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Citizens’ Engagement in Local Government in a New Political Scenario: Emergent vs. Traditional Parties

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Sub-National Democracy and Politics Through Social Media

Part of the book series: Public Administration and Information Technology ((PAIT,volume 29))

Abstract

Municipal authorities often use social media to enhance communication with the population and to encourage participation in decision-making processes. In this chapter, we analyse the evolution of such engagement via Facebook, before and after the local elections held in Spain in 2015. Engagement was measured by obtaining metrics of popularity, commitment and virality for each Facebook profile, in a sample composed of large local governments. The results obtained reflect significant differences in the index of engagement before and after these elections, which was calculated in terms of Facebook “likes”, “shares” and “comments”. A significant decrease was observed in citizens’ engagement to their local government following the election, especially among governments where emergent parties with a left-wing ideology took power, in contrast to areas governed by right-wing parties, where levels of engagement increased.

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  1. 1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and Business, University of Almería, Almeria, Spain

    Alejandro Sáez-Martín, Juana Alonso-Cañadas, Federico Galán-Valdivieso & Carmen Caba-Pérez

Authors
  1. Alejandro Sáez-Martín
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  2. Juana Alonso-Cañadas
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  3. Federico Galán-Valdivieso
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  4. Carmen Caba-Pérez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carmen Caba-Pérez .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Uludağ University, Bursa, Turkey

    Mehmet Zahid Sobacı

  2. Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Uludağ University, Bursa, Turkey

    İbrahim Hatipoğlu

Appendix

Appendix

Table 6.9 Official Facebook accounts and the political wing of the party of the studied municipalities
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Sáez-Martín, A., Alonso-Cañadas, J., Galán-Valdivieso, F., Caba-Pérez, C. (2018). Citizens’ Engagement in Local Government in a New Political Scenario: Emergent vs. Traditional Parties. In: Sobacı, M., Hatipoğlu, İ. (eds) Sub-National Democracy and Politics Through Social Media. Public Administration and Information Technology, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73386-9_6

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