From 1.0 to 2.0 – Swedish municipalities online

Pre-print version of paper accepted for publication in Journal of Information Technology and Politics

From 1.0 to 2.0 – Swedish municipalities online

Gustav Lidén Department of Social Sciences

Mid Sweden University [email protected]

www.miun.se/personal/gustavliden

Anders Olof Larsson Faculty of Management

Westerdals Oslo School of Arts, Communication & Technology [email protected]

www.andersoloflarsson.se

Abstract

The current study examines the social media use of Swedish municipalities, detailing the potential relationship between traditional forms of e-government initiatives and social media engagement of municipal bodies. By bringing these two forms of digital politics together, a more valid measurement of the supply of online democratic tools for citizen engagement is suggested. Moreover, the potential variation in determinants influencing these two concepts is examined as well. The main results indicate that municipalities’ adoption of social media is related to the procuration of more traditional services through their websites. Hence, a tendency of a ‘rich-get-richer’ effect is indicated. In this respect, drivers of the different types of government use of digital services are to some extent similar. According to previous research, population size has a positive effect on the studied phenomena. Somewhat surprisingly however, other explanatory factors differ. For example, while socio-economic factors appear to have a positive influence on more traditional forms of online services, previous ambitions of e-government development appears as important for social media adoption by municipalities.

Keywords: digital politics, social media, municipality websites, Sweden, Internet


Introduction A considerable number of years have passed since the term Web 2.0 was first coined in 2005 (e.g.

O’Reilly, 2005). The introduction of services adhering to the 2.0 dictum supposedly ushered in a

transformation of the Internet to feature more interactive capabilities, not least through applications of so-

called social media. The introduction and continued spread of services such as Facebook or Twitter has

been greeted with high hopes among advocates stressing the advantages of digital political initiatives

(e.g. Anduiza, Cantijoch & Gallego, 2009; Chadwick, 2008; Graham et al., 2013). Indeed, notions of the

‘transformative capabilities’ of social media (e.g. Graham & Johnson Avery, 2013, p. 2), capabilities that

could supposedly revitalize the foundations of democracy, have been commonplace in both public and

scholarly debates for a number of years.

These technological developments have also found their way into the public sector - indeed, a rapid

increase in governmental usage of social media has been noticed recently (e.g. Bonsón, Torres, Royo, &

Flores, 2012; Mainka et al., 2014; Reddick & Norris, 2013). Still, crucial questions regarding technological

developments in the public sector context have been left largely unanswered. For example, the

relationship between what could perhaps be labelled as more traditional forms of digital politics (e.g.

information channels through government websites that could be seen as more related to the first

generation of digital politics) and social media engagement at the hands of governmental actors has not

been extensively studied (e.g. Koc-Micholska et al. 2014). Even though previous research imply different

drivers of these varying forms of digital politics (Reddick & Norris, 2013), there is, to our knowledge, no

research directly examining the potential relationship between different forms of governmental

utilization of digital services. In relation to this apparent dearth of research, increased knowledge of what

predictors that appear to determine adoption of social media services on the one hand, and more

traditional functions accessed through government websites on the other, have been called for (see Susha

& Grönlund, 2012). As such, directing specific attention to the governmental supply side of digital politics

would then have the potential to provide theoretical leverage, particularly if a summative measure that

includes governmental usage of both traditional forms of digital democracy as well as social media

adoption can be developed. The argument is made here that such a combinatory effort, a variety of which

is presented in the current paper, would contribute to a more valid quantification of governmental actors’

supply of online democratic tools for citizen engagement.

Based on the aforementioned, this study at hand makes a crucial conceptual distinction that previously

has been utilized in similar research (Koc-Michalska et al. 2014). Theoretical claims on how to understand


the appliance of information communication technologies in political processes have often been

summarized into concepts such as ‘e-democracy’, ‘digital democracy’ or ‘e-participation’.- This study

applies online political services through public websites as a concept being concordant to the original

ways of trying to measure the existence of websites functions related to both one-way and two-way

involvement in political processes (e.g. Macintosh, 2004; Vedel, 2006). This mostly involves the traditional

channels for distributing politically relevant information as well as some features for closer forms of

participation, e.g. contact information to politicians. However, given rapid technological developments,

social media services have emerged as important tools providing opportunities for direct communication

between politicians and the public (Larsson, 2013; Bimber, 2013). Nowadays, it is not unusual that these

two concepts are lumped together, particularly since social media engagement can appear as embedded

within public websites. This study, however, deliberately distinguishes between these two forms for

digital interaction between citizens and the officials elected to govern them.

Based on the discussion above, the research questions guiding the present study are twofold:

• RQ1 = Is there a relationship between Swedish municipalities’ adoption of social media and

delivery of online democratic services through municipality websites?

• RQ2 = What can explain Swedish municipalities’ adoption of social media and delivery of online

democratic services and the combination of these two services?

There are a number of reasons for examining the local level in general, and the case of Sweden in

particular. First, the ways in which local governments, representing the arena with the lowest barriers for

civic engagement, choose to apply digital tools will have effects on citizens’ possibilities to participate in

political processes. Considering Sweden, it could be regarded as something of an archetypal example of a

modern democracy that also exemplifies a society that is very up to date with modern technologies. From

a global perspective, Sweden does, together with some other Western democracies, represent a case in

which both democratic and technological developments are at very advanced stages. Hence, Sweden

represents extremely good preconditions for the development of online digital politics (Yin, 2014).

Therefore, theoretical assumptions concerning explanations of digital politics should have good

possibilities to be verified. Second, the ‘local laboratory’ in Sweden gives access to a great number of

cases while simultaneously holding several important factors as constants (e.g. Bäck, 2003). This means

that institutional and cultural factors can be controlled for, since Swedish municipalities are positioned in

the same institutional framework and are, to a large extent, culturally homogenous whereas other

dimensions such as aspects related to politics and sociodemographics will indeed vary. In addition,


previous research on the local level has, to a great extent, been directed towards the U.S. or focused on

comparably larger Western European countries, which underlines the importance of examining

additional contexts – such as Sweden. In sum, then, the present study makes an important contribution to

our understanding of online service adoption at the municipal level. Presenting a combinatory approach,

the study makes use of data on the adoption of a variety of services as discussed above, providing

insights into what could be described as interlinked adoption tendencies. The main results indicate that

municipalities’ development of more traditional services through their website is indeed related to social

media adoption. In this respect, drivers of the different types of government utilization of digital services

are to some extent similar, although some noteworthy exceptions can nevertheless be discerned.

Municipalities online

Previous research looking into local-level online engagement can be broadly divided into two strands.

The first of the two is focused on local governmental adoption and use of more traditional forms of

distribution of online services (Borge et al., 2009; Haug, 2007; Saglie & Vabo, 2009; Scott, 2006; Sobaci &

Eryigit, 2015), while the second strand features studies explicitly focusing on social media adoption by

such organizations (Bonsón et al., 2012; Ellison & Hardy, 2014; Reddick & Norris, 2013b). As both sections

of research are of relevance to our current efforts, they will be discussed in turn.

First, research with explanatory ambitions directed towards the provision of traditional services through

government websites is of obvious importance to the paper at hand. Here, previous contributions can be

categorized into a number of themes. For instance, various measures of societal development have been

proposed as core drivers of e-government and general digital service adoption. Taking into consideration

the period of transformation towards a post-industrial society that dates back to the work of Daniel Bell

(1973), it seems that it can only be expected that information technology today is intimately associated

with such trajectories. Moreover, it can be assumed that an advanced and knowledge-based economy

occupied by a highly-educated workforce - especially when it comes to computing and Internet skills -

demands digital political services to a larger extent (Schlozman, Verba & Brady, 2010). In empirical

studies, the development of such tools has been proved to be partly driven by citizen demand (Reddick &

Norris, 2013b). Be that as it may - studies at the local level that assess the determinants of digital service

supply have provided somewhat ambiguous results (e.g. Lidén, 2013; van der Graft & Svensson, 2006).

From the viewpoint of technological determinism (e.g. Smith and Marx, 1994), the importance of a

sufficient technological infrastructure is identified as a critical condition with regards to our current topic.


Clearly, the development of often-complex online democratic services is dependent on the right type of

technological conditions. Without the technological infrastructure to sufficiently enable and support it,

the work of online governmental services will risk being meaningless. Such a notion has indeed been

verified. In a study by Feeney and Welch (2012) findings indicate that whether public officials perceive

positive impact of services for online engagement is related to the number of such applied technologies;

that is the employment of technological innovations.

An alternative approach would be to argue that progress in these forms of digital politics is rather

conditioned on the success of other, related types of political development. More than a decade ago,

Norris (2001) stated that the traits of democracy can function as factors that strengthen the ambitions of

digital politics, further providing examples supporting this idea. While there are rather few of them, the

rare examples of research into this subject in a European local context (Borge, Colombo, & Welp, 2009;

Lidén, 2013) do, however, mostly provide somewhat opposing results. Specifically, high levels of voter

turnout, a measure often use as a proxy of sorts for tendencies of political engagement in a given

population, are found to be negatively related to the efforts of municipalities in digital politics. Drawing

on these results, it could be speculated that achievements in local online democracy are above all

regarded as necessary in municipalities with obvious problems relating to democracy - thereby as a

potential measure for dealing primarily with low levels of engagement.

Finally for this first identified strand of research, initiatives like these can be related to the size of the

population in at least two ways. First, it appears reasonable to assume that a larger population increases

the chance that there will be a demand for channels enabling online engagement. Relatedly, such

possibilities are particularly requested in larger and urban societies in order to at least potentially

minimize distances between citizens and politicians (Saglie & Vabo, 2009). Second, these efforts are costly

- because of the technological infrastructures needed to implement them and because of costly human

resources to get projects like these underway. It follows that a larger society is likely to have better

financial opportunities to develop the right possibilities in accordance with economies of scale (Viborg

Andersen, Henriksen, Secher, & Medaglia, 2007). Besides studies directly pointing towards the extent of

the municipal budget’s influence (Sobaci & Eryigit, 2015), other findings from a series of contexts -

Scandinavia (Haug, 2007; Liste & Sørensen, 2015), southern Europe (Borge et al., 2009) as well as North

America (Reddick & Norris, 2013b) - emphasize municipal size as a crucial factor for municipalities to

provide these types of online services for their respective citizens.


Second, in relation to empirical studies that are directed at social media engagement at the local level, we

might be well-served by making a distinction between explorative and explanatory research. For the first

category of work, Hofmann et al. (2013) analyse 25 German cities’ engagement on Facebook using a

variety of the content analysis approach. One of the main conclusion from that particular study is that the

service under scrutiny was primarily used for providing citizens with information in a fashion that

largely resembles the types of brochure-like one-way communication efforts often associated with offline

contexts. In a similar vein, Ellison and Hardey (2014) performed a study on social media use by English

local authorities. Following their analysis, the authors suggest that while a majority of local authorities

have indeed adopted a variety of social media services, this adoption is largely fashioned in modes

reminiscent of information distribution rather than interactivity. A study from the U.S. verifies this

pattern but also finds significant usage of social media for interaction (Oliveira & Welch, 2013) Further,

metropolitan districts were found to be the most likely to be active in the various social media channels

studied. Specifically, ‘informational world cities’, being prototypical of the knowledge society, appear to

be especially developed in terms of social media usage (Mainka et al., 2014).

A few studies have indeed focused on the same context under scrutiny here – Sweden. For example,

Klang and Nolin (2011) give reasons as to why public engagement is struggling to go beyond rather low

levels. Investigating the social media policies of Swedish municipalities, the authors conclude that policy

documents regulating social media usage infuse such activities with existing standards of communication

rather than exploiting their full two-way potential. In a sense, these novel services might be alluring to

adopt, but could prove difficult to employ in a professional context in the long run, due to specific rules

and regulations regarding what civil servants can and cannot do. These difficulties are mirrored in the

work of Larsson (2013), who found the use of social media services by Swedish municipalities to be

somewhat limited and in some cases decreasing. Indeed, while services such as Facebook or Twitter

might be easy to sign up for, the continued use of such platforms could prove more complicated in a

professional bureaucratic context where traditional regulatory frameworks might hinder such

employment (e.g. Klang and Nolin, 2011).

Second, turning to more explanatory studies on municipal adoption and use of social media, Reddick and

Norris’s (2013a) examination of local-level usage of social media in the U.S. suggests that the size of the

local government and its population positively influences social media application. In addition,

geographical affiliation and citizens’ education levels produce similar effects. In a similar vein, Bonsón et

al. (2012) direct attention towards larger cities at the local level within the EU. Contradictorily, they find


that population size or belonging to a specific region are not important, while the only significant

determinant is a positive relationship between e-governmental success and the application of

sophisticated levels of social media.

Summing up prior research within this field, we can point to a number of tendencies. First, municipalities

tend to handle the two versions of online tools for democratic engagement slightly differently. These

organizations are likely to be more used to working with what is referred to here as traditional forms of

digital politics. They can relatively easily embed such technologies in their normal activities and let their

own websites be the primary channel for these. By contrast, they do not have the same control over the

social media services that might seem alluring to utilize. For this reason, it can be expected that adopting

such features is more challenging and will be undertaken at a slower pace than for more traditional, self-

controlled services (e.g. Klang & Nolin, 2011; Larsson, 2013). Second, the relevant drivers pertaining to

municipal adoption of both types of digital services seem to be quite similar. Assumptions about

population sizes and levels of education among the citizenry are noted in explanations both of traditional

forms (e.g. Lidén, 2013; Sobaci & Eryigit, 2015) and of social media adoption (e.g. Reddick & Norris,

2013b; Larsson, 2013). Hence, we can indeed discern some consistency among the suggested explanatory

factors.

In the subsequent section, we provide a presentation on how to measure the adoption rates of both types

of services as discussed above. Deriving from the reviewed literature, we then discuss the

operationalization of explanatory factors.

Research design

The article employs a structural, overarching approach to the study of online political communication

that is used through the agency of municipalities, attempting to map out the broader tendencies of the

adoption processes under scrutiny. While early structural studies on the current and similar topics

tended to focus on more descriptive accounts of how various communication technologies were being

adopted and used, comparably later work usually added different types of functionalities found on

political actors’ websites together into different indices, testing the degree to which political actors were

making use of the different functionalities made available on the Internet (e.g. Larsson, 2011; Lilleker and

Malagón, 2010; Schweitzer, 2005, 2008; Vaccari, 2008a, 2008b). For our current purposes, we expand on

this latter approach and employ a series of statistical techniques in order to assess the effects of the

previously discussed factors on the employment of what could be described as more traditional types of


online services, as well as on the use of relatively novel social media services. The approach is elaborated

upon in the following subsections.

Dependent variables Based on the literature review provided in the previous section, the analysis will focus on three specific

dependent variables: social media adoption by municipalities, adoption of online political services

offered through municipalities’ websites, and a third measure combining these two adoption variables. In

order to assess the relationship between these implementation tendencies, this third variable will be

constructed as a combined measurement of the first two. The data for both initial variables was collected

during 2012. Appendix 1 provides a detailed overview of all variables employed.

The measurement of municipalities’ social media adoption is based on data collected by Larsson (2013).

The websites of all Swedish 290 municipalities were visited and searched to find links to officially

sanctioned social media presences (as suggested by Kalnes, 2009). Municipalities’ social media profile

pages were archived on 4 September 2012, using a combination of the Web Snapper application for Mac

OS X and PDF copies. Four platforms were focused on: the social network service Facebook, the

microblog Twitter, the video sharing service YouTube and the photo sharing service Flickr. Following

data collection, two measurements were created in order to enable appropriate statistical estimations.

First, a dichotomous variable was calculated that indicates whether the municipality has adopted any

social media at all or has completely refrained from it. Second, an ordinal variable was constructed that

gauges the level of adoption, ranging from 0 (no adoption at all) to 1 (adoption of all examined social

media).

The second dependent variable was taken from an annual examination carried out by the Swedish

Association of Local Authorities and Regions. This investigation is an extensive content analysis of the

websites of Swedish municipalities. One theme of this examination is of particular importance for our

current theme of digital service provision of political character, namely, transparency and influence. The

focus in this section is on issues that consider how citizens can access information supplied by the

municipalities and elected politicians as well as on issues concerning insight about participation in the

democratic process (SKL, 2012). . This measurement involves aspects such as if contact information to

leading politicians are given and if documents for council meetings are available. Taken together it is

regarded as a valid quantification of the supply of online services for political reasons (Vedel, 2006;

Macintosh, 2004). For our current purposes, and with our comparative effort in mind, the present study

created an index of services offered on the 290 municipalities’ websites out of 32 of the measured factors.


Specifically, an index was used awarding the full employment of a specific service with a value of 1.0,

and a partial utilization of a service with 0.5 points. A mean average was then calculated, meaning that

this measurement can vary between 0.0 (no services at all) and 1.0 (full services). See Appendix 2 for

further information on included aspects.1

Through an integrative approach that accounts for the options that citizens have through the channels of

traditional services and Web 2.0 alternatives a richer illustration of local governments’ usage of digital

politics can be reached. This will allow a more valid description of the possibilities for citizens to engage

in politics through new technologies that ultimately can transform political processes (Grönlund & Susha,

2012). Hence, a combined measurement was constructed. By calculating an unweighted average of the

ordinal variable “social media adoption”, as discussed above, and the index of municipalities’ online

services, a combined measurement was created, ranging from 0.0 to 1.0.

Independent variables

Corresponding to the second research question’s explanatory direction, a number of potential predictors

are elaborated in the following.

The theoretical assumptions relating to how citizens’ resources will have an impact on local digital

politics originate from assumptions about the importance of citizen demand. As shown in a series of

previous studies (e.g. Ahn, 2010; Reddick & Norris, 2013a), younger and better-educated individuals are

more inclined to hold demands for services like these. The same studies further indicate that income

levels yield similar tendencies. To account for this, the average age, the proportion of the population in

municipalities with post-secondary education and average income levels will, for their potential

explanatory capacity, be included. This data was collected from Statistics Sweden and the Confederation of

Swedish Enterprise.

The characteristics of the local democracy have also attracted scholarly interest in previous explanatory

attempts. As one dimension of democratic quality (Diamond & Morlino, 2005), political participation

could be expected to have influence on the demand for various digital services. As argued by Borge et al.

(2009) and in prior findings from the local context in the Netherlands (van der Graft & Svensson, 2006),

lower participation in ordinary elections could, from a municipality’s perspective, be dealt with by using

ICTs to communicate with citizens. To assess this, the extent of voter turnout and preferential voting in

1 The index is based on indicators being internally significant, an estimation of the Cronbach’s Alpha for data reflecting 2012 gives a value at 0.778.


local elections in 2010 will be included. As such, data for these variables was gathered from the Swedish

Election Authority and from Statistics Sweden.

Furthermore, a sufficient technological infrastructure could be regarded as a necessary condition for the

growth of municipal digital service provision. As argued in previous studies (e.g. Haug, 2007),

supporting preconditions of this character might put pressure on the municipality to show ambition in

this regard. To account for this, measurements of citizens’ access to the Internet through DSL or high-

speed fiber access were employed as independent variables. Related to this are municipalities’

experiences of using new technologies in administrative processes, known as e-government. It is assumed

that this could positively influence more democratic ambitions (Bonsón et al., 2012). Therefore, data from

a national survey directed at municipalities and concerning e-government priorities will be included in

the analyses. For the first two variables, data was collected from the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority.

For the third variable, survey results collected in 2011 by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and

Regions were applied.

In previous studies, the population size of the local community has been found to be related with both

social media adoption (e.g. Reddick & Norris, 2013a) as well as with more traditional functions accessed

through a municipal website (e.g. Sobaci & Eryigit, 2015). Additionally, the “closeness” caused by higher

population density could also be assumed to cause an impact. While some studies report differing

outcomes, municipalities’ population size and a measurement of population density served as predictors

in our explanatory models. Much like for many of our previously disclosed variables, the information

about these variables originated from Statistics Sweden.

Analytical techniques

Given the varying characteristics of the collected data, a series of different analyses was performed.

Initially, relating to the first research question, mean comparisons (ANOVA) between the two

measurements of social media adoption and the index concerning municipalities’ online services were

conducted. Subsequently, and corresponding to the second research question, the three dependent

variables are examined in turn by employing multiple regression analyses. The index of services on

municipality websites and the combined index are examined through OLS-estimations whereas the

dichotomous measurement of social media adoption is estimated through maximum likelihood.


Findings

The first research question this article set out to answer dealt with assessing the supposed relationship

between Swedish municipalities’ adoption of social media on the one hand, and municipalities’

distribution of online democratic services through municipality websites on the other. In Table 1, we

compare the average levels of the index of services on municipality websites as reported in relation to

municipalities that had or had not made use of any of the studied social media services at the time of data

collection. The table thus offers a first glimpse of such a potential connection.

- INSERT TABLE ONE ABOUT HERE -

As reported in the table, the ANOVA test performed suggests that the 106 municipalities that have

engaged in some form of social media have, on average, provided their citizens with more traditional

services on their website. While interesting, the results presented in Table 1 does not provide us with any

detailed information on how these variables are related to each other. By looking instead at a more

nuanced measurement level of social media adoption, a more detailed description can be provided. This

is provided in Figure one.

- INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE -

The line in the figure provides information about the relationship between the indexes of services on

municipality websites and social media adoption and the values on the vertical axis are to be interpreted

as the average value of the index of services on municipality websites for each level of social media

adoption that is displayed on the horizontal axis. Statistical analysis proved that municipalities that use

social media more also feature, on average, a higher supply of what is referred to here as traditional

services. Although the figure only gives us a rough idea of the state of affairs, we can nevertheless discern

that this relationship emerges with clear linear tendencies. In other words, usage of one additional social

media platform corresponds to approximately the same increase in the index of services on municipality

websites over the whole range of the social media index. In relation to this result, separate analyses (not

reported in Figure 1) show that the number of municipalities tend to diminish when the social media


index found on the horizontal axis increases. As an example, only seven municipalities reaches the

highest value for the index of social media adoption. This suggests a rather sharp variation in

municipalities’ success in working with social media and also underlines that there are only a few

examples of municipalities that could be considered as completely developed in terms of their use of

social media – at least as such use is defined here.

In relation to the first research question, it must be verified that municipalities’ development of more

traditional services through websites and social media adoption vary in a similar pattern. Hence, ceteris

paribus, these two expressions of digital political initiatives at the hands of municipalities appear to be

linked to each other.

So far, our analyses have been focused on assessing the relationship between our two dependent

variables. However, in order to provide a response to our second research question we turn to

explanatory models. Specifically, Table 2 presents three regression models in which the explanatory

power of the previously described predictors of traditional forms of e-democracy, social media adoption

and the combined index of the two, will be estimated.

- INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE -

The first of these analyses examines variations in traditional forms of delivery of politically related

services offered through municipality websites. As is evident from the model, three factors emerge from

the analysis as statistically significant predictors. As expected, larger municipalities with a better-

educated populace are more inclined to provide these types of online services. Hence, theoretical

assumptions about circumstances related to levels of development can be verified (e.g. Larsson, 2013;

Reddick & Norris, 2013b). It must be seen as somewhat surprising, though, that such municipalities

should also be characterized by a higher average age. All in all, around one third of the variation in the

dependent variable is explained in this model.

In the second model featured in Table 2, a logistic regression model is applied since the dependent

variable is of a dichotomous nature, indicating whether a municipality has adopted any social media at

all or not. The influence of population size once again emerges as significant, in accordance with previous

research (e.g. Lidén, 2013). Deliberate prioritization of e-government functions further adds to the

explanatory model, verifying claims that e-government ambitions could spill over to other developments


towards utilization of social media services (e.g. Bónson, 2012). However, the weak effect on the

dependent variable of the measurement gauging average income must be considered as unexpected,

implying that comparably less well-to-do municipalities show more engagement in their social media

presences. Still, it should be noticed that the model leaves much to be explained. Similar patterns to the

ones reported here have been reported elsewhere (Reddick & Norris, 2013a), and could be interpreted as

an indication of theoretical uncertainty considering the relatively new phenomenon of governmental

usage of social media.

Finally for Figure 2, we bring the two aforementioned dimensions together in a combined index in an

attempt to provide a more valid measurement for measuring influences on the provision of online

democratic engagement in the municipal context. Among the independent variables, only one emerges as

significant. Specifically, population size yields a positive influence on this third dependent variable. As

such, this traditionally important factor continues to be crucial even when applying more technologically

updated measurements of channels for online democratic engagement. Quite surprisingly, this model

does however explain almost 35 per cent of the variation of the index. Hence, the theoretically derived

model performs relatively well.

Conclusions

In this article, two research questions were raised. The first concerned the relationship between

municipalities’ adoption of third-party social media services and their delivery of online democratic

services through their own websites. The second undertook an explanatory approach related to the

explanations of municipalities’ adoption of social media and online democratic services – as well as the

combination of these two aspects. With these initial rationales in place, the paper at hand has provided

new insights into the expansion and development of municipal online strategies that have been used

from the start of the so-called Web 1.0 phase through to our current situation, where services associated

with the Web 2.0 rationale of online publishing and activity are supposedly abundant.

The collected data reveal a relationship between municipalities’ adoption of social media and their

delivery of online democratic services through their own websites. Specifically, this relationship was

found to be quite linear. Hence, increasing efforts in relation to social media adoption normally

corresponds to a similar increasing engagement in more traditional forms of digital politics. Essentially,

such a ‘rich-get-richer’ effect goes against the claims sometimes found that relatively diminutive political

actors would be able to ‘leapfrog’ from earlier, supposedly less sophisticated technical platforms and


utilize social media to larger extents (Koc-Michalska et al., 2014) – at least in the municipal Swedish

context studied here. As such, our first research question can be answered in the affirmative.

With our second research question in mind, seeking explanatory factors for municipal use of the services

studied, we found that the drivers of the phenomena studied were similar to some extent. For example,

as verified in previous research (e.g. Borge et al., 2009; Reddick & Norris, 2013a), population size emerged

also here as a crucial factor for understanding these developments. However, the effect of other

explanatory factors were found to differ. Whereas education levels and average age appeared to be

predictors of whether traditional services are offered through websites, experiences of working with e-

government emerged as important when considering municipal adoption of social media. The second

research question also involved the creation of a combined measurement in which municipalities’ score

for both traditional online democratic services and their social media adoption were added together. A

model with a rather high explanatory capacity was reached; however, the only significant predictor

proved to be population size. The persistent importance of this particular variable suggests that among

other aspects, size and the preconditions it will add are still the dominant conditions for the continuing

development of municipal online engagement (Larsson, 2013; Lidén, 2013; Reddick & Norris, 2013a,

Sobaci, & Eryigit, 2015). It is difficult to assess with our current data if this is due to advantages through

economics of scale (cf. Viborg Andersen, 2007) or through the lack of ‘closeness’ in larger cities (Saglie &

Vabo, 2009). Since such mechanisms could be expected to have different rationales, the first based on the

requirement of gathering sufficient financial resources, the latter on the familiarity that smaller

communities could bring, future research could focus on unravelling the driving motives behind the

statistical models provided here. Indeed, by building on the results presented above further insights to

this field could be provided.

Taken together, then, while relatively higher age levels among citizens seem to lead to a willingness on

the part of the municipalities to devote resources to services that in this article were labeled as more

traditional types of online services, municipal prioritization of e-government emerged as a significant

predictor for our social media index. Based on this, we suggest a ‘spill-over’ effect of sorts. Specifically,

the results imply that engagement within different sectors of digital politics could thus be expected to

reinforce other, similar sectors, suggesting that those municipalities that engaged in online democracy

services at an early stage were placed on what could perhaps be referred to as a digital trajectory where

diversification into novel services are apparently prioritized. As for the predictor variables, The Swedish

situation, a case in which specifically beneficial opportunities for digital politics are indeed at play, can


only firmly verify population size as a crucial driver of the examined phenomena. As reported above, the

other predictors derived from the literature more ambiguous outcomes.

The Internet has now been widespread in most Western societies for almost two decades. While ideas of

different versions of the Web are commonly discussed (e.g. Allen, 2013), it is difficult to provide any

specific delineations of specific time periods in this regard. We can, however, point to certain tendencies

in relation to the adoption of the various services that have been made possible as a result of the growth

of Internet adoption. In this respect, we have sought to uncover drivers of so-called “mundane” online

activities (e.g. Nielsen, 2010), tracing the “managerial bias of e-government” (Chadwick, 2013, p. 450) and

comparing it to the supposed novelty that social media services offer. With our results in mind, it is clear

that certain municipalities could be said to ‘lag behind’ others. However, the exact repercussions of such

a lag cannot be assessed in closer detail using our current approach. Future research, then, might find it

feasible to employ the results presented here as a starting point of sorts from which to perform more in-

depth analyses of our findings that could add insights on potentially overlooked dimensions.


Appendix 1 Descriptive statistics of variables Variable Mean Std. Deviation N Source

Index of services on municipality websites

0.673 0.133 289 SKL (2012)

Social media adoption (dichotomized)

0.634 0.482 290 Larsson (2013)

Degree of social media adoption

0.301 0.288 290 Larsson (2013)

Combined index 0.487 0.184 289

Population (log) 9.824 .948 290 Statistics Sweden (2014)

Population density 139.631 485.350 290 Statistics Sweden (2014)

Proportion of citizens with post-secondary education

18.201 5.969 290 Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (2014)

Average age 43.105 2.612 290 Statistics Sweden (2014)

Average income 245.494 32.572 290 Statistics Sweden (2014)

Voter turnout 81.551 3.351 290 Statistics Sweden (2014)

Preferential voting 35.757 7.510 290 Swedish Election Authority (2014)

DSL-access 0.961 .063 290 Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (2012)

Fiber access .0.424 .242 290 Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (2013)

E-government strategy (dichotomized)

.634 .483 216 SKL (2011)


Appendix 2 Indicators presented on the webpage 1. The complete budget

2. A simplified version of the budget

3. General information about how the municipality compares with other municipalities

4. General information about how complaints and opinions are handled

5. The work on how complaints and opinions are handled

6. Information about distribution of seats from the latest election

7. Information about coalition, alliance and technical cooperation in elections or the like

8. Contact information for chair persons of the municipal council, municipal executive board and committees

9. Information about e-mail addresses for all the politicians in the municipal council and on the committees

10. Information about the telephone numbers of all the politicians in the municipal council and on the committees

11. Frequently asked questions (FAQs) are collected

12. A search function and an index from A-Z with municipalities’ responsibilities and contact persons for these

13. The complete annual report

14. A simplified version of the annual report

15. Possibility of subscribing to electronic newsletters

16. Information (or details of agenda, time and place) about municipal council meetings

17. Information (or details of agenda, time and place) about municipal executive board meetings

18. Information (or details of agenda, time and place) about municipal committee meetings

19. Documents for municipal council meetings before meetings have occurred

20. Documents for municipal executive board meetings before meetings have occurred

21. Documents for committee meetings before meetings have occurred

22. Protocols of municipal council meetings

23. Protocols of municipal executive board meetings

24. Protocols of committee meetings

25. Possibility for citizens to search in the municipality’s records

26. The webpage has been adapted so that it is easy to read

27. The webpage allows information to be listened to.

28. The webpage is adapted for the blind or partially sighted.

29. The webpage provides information in sign language

30. Information about municipality activities can be found in languages other than Swedish

31. Municipal council meetings are distributed through Web TV

32. Information about municipalities’ insurance


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Table 1 Comparisons of means of the index of services on municipality websites in relation to social media adoption (ANOVA)

Social media adoption Index of services on municipality websites

N

No

.599

106

Yes .716 183

Analysis of variance between groups, F = 62.57, p = 0.000


Figure 1 Relationship between the Index of services on municipality websites (average) and social media adoption

0

0,1

0,2

0,3

0,4

0,5

0,6

0,7

0,8

0,9

1

0 0,25 0,5 0,75 1

Inde

x of

ser

vice

s at

mun

icip

ality

w

ebsi

tes

Indexofsocialmediaadoption


Table 2 Regression models Estimation

Index of services on municipality websites OLS

Social media adoption ML

Combined index OLS

Population (log) 0.060*** (0.014) 1.122*** (0.354) 0.105*** (0.020)

Population density -7.4E-7 (1.72E-5) 0.001 (0.001) -2.09E-6 (2.43E-5)

Proportion of citizens with post-secondary education

0.006** (0.003) -0.003 (0.070) 8.255E-4 (0.004)

Average age 0.009* (0.004) -0.079 (0.093) 0.001 (0.006)

Average income 1.757E-4 (3.923E-4) -0.017* (0.010) -1.365E-4 (0.001)

Voter turnout -0.003 (0.003) 0.111 (0.074) 0.004 (0.005)

Preferential voting -0.001 (0.001) 0.019 (0.028) -0.001 (0.002)

DSL access -0.134 (0.178) -2.002 (3.708) -0.104 (0.251)

Fiber access -0.007 (0.039) 0.127 (0.827) 0.040 (0.055)

E-government strategy (dichotomized)

0.027 (0.017) 0.746** (0.337) 0.038 (0.023)

Adjusted R2/Pseudo R2 0.361 0.163 0.342

N 215 216 215

Entries are unstandardized coefficients followed by standard errors in brackets. * Significant at the 0.10-level, **Significant at the 0.05-level ***Significant at the 0.001-level. Multicollinearity is examined, not allowing a VIF>5.

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