Adaptive social media communication for web-based accountability

Abstract

A growing body of research has explored the emergence of new digital forms of public accountability. Studies in this area show how digital technologies are equipped to support more participative information-sharing and provide dialogic tools for interactions with forums. However, no research has yet examined how to engage forums and enable web-based accountability relationships. We address this gap by highlighting the need to adapt social media communication strategies for topic-specific discussions. Our analysis builds on a database containing 25,485 posts extracted from social media platforms used by 13 Polish municipalities and focuses on two different matters of discussion: posts related to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic and non-COVID-19 related posts. Moreover, during the analysis, we consider two social media communication strategies: passive and participatory. Our findings indicate that both communication strategies can generate forum engagement, which subsequently supports web-based accountability. They also demonstrate that, to support forum engagement, municipalities should avoid one-style-fits-all approaches to communication and instead tailor strategies to the specific subject of discussion. This study contributes to expanding academic debates on web-based accountability by illustrating how the use of social media communication strategies can help engage citizens in public forums to enhance accountability relationships.