| Abstract [eng] |
In nowadays society, the breakthrough of technology has led to the emergence of new means of communication, such as social media. Social media is used not only for private but also for public sector purposes. Thus, using digital technologies and the internet, local authorities can reach the population more easily, efficiently, and quickly by providing them with the most relevant information. With the help of these technologies, the interaction between the government and the residents is improving. The interactive involvement in the decisions made by the local government might encourage the residents to be more active and to contribute more often to the solution of relevant problems. Facebook is the most widely used social network chosen by residents and institutions or organisations. Therefore, it is beneficial to explore the communication features of local government and residents in this social network in the selected municipality. Communication between local government and its residents on social media has been explored on both a global and national scale. For example, foreign researchers such as Herlpern and Gibs (2013) and Mergel (2013) in their research examined the principles of informativeness and responsiveness and their impact on society in their research, while in Lithuania Aurylaitė (2019) revealed the case of interaction of local government and citizens on Facebook. However, there is still a noticeable lack of data related to the analysis of social accounts of Lithuanian municipalities and communication between local government and citizens. For this reason, the problematic question of the research was formulated – what are the main characteristics of local government and residents' communication on social media in municipalities? The research object – communication between Ukmergė district municipality local government and residents on Facebook. The aim of the final Master's thesis is to analyse the features of the Ukmergė district local government and residents' communication on the social network Facebook. To achieve the aim, three tasks have been formulated: 1) to perform a theoretical analysis of local government and population communication in social networks; 2) to examine the legal regulation of communication between local authorities and citizens on social networks; and 3) to analyse the features of communication between Ukmergė district municipality local government and residents on Facebook. A mixed – quantitative and qualitative – research was carried out to implement the aim of the project. During the content analysis, the involvement of the population in the published content and the types of information disseminated were revealed. The structured interview identified local government attitudes towards residents’ involvement and the main challenges in using the social network Facebook for communication between local government and residents. The work consists of a summary, introduction, theoretical part of local government and population communication on the social network, legal regulations of local government and citizens’ communication on social networks, the empirical part, conclusions, recommendations, and appendices. |
