In the academic literature, openness has been approached from two different perspectives: (Meijer et al., 2012): transparency and participation. The literature on transparency revolves around terms such as freedom of information, Internet, active dissemination of information, access to documents and usability of websites (Curtin & Mendes, 2011). The core question tackled by these works is: what is being made visible/transparent? Literature discusses, among other issues, the nature and scope of transparency, the usefulness of information, and the timing of the release of documents. The premise underlying these studies is that transparency yields to accountability. At the same time, a more accountable government is a more legitimate one (Sandóval-Almazán, 2011). Finally, legitimacy strengthens public trust in the government (Hood, 2011; Hazell & Worthy, 2010, Jaeger & Bertot, 2010).
Although the idea of openness in public administrations and organizations is not new, the current spreading use of information systems and technological advances in modern societies has attained new information demands and claims (Sandóval-Almazán, 2011). In particular, social media is used as public information tools. It radically reduces the cost of information diffusion and makes sharing with the citizenry feasible and useful.
Given this context, this paper presents the results of the project “Social media, transparency, and open government in Catalonia”, aimed at assessing the social media strategy of Catalan public administrations in their attempt to be more transparent and accountable and, therefore, to enhance their legitimacy. In particular, four research questions has been addressed: 1) which are the relationships between the concepts of transparency, accountability, and legitimacy in Catalan public administrations?, 2) which is the technological strategy implemented by Catalan public administrations in order to be more open and transparent and what role do social media play in this strategy?, 3) how is social media impact assessed?, and 4) which are the critical success factors of social media initiatives that pursue transparency?
In order to answer these questions, three main tasks have been carried out. First of all, using content analysis, the discourses on transparency, accountability and legitimacy have been analysed. Next, 13 in-depth interviews have been conducted in order to explore the potential relationships among the different concepts and also with regard the use of technology and social media. Finally, a survey questionnaire has been sent to 947 public managers in Catalonia who are in charge of ICT strategies in their respective city councils (response rate of 27,9%).
Generally speaking, the research has concluded that, given the fact that there are differences between the local governments, social media are used ad hoc by public administrations. Most of the time they aim at giving information from a communication perspective (push strategy – Mergel, 2013) and, therefore, without really taking into account the links between information provision, transparency, accountability, legitimacy, and good government/good governance. Despite this way of proceeding, social media use is very positively evaluated, which might imply that public administrations will keep having social media accounts, at least, while the perception that they do not cost money remains.
