are useful, who have developed a set of indicators to assess the involvement of stakeholders of a social network page ^[24], in the future, the author's approach is used to analyze the pages of local authorities in Western Europe ^[23]. Let's also pay attention to the active implementation model ^[28], which is used to study the activities of local authorities in the network, the heterogeneity of the practice of using social networks by municipalities is noted. It should be noted that social network analytics has the potential to identify patterns, approaches are being formed to study the interaction of authorities and the population, as well as involvement on the official pages of public authorities in social networks. In Russia, ANO "Dialog" makes a rating of official public sites, but access to it is limited, which does not allow to study the specifics of maintaining state-owned public sites by bodies and organizations. In this regard, a comparative study is relevant to identify the activity of social networks of public authorities. 

The purpose of the article is to evaluate the effectiveness of interaction between citizens and local administrations using official pages on the VKontakte social network.

Methods of information collection and analysis

The paper considered the official pages (state-owned publications) of the executive and administrative bodies of municipalities – local administrations of seven cities (Vladimir, Ivanovo, Kaluga, Kostroma, Smolensk, Tver, Tula). The selected cities are the centers of regions (subjects), belong to large cities in terms of population from 250 thousand to 500 thousand, are part of the Central Federal District.

The data was collected on the pages of the VKontakte network, the largest and most popular social network in Russia. Data collection and analysis in social networks was carried out in manual and automated mode using a specialized service for analyzing posts and pages in social networks. Information about subscribers and posts on the network, social network data, which are characterized as actions (activities) performed by users, including "like" (like), "share" (repost), comments, were interpreted. To assess activity and engagement on the official pages, metrics were used that characterize engagement in absolute and relative terms. Note that despite the importance and widespread use of metrics, they have certain limitations, since they cannot perfectly cover all aspects of the subject under study and simplify the processes taking place on the pages. However, using metrics allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of communication on a page, as well as compare the level of activity on different pages. The data were summarized for the month (April 1-30, 2023), except where indicated.

Results and discussion

In total, seven official pages (state pages) of VKontakte of seven cities were reviewed: Vladimir (https://vk.com/vladimir_adm ); Ivanovo (https://vk.com/ivgoradm37 ); Kaluga (https://vk.com/kalugagov ); Kostroma (https://vk.com/gradkostroma ); Smolensk (https://vk.com/official_smolensk ); Tver (https://vk.com/tverrussia69 ); Tula (https://vk.com/cityadmtularu ).

All pages were registered before the adoption of the Law of 2022 (Federal Law No. 270-FZ of July 14, 2022 "On Amendments to the Federal Law "On Ensuring Access to Information on the Activities of State Bodies and Local Self-Government Bodies" and Article 10 of the Federal Law "On Ensuring Access to Information on the Activities of Courts in the Russian Federation""), which obliged to create official pages in social networks (Figure 1). No significant benefits from early registration of communities were found.

Figure 1 – The year of creation of the official pages of local administrations

Confirmation of the creation of an official page on a social network by an authority or organization is the presence of a special mark assigned to the official page. This mark is issued by the social network subject to certain conditions: registration of an authority or organization in the unified identification and authentication system, as well as compliance with the requirements of the social network for obtaining a special mark. The considered official pages have a state mark ("State Organization"), i.e. the official status of the page is confirmed. This means the obligation to post up-to-date information about the activities of the authority.

Next, let's look at the number of subscribers of official accounts and compare it with the number of municipalities. The population by municipality is given as of January 1 , 2022 according to Rosstat (https://rosstat.gov.ru ). There is no direct correlation between the number of subscribers to the official pages of local administrations and the population in cities (Figure 2).

Figure 2 – The population of cities and the number of subscribers to the official pages of local administrations (people)

Figure 3 shows the number of subscribers of the page relative to the population of the city. We agree that subscribers do not necessarily live in the city, but the general comparison by city is indicative. So, Tula has more followers on social networks than other cities – 10 percent, the rest managed to attract 5-7 percent of residents, Kaluga – 4 percent. The potential for the growth of communities exists, in the future, the accumulation of material will allow you to track the dynamics of the growth of subscribers of official communities.

Figure 3 – Subscribers of the official pages of local administrations

(% of the population)

Joining the residents of the city to the official page is important because it creates conditions for interaction with the authorities, shows the interest of the population in obtaining information through a new communication channel. However, some experts in the field of SMM believe that the number of subscribers is not an indicator of the effectiveness of the page ^[20]. We agree that joining the community can be formal, so you should take into account the involvement of subscribers, not the number. But we assume that there is a dependence of the activity of the administration in promoting the page and the activity of citizens in joining the community. If the administration interacts with subscribers, provides useful content, it attracts new users. We do not exclude that there are specifics of cities, for example, the local administration develops ways of communicating with residents that are different from social media channels. 

Our next task is to determine the activity of the authorities in social networks. First of all, the frequency and regularity of the publication of unique content – posts is evaluated. The VKontakte post is text, photos, videos, infographics, cards, polls, contests, promotions, and other materials published in the community and allowing to convey information to subscribers or community members.

The initial analysis shows that the official accounts are active, have relevant publications during the observation period (April-June 2023) (Figure 4). 

Figure 4 – Number of posts on the official pages of local administrations (April – June 2023)

Note that the practice of publishing posts by local administrations differs, so the minimum and maximum number of posts for the same period of time varies significantly (90 – Tver, 603 – Vladimir).

Further, the metrics that are considered in the work are summarized for the period from April 1 to April 30, 2023. A comparative assessment of communities by publication activity is presented in Table 1.

Table 1 – Number of posts published on the official pages of local administrations (units, April 1-30, 2023)

The data are representative from the point of view of the strategy of presence in social networks, the local administration of Vladimir showed the greatest publication activity (185 posts), Tver stands out for the least number of publications on the page (27), this means that the post is published on the page once a day, which differs from other state-owned publications that carry out more private publications. Vladimir, the leader in the number of posts, publishes an average of 6 posts a day. The average number of posts – 4 corresponds to the average number of posts for VKontakte groups of 10-20 thousand subscribers. The number of posts depends not only on the scale of the group, but also on the availability of information that needs to be conveyed to subscribers.

It should be noted that it is difficult to establish an ideal level of the average daily and average monthly number of publications ^[30]. There are recommendations for maintaining official pages, but in the end the number of posts is determined by the body responsible for the page. For comparison: data on the publication activity of municipalities of European cities in the popular global network Facebook (recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the territory of the Russian Federation), the highest rates in Poland – 3.49 and Hungary – 2.8; the average for cities – 1.94 ^[31].

Effective communication depends on the quality of the published content. Administrations post various types of content on official pages – photos, text, videos and links. Table 2 shows the total number of publications with videos, images, links or text on official pages. Different types of attachments (for example, photos and videos) in one publication are counted as independent publications.

Table 2 – Number of posts on the official pages of local administrations by type of content (units, April 1-30, 2023)

Most of the publications on the page contain text that is accompanied by a photo or video. With regard to links and videos, there is a variety of practice, for example, Kostroma rarely publishes videos, and Smolensk uses links. 

The share of published records by content type is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 – The proportion of content types posted on the official pages of local administrations

There is a dependence of user activity on the page on the type of content. The involvement in the content on the official pages is higher for videos, text, the exception is the official page of Ivanovo, where during the study period they mainly reacted to links (Table 3).

Table 3 – Engagement rate (ERpost) by type of content posted on the official pages of local administrations

Publishing activity on a community page is the responsibility and initiative of the page owner, engagement means that the subscriber is active. VKontakte organizes interactive communication, interested parties have the opportunity not only to get acquainted with the messages, but also to participate in the discussion, express their attitude to the published information. Actions by which users react to social media content: like, share and comment ^[26].

In studies on state social networks, a distinction is made between these three functions that convey the attitude of users to content. "I like" ("like") is considered as an expression of support for published information; "share" ("repost") – dissemination of information that aroused interest, useful, "comment" – participation in a dialogue, involvement in issues. These forms of reaction in social networks are often understood as indicators of "success" or "effectiveness" ^[26].

Consequently, the involvement (activity) of users on social network pages is understood as quantitative indicators of such actions as likes, reposts and comments, relative to the number of participants in a particular community ^{[16, p.32]}.

The data obtained show that more often the activity of citizens on official pages is manifested in "likes", less often users comment on publications and share a post. The number of activities on the official pages of local government administrations in the VKontakte network is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6 – Number of activities on the official pages of local government administrations (units, April 1-30, 2023)

Table 4 summarizes the average indicators characterizing the activity of citizens on the official pages of local administrations on the VKontakte network.

Table 4 – Average activity indicators on the official pages of local administrations (April 1-30, 2023)

Average indicators are needed to compare the activity of local administrations on official pages. It is noteworthy that the number of likes does not depend on the number of subscribers and the number of publications, for example, Smolensk has fewer subscribers and posts, but more reactions from subscribers than Vladimir. Tver, receives more likes than Vladimir, who posts more often. Posts of the official Tver group are more often shared and commented on than in other cities. Ivanovo and Smolensk, having a similar number of publications, differ in the number of positive reactions (likes). We conclude that an increase in the number of posts does not increase user engagement, which is expressed in the number of likes and comments.

The data obtained allow us to make two assumptions, firstly, user activity depends on the quality of content, posts should contain interesting, useful, emotionally engaging content for subscribers, and secondly, the audience reacts positively to posts and is ready to interact when it is not overloaded with information from the community.

Comments as a way of responding differs from likes and reposts, it is a more complex type of interaction, reflecting the depth of involvement in the content of the post. As a positive signal for society, we note that local administrations do not close the opportunity to comment on publications and respond to comments, but the second party of communication (subscribers) does not seek to participate in an online dialogue. This feature of interaction is noted by foreign researchers, indicating that engagement decreases when participation requires great effort ^[21].

As an explanation, we cite the statement that "social media technologies ... are designed for emotional reactions, and not for deliberate or rationalized discussions and interactions" ^[26]. Summarizing the reasons for passivity in the discussion, we note, firstly, the comment requires time and effort from the user to generate independent content; secondly, the user is afraid of criticism or evaluation of other users; thirdly, the user seeks to avoid conflict situations due to the statement; fourth, the user maintains confidentiality and anonymity in the social network fifth, the content posted on the page does not stimulate or suggest discussion.

When assessing the level of engagement based on indicators, it is important to take into account that comments do not necessarily mean constructive interaction and a high level of engagement, messages may be of little content, meaningless, and formal in nature. For this reason, it is necessary to study the comments from a meaningful point of view.

It is important for the owners of the page to support the constructive position of the population and be sure to respond to comments on the web in order to create an environment for interaction. The paper reveals the dependence of subscribers' involvement in the discussion and topics of messages. On the page of each of the studied communities, 5 posts with the largest number of comments were selected, 35 in total, then the topic of the posts was set. The results are presented in Table 5.

Table 5 – Topics of posts with the largest number of comments on the official pages of local administrations (April 1-30, 2023)

The topic of the posts shows that participation in the discussion becomes more active when questions relate to living conditions, landscaping in the broad sense of the word, attitude to the activities of the authorities for the development of the municipality. The conclusion about the influence of the topic of posts on the involvement of citizens is also made by foreign researchers, for example, attractive topics of discussion in the social networks of municipalities in Western Europe are "public transport", "housing", "public works and urban planning" ^{[23, p.55, 59]}. Thus, the discussion of local problems is an engaging information for subscribers of official communities.

To assess the engagement of subscribers, ER (Engagement Rate) is used – the coefficient of engagement in published content (posts). Two types of ER indicators are calculated for each page: ERpost and ERday (Figure 7). For practical activities, the ERpost metric is useful, with the help of which they evaluate the popularity of publications and compare pages with each other. A high level of ER shows that subscribers actively interact with content, leave comments, likes, make reposts, and browse. According to the standard values used in marketing to assess engagement (less than 1% is a low level; from 1% to 3.5% is an average value; from 3.5% to 6% is a good level; over 6% is very good), the accounts in question are at the initial stage of subscriber engagement. Compared to the VKontakte pages, the indicators of the groups under consideration are below average (popsters.ru ) over the network, the exception is Smolensk according to the ERday indicator.

Figure 7 – Engagement coefficients (ERpost and ERday) on the official pages of local government administrations

So, the analysis does not allow us to unequivocally state that the presence of official pages of local administrations leads to active and involved participation of citizens in governance. To objectively evaluate the effectiveness of official pages in social networks, it is necessary to accumulate data and compare pages that have similar goals and objectives. The importance of data comparison lies in the ability to reveal successful strategies and in-demand content that will help achieve the goals of the authority in the social network. However, in order to achieve the goals, it is necessary to clearly define them, taking into account the current situation of the authority and the specifics of the target audience.

Conclusion

In Russia, there is an obligation for authorities to interact with citizens on social networks, this is the position of the state, which seeks to involve the population in management affairs and develop feedback.

Monitoring the official pages of local administrations allows you to compare the effectiveness of citizen engagement in communities, identify strategies that are used in cities, and identify best practices.

The article considered the official pages of large cities, which are the administrative centers of the regions and are part of the Central Federal District, all pages had the confirmed status of "State Organization". In general, the analysis of indicators that characterize the activity and involvement on the official pages of local administrations shows that the practice of using social networks in the regions has its own characteristics. The considered official pages are active and have relevant publications, but the publication activity of the administrations differs, the minimum and maximum number of posts for the same period of time varies (from 90 to 603 posts). Based on the data analysis, it was found that the number of subscribers to the official pages does not depend on the population of the city. An increase in the number of followers creates conditions for interaction between citizens and authorities, but the number of subscribers is not an indicator of the effectiveness of the page, it is necessary to take into account user engagement. For each page and for the sample as a whole, the types of published content and user reactions to the content were determined. The most common form of engagement (reaction) to messages is a like, less often a post is commented on or shared with other users. From the point of view of involvement, commentary is the most important tool for interaction between a citizen and a government body. The analysis of the comments showed that the discussion becomes more active when questions relate to the living conditions and improvement of the city. On average, the accounts in question are at the initial level in terms of subscriber engagement.  We assume that the owners of the page (local administrations) and subscribers (citizens) are in the process of adapting to new ways of interaction, "testing" communication channels.

The results of the study, which assessed the interaction of citizens and local administrations using the official pages on the VKontakte social network, complement the existing analytics, as it contains characteristics that show the involvement and activity of state-owned websites. Page comparison allows you to identify best practices, develop recommendations to increase subscriber engagement, thereby improving strategies in managing official pages on social networks. In the future, to enrich the study, it is necessary to expand the regional sampling frame, include pages of local administrations that are created in other social networks, as well as conduct additional research involving qualitative methods, for example, surveys of users and municipal employees on problems of interaction in social networks.

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