Digital communication in Swiss cities: A closer look at the low adoption and usage of social media platforms in a technologically advanced and innovative country

Abstract

While a vast majority of local governments in Europe are communicating on social media, the situation differs in few states. Although Switzerland is often depicted as a technological advanced and innovative country, cities are still largely resisting the temptation to share information on social media platforms. In this study, we rely on a survey distributed to the communication managers of all cities over 10,000 inhabitants in Switzerland to uncover the reasons explaining this behavior. This approach is preferred to understand what motivates or prevents cities from communicating on social media, focusing mainly on perceptions of risks related to these platforms. Results indicate that some factors identified in the literature on public sector organizations slow down the social media adoption and usage at the local level; but interestingly, the conservative approach to social media preferred by numerous cities also plays a major role in explaining cities’ absence on these platforms.

Keywords

Social media city communication risk aversion local government Switzerland

1. Introduction

Government communication is a fundamental link between public authorities and their citizens, ensuring the dissemination of information to the population, informing it about the actions and decisions of government representatives and administrations. It has become increasingly important over the last few decades, responding in particular to more pressing transparency demands from the public (Luoma-aho & Canel, 2020). Therefore, government communication aims at increasing the legitimacy of public organizations and social cohesion, provided that it is mobilized in a credible and effective manner (Pasquier, 2017).

This article looks more specifically at the use of social media in government communication, as online channels are increasingly favored in the relationship between public organizations and the population. According to Johannessen et al. (2012), key stakeholders in public communication such as politicians, civil servants and citizens, mostly prefer to receive inform about local issues through emails, municipalities websites and social media. Social media is commonly defined as web-based applications and interactive platforms that facilitate the creation, discussion, modification, and exchange of user-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010). They are usually not limited to external social networks like Facebook or Twitter but include blogs, business networks, collaborative projects, forums and microblogs, etc. (Aichner & Jacob, 2015). In this article, we will limit our analysis to external social networks, thus excluding the list of other medias above and naming this category social media platforms.

Social media platforms have caught attention of many governments around the world due to their notable features such as cost-efficient communication, broad reach, and an active presence of its large number of users (Arshad & Khurram 2020). They offer the opportunity to establish a continuous dialogue, potentially opening the door to direct interactions between the authorities and the citizens (Pasquier, 2017). The recent trend towards instantaneous dissemination of information invites public administrations to act more proactively and to rethink the way they communicate with the citizens. Indeed, it requires them to consider communication as a strategic activity that needs additional reflexion and planning efforts. In this sense, these new channels require clear guidelines and a well-established strategy, which should ensure a relevant usage of these platforms, as well as the institutionalization of norms and behaviors regarding communication and social media practices (Mergel & Bretschneider, 2013). However, they also present challenges and risks in terms of responsiveness, information management and control over content.

So far, most contributions in the literature have developed frameworks to analyze governments’ activity on social media platforms or measured their activity on Facebook more particularly (Guillamón et al., 2016). This results mainly from the fact that studies have been conducted in North America and Western Europe, where a vast majority of governments are active on at least one social media platform (Facebook initially),1

¹
For instance, 89% of French municipalities over 20,000 inhabitants are active on Facebook, 97% of all Dutch municipalities, and 88% in England and Wales (Mabillard & Zumofen, 2019).

and most often on more (Yavetz & Aharony, 2020). At the local level, North American and European cities are increasingly present on these platforms to improve their communication with the public.

The fact that individuals are increasingly consulting the news on social media platforms2

According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2020, news consumption on social media ranged from 39% in Germany to 78% in Argentina, with a sharp increase from the past years.

poses a central question to public bodies: what positioning should they adopt? Those who opted for active digital communication typically praise the possibilities offered by social networks (e.g., Norwich City Council (2016) stresses that social media help access “hard to reach”, young people). The most reluctant ones insist on the binding nature of their use and the lack of resources available to fully exploit them (Gao & Lee, 2017). In this regard, our study aims at identifying the main motivations and deterrents to the usage of social media platforms by Swiss cities.

This article is structured as follows. The literature review will first present key considerations about social media usage by local governments. The article will then detail the heterogeneity of Swiss cities, before explaining the choice of the methodological approach preferred here. Finally, it will present the findings of the study, discuss them with regard to the contextual elements, and conclude on the implications for researchers and practitioners interested in digital public sector communication.

2. Literature review

Criado et al. (2013) notice that governmental control of social media content, the lack of a regulatory framework for activities related to social media, the guarantee of individuals’ privacy, and the lack of communication among different levels of government have already been studied in various contributions. Elements related to governments’ adoption and activity on social media, as well as the analysis of factors inhibiting their willingness to sign up for these new platforms, have also been addressed in the literature, as presented below.

Focusing on organizational structure and characteristics of public administrations, Mergel et al. (2013) argue that social media platforms challenge the principle of bureaucratic hierarchy. Certain governments refrain from using social media because of the porous boundary between public and private communication on these platforms, and responsibility for creating these channels is sometimes given to IT departments. However, social media should not be seen solely as innovation, but rather as an additional way to reach citizens and support the objectives of a public body. To ensure successful implementation and usage of social media, Mergel et al. (2013) affirm that the establishment of a strategic framework and specific guidelines regarding the identity and roles of account users is crucial.

In terms of adoption and activity, several contributions have underlined the importance of certain structural and political factors (Reddick & Norris, 2013; Sharif et al., 2015; Guillamón et al., 2016). For instance, populous cities, usually relying on more human and financial resources than smaller municipalities, are better equipped to use social media and engage citizens. The creation of roles among audiences has also been emphasized in recent contributions (Villodre & Criado, 2020). In addition, perceptions of risks associated with public sector communication on social media still prevent some governments from registering on these platforms to this day (Criado et al., 2018).

Nevertheless, risks are mostly treated as communicational ones, since most cities in the Western world are active on social media platforms. In this sense, challenges analyzed in the literature on public sector communication mostly refer to control over information, the avoidance of “bad buzzes”, the need to monitor and evaluate performance on social media, the need to increase interaction with the users, and the challenge of maintaining continued actions and responses (Mossberger et al., 2013).

The technological and organizational issues are also essential when it comes to subscribing to social media platforms and regulating cities’ activity on these platforms. They concern mainly privacy, security, public sector modernization and the potential transformation of traditional hierarchical structures to organizational cultures based on openness (Fyfe & Crookall, 2010). In practice, authorities attempt to manage and purposively reduce these risks through training, culture-building and dedicated guidelines; but certain public bodies delayed their decision to join and/or took more time to develop relevant policies of digital communication (Sharif et al., 2015).

In addition, according to Picazo-Vela et al. (2012), risks for public bodies typically refer to the problems engendered by establishing increasingly direct relationships with citizens. Khan et al. (2014) highlight the fears of making an inappropriate usage of social media platforms, of being incapable to deal with requests in real time, and of losing control over the exchanges online. Moreover, security risks include privacy breaches, information manipulation that can discredit public organizations, spreading of fake news and hacking (Sharif et al., 2015), raising issues of control over information in a system where platforms are owned and regulated by external, private actors. Consequently, the risk of losing control over information, misinformation and the intense rhythm of information dissemination have deterred some governments from adopting social media platforms.

An important challenge faced by practitioners refers to the “traditional culture of bureaucratic agencies [which] does not fit well with the flatness and collaborative nature of social media technologies” (Criado et al., 2018: p. 23). This can be reinforced by the beliefs and values of administrators, the uptake of digital tools being influenced by the administrators’ orientation toward bureaucracy culture or more public participation. In line with what has been emphasized above, other concerns include the lack of resources regarding implementation and evaluation; the lack of structure and trained staff; the potential disorganization of public sector communication; the lack of coordination between different departments; and budget constraints (Picazo-Vela et al., 2012).

Such challenges can be linked to the global issue of risk calculation and management in the public sector, and to the fact that public managers are usually regarded as mostly risk-averse professionals. This can be explained by multiple factors, including high levels of formalism (“red tape”), self-selection – people who are more averse to risk in their lives are more likely to seek positions in the public sector – or greater scrutiny (Bozeman & Kingsley, 1998). From an economic perspective, Buurman et al. (2012) explain that public sector employees tend to be more pro-social and risk-averse compared to private sector workers. These results confirm findings from other studies (Roszkowski & Grable, 2009), even though cross-sectoral differences must be nuanced (Nicholson-Crotty et al., 2019).

Nevertheless, there has been a significant increase of social media usage by governments over the last few years (Lidén & Larsson, 2016), and most risks are usually outweighed by the benefits of using these new tools, especially in large cities (Gao & Lee, 2017). The benefits offered by social media platforms use led to an early global enthusiasm, generally driven by diffuse objectives: recruiting activities, communicating with the population in a better way, facilitating and enhancing citizen participation in public affairs (Pflughoeft & Schneider, 2020), and increasing transparency (Jaeger & Bertot, 2010). Diffusion of information on social media was praised for its numerous potential benefits such as transparency, accountability, efficiency, citizen involvement, trust and other important aspects related to the public’s experience, such as user convenience (Picazo-Vela et al., 2012) or improvement of communication with the users (Pastor & Villodre, 2018).

From a citizen point of view, social media have proven their efficiency in enabling peoples to have a greater voice in public affairs, and have sometimes served as catalysts for social change (Bennett & Manoharan, 2017). The opportunity offered to citizens to participate more actively in decision-making may also encourage municipalities to use social media platforms. Municipalities can ensure increased proximity with their citizens and provide them with timely information, thus contributing to the construction of a more responsive and transparent administration.

Consequently, social media have already been extensively studied in several contexts, although focusing mainly on Europe and North America (Mergel, 2012; Mergel & Bretschneider, 2013; Feeney & Welch, 2016). Unfortunately, managerial issues related to the decision of cities to sign up (or not) for social media platforms remain often eluded, mostly due to the fact that most of them are already present on such platforms, especially in the case of large local governments, usually over 25,000 or 50,000 inhabitants (e.g., Criado et al., 2018). Nevertheless, in certain countries, cities still prefer to communicate with their citizens through other channels (Keuffer & Mabillard, 2020). This is the case of Switzerland, where many municipalities, including big ones, prefer not to join social media platforms to communicate. We aim at bridging a gap in the literature by understanding why a significant number of populated cities in Switzerland did not adopt social media platforms and still prefer other channels to communicate with the public (Mabillard & Zumofen, 2019).

Focusing on social media adoption under the prism of risk aversion in the public sector, we address the following research questions (RQs): What are the main factors identified by Swiss cities absent from social media platforms that prevent them to use these platforms (RQ1)? And how are Swiss cities present on social media platforms mitigating communicational risks to capitalize on the expected benefits of these platforms (RQ2)?

To the extent of our knowledge, these issues are not discussed extensively in the literature, since it is mostly observed (and therefore taken for granted) that large municipalities are active on social media platforms. Our study relies on a survey sent to the communication managers of 146 Swiss cities. Anonymous data from the survey were then analyzed to address our RQs. Before we present the method and results, information about Swiss cities is needed to better understand the context of our study.

3. Context

Switzerland comprises more than 2,222 municipalities in 2019 (FSO, 2018), with their own distinct characteristics. This heterogeneity is reflected in their institutional and demographic features. Most of them are rural, and even the largest ones are sparsely populated. Therefore, it is not surprising that only 146 municipalities had more than 10,000 inhabitants in 2019. We focus on these 146 cities since the authorities of rural municipalities often prefer direct contacts with citizens over sophisticated, digital communication channels (Keuffer & Mabillard, 2020).

As mentioned above, certain contributions point to a wide enthusiastic movement regarding local governments’ communication on social media in European countries. For instance, in the Netherlands, 378 out of 380 municipalities had a Twitter account in 2018 (Faber et al., 2020). In contrast, only 70% of all Swiss cities were present on social media platforms at the end of 2018, and 40 of them had signed up for one account only (27%). Out of the 146 cities, only 10 of them, located mainly in high-density urban areas, have more than 50,000 inhabitants (Table 1). In these cities, social media are widely used, confirming the evidence observed elsewhere. At the same time, 53% of all cities have a total population of less than 20,000 inhabitants. The large proportion of low populated cities could partly explain the low level of presence on social media in international comparison.

Table 1
Social media-related characteristics in Switzerland (as of 31 December 2018)

Population size (inhabitants)	Total number of cities	Cities present on at least one platform (%)	Cities that registered for first time before 2016 (%)	Cities with a communication manager (%)
Over 100,000	6	6/6 (100%)	6/6 (100%)	6/6 (100%)
50,000 to 100,000	4	4/4 (100%)	4/4 (100%)	4/4 (100%)
20,000 to 49,999	36	31/36 (86%)	19/36 (53%)	30/36 (83%)
15,000 to 19,999	38	27/38 (71%)	17/38 (45%)	25/38 (66%)
10,000 to 14,999	62	34/62 (55%)	19/62 (31%)	23/62 (37%)

Sources: FSO (2018); Mabillard and Zumofen (2019).

The Swiss case stands out in four ways. First, populated cities are also absent from social media platforms, with several cities over 25,000 inhabitants (and even over 35,000 in two cases) having not adopted any platform. Second, Swiss cities are late adopters in international comparison, and most of them have first signed up for a social media platform between 2016 and 2018 (Mabillard & Zumofen, 2019). Third, many cities still lack a proper communication manager or team, not to mention the hiring of a community manager. And fourth, their activity on social media remains quite low, and other channels are often preferred to communicate with citizens (e.g., magazine distributed to all households).

Therefore, Swiss cities are not early adopters and not especially active on social media, although the biggest cities (over 50,000 inhabitants) are notable exceptions to this observation. This raises a curious paradox: while the country does not mobilize the opportunities offered by these new technologies intensively, it is regularly cited as one of the most innovative and technologically advanced ones. Indeed, Switzerland is ranked among the most innovative economies in the Global Innovation Index (Dutta et al., 2020), alongside Nordic countries, the UK and the US. This situation calls for an in-depth investigation of the factors that prevent Swiss cities from embracing social media platforms more enthusiastically.

4. Method

Since our study focuses on 146 Swiss cities, a preliminary step consisted in the collection of all data related to the use of social media by these cities (presence, registration date, followers, etc.). It enabled us to identify the mostly used social media platforms in Swiss cities (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn). This also raised awareness about the high number of cities absent from social media platforms in international comparison.

To deepen our understanding of this situation, additional data were then collected through a survey sent online to all cities’ communication managers (or municipal secretaries when there was no such manager) in all three official languages – German, French, Italian – in early 2019. The survey consisted of three parts. First, respondents were asked to answer questions about their city’s presence on social media. Most of them were especially present on Facebook, confirming empirical evidence observed elsewhere (Yavetz & Aharony, 2020). The second part consisted of questions related to the main reasons explaining the cities’ choice to sign up (or not) for social media platforms, the perceived challenges, barriers and risks, as well as their expectations in terms of external communication. Finally, the third part was designed exclusively for cities present on at least one platform and consisted of questions about the adoption and usage of every single platform on which the city was present. Questions included items related to the objectives, the management, and the frequency of communication on these platforms, as well as their strategy to mitigate the risks related to their usage of social media platforms. Data were compiled through the software used to send out the survey. They were then extracted and processed by statistical software. Additional comments from the respondents were retrieved one by one.

In total, data from 84 cities out of the 146 cities contacted were collected, which constitutes a satisfactory rate of 57.5%. Data from all three linguistic regions were received. Out of these 84 respondents, 32 of them indicated that their city was not present at all on social media platforms (38.1%). Therefore, they are slightly overrepresented in the sample compared to the 31% of all cities (45 out of 146) not active on social media mentioned in the contextual part.

5. Findings

5.1 Factors identification and analysis regarding social media platforms adoption

Cities absent from social media mostly think that such platforms are not essential for their communication. Most respondents affirm that their presence on these new channels would be unnecessary, and they further argue that it would neither help them better understand the citizens’ expectations or priorities nor help their city increase its attractiveness (Table 2). Their answers regarding the state-citizen relationship are somewhat more positive since half of the respondents agree that the city’s presence on social media would certainly improve interactivity with the population. At the same time, most respondents do not think that this presence would increase transparency of the communication or citizens’ trust in the government.

Table 2
Opinions of city communication managers regarding social media platforms adoption (cities absent from social media platforms)

Regarding your city communication, social media platforms $\ldots$	Mean	SD	N
$\ldots$ could be useful	4.28	2.99	32
$\ldots$ would be a necessity	2.82	1.61	28
$\ldots$ would increase interaction with the citizens	4.38	3.17	32
$\ldots$ would increase government transparency	2.90	2.09	31
$\ldots$ would raise the level of citizen trust	2.69	1.94	32
$\ldots$ would enable the city to better grasp the expectations and the priorities of the population	3.07	1.82	32
$\ldots$ could increase the attractiveness of the city	3.67	1.88	30

Scale: 0 $=$ fully disagree; 10 $=$ fully agree.

Most cities absent from social media platforms have mentioned that it would be too risky to adopt social media platforms. As shown in Table 3, 59.4% of the respondents of cities that are not on social media platforms indicate that the risks of signing up on social media would be too high for their city. Several respondents have mentioned the fear of facing a communicational crisis (“shitstorm” in German) and of losing control over the content shared on these platforms. This echoes Lovari and Valentini’s findings (2020): several public sector organizations have expressed reservations about the adoption of social media platforms because of possible threats to their communication (such as potential misuse of information). Several respondents have also indicated that a cost-benefit analysis should be performed to avoid such communicational crisis. However, this kind of analysis has not been conducted, either because skills are lacking or because administrators and/or politicians have no interest in conducting it.

However, these results do not relate directly to aspects mentioned in previous contributions, and especially the main barriers identified. Indeed, respondents do not stress that skills are lacking (74.2%) or that financial resources are insufficient (50%). Rather, they emphasize that the currently used channels are satisfactory to diffuse information in an efficient manner, an opinion shared by a vast majority of the respondents (78.1%).

Table 3

Reasons provided by city communication managers for not adopting social media platforms

Why is your city not active on any social media platforms?	$+$	$-$	No opinion	N
Financial resources are insufficient	46.9%	50%	3.1%	32
There is no such impulse within the administration	46.9%	46.9%	6.2%	32
In-house skills and expertise are lacking	19.3%	74.2%	6.5%	31
The current means of communication are sufficient	78.1%	21.9%	0	32
Risks identified are too high to take a chance	59.4%	37.5%	3.1%	32

Scale: ( $+$ ) Fully or partially agree; ( $-$ ) Fully or partially disagree, N $=$ number of respondents.

The main factors identified by Swiss cities absent from social media platforms that prevent them from using these platforms (RQ1) are not related to financial and technical issues. These are not raised by the respondents as barriers to the adoption of social media platforms. Most cities do not want to expose their action to a reactive platform, where issues such as potential lack of control over information may arise. In this sense, most of the respondents insist on the need to capitalize on existing channels and to avoid problems related to a more modern way of communicating with the public. This assessment is confirmed by a large majority of the respondents to our survey. Indeed, 28 out of 32 (87.5%) indicated that their city had no intention to sign up for any social media platform in the next 12 months. Here, the conservative posture and the identification of communicational risks, such as having to deal with a communicational crisis, are regarded as too high to communicate on social media, and they strengthen the cities’ belief that current channels are sufficient and the most efficient way to reach out to their population. Our response to RQ1 thus emphasizes the conservative approach of cities that did not register on social media platforms, and their fear of losing control over their external communication. Barriers commonly identified in other settings have not been raised by the respondents in the Swiss case.

Although we argue here that a significant number of cities refrain from integrating social media platforms in their communication, many of them, especially the biggest ones, have decided to sign up for at least one platform (Table 1). Once they have adopted social media platforms, some cities have developed tools and/or strategies to mitigate the risks of communicating on these platforms, including the fears mentioned above. These tools and/or strategies will be developed below to respond to RQ2.

5.2 Risk mitigation strategies

Several respondents from cities present on social media point out the importance of developing an editorial charter to mitigate communicational risks. At the time of the survey, 22 cities out of the 52 cities (42.3%) present on social media platforms had enacted such a charter, and 20 respondents out of 52 (38.5%) emphasized the need to adopt a charter to better mitigate the risks incurred by communicating on social media platforms. This highlights the importance of developing guidelines, as mentioned in the literature (Hrdinová et al., 2010). Indeed, it may lead to the institutionalization of social media use (new organizational structures and formal policies), which would enable cities to embrace the interaction potential of these new digital channels (Mergel & Bretschneider, 2013).

Moreover, the mitigation of risks involves for most cities the total control of the communication manager or team over their activity on social media. This has triggered the necessity to increase the resources dedicated to communication in most cities, and on some occasions the need to hire new staff (10.7%), to train their existing staff (7.1%) or to increase the activity rate of existing staff (13.0%).

Table 4
Mitigation strategies provided by cities when they become active on social media platforms

When you registered on social media platforms, what did you change to control your communication?	$+$	$-$	N
Hiring of new staff	10.7%	89.3%	84
Training of existing staff	7.1%	92.9%	84
Increase of activity rate of existing staff	13.0%	87.0%	84
Purchase of specialized software solutions	5.9%	94.1%	84
Other	7.1%	92.9%	84
Nothing	32.1%	67.9%	84

Scale: ( $+$ ) Yes; ( $-$ ) No, N $=$ number of respondents.

Finally, a vast majority of respondents (73.1%) confirms that diverse services and departments (e.g., police) are also active on social media channels, raising the need to coordinate their communication with these departments. In this regard, most respondents (65.8%) affirm that the level of coordination is very high, high or medium. This enables the city and the various departments to mitigate the risks related to a clear communication, thereby leading the way to a more horizontal, collaborative form of government (Pasquier, 2017).

The data collected in the survey also show that messages posted on social media platforms, especially Facebook and Twitter, are most of the time planned, but that there is no clear timeline for the posts established well in advance (more than one month). This approach, which tends to remain incremental (with the notable exception of Twitter), is described by some respondents as potentially risky and detrimental to the city’s communication. Preparedness is seen here as a tool to mitigate communicational risks by certain respondents, although it is still lacking in many cities, calling for a more systematic, professional, and planned approach to public sector communication on social media platforms.

We cannot conclude from these findings that all communicational risks are completely under control and fully monitored in the case of cities present on social media platforms. Indeed, many respondents argue that they are engaged in a learning process, trying to mitigate the risks by taking them into account and reflecting on the way they can keep them to a minimum level of threat. Most of them mention risks that are similar to those faced by cities in other countries. In order to avoid inappropriate usage of social media platforms, they develop or point the necessity to enact a charter; to avoid confusion, they call for the efficient implementation of coordination mechanisms between public bodies; to help keep control over information, they call for better preparedness and more professionalism (up-to-date training and hiring of qualified staff).

6. Discussion

Respondents in most cities present on social media platforms are aware of the risks inherent to this kind of digital communication, but they see the added value of communicating on social media platforms to get closer to citizens and open channels that are increasingly used by certain segments of the populace. Based on the data collected, we can affirm that benefits of adopting social media platforms, from the respondents’ perspective, outweigh the managerial and communicational risks mentioned in the literature review.

However, the recency of these channels in Switzerland and the evaluation processes being in their infancy make it difficult for communication departments (or the person monitoring the platforms) to fully exploit the benefits associated with using such platforms. Interestingly, a majority of respondents affirm that resources are currently sufficient. In this sense, they argue that they can respond to comments and questions, although they are sometimes targeted based on their relevance. In general, progress is still to be made in many cities: indeed, mitigation strategies and tools are mentioned by most respondents, but their implementation is either in a phase of development or still lacking. These aspects should be addressed in the future. Apart from security concerns, the points raised by communication managers from cities present on social media echo the risks identified in the literature (inappropriate usage, incapacity to deal with requests in real time, and losing control over information exchanges mainly). In many cases, charters should be refined or enacted; coordination should be further encouraged; cities should be more prepared, and communication should be professionalized through the hiring of highly qualified workers.

In addition, our findings indicate that a significant number of Swiss cities still refrain from adopting social media because of reputational risks they are not willing to take. From this point of view, they seem to differ strongly, at first glance, from cities that are present on these platforms, since impulsion from the administration and/or political willingness is often missing. Interestingly, they do not see technical or financial barriers as a central issue regarding social media adoption. Our results show that a conservative and extremely cautious approach to new communication tools, and the expressed satisfaction with existing channels, lead these cities to neglect social media platforms despite their increasing popularity.

As a result, and as opposed to what has been often highlighted in the scientific literature, risks related to technical and administrative capacity issues have almost not been raised here. The main risk is the fear of the unknown and the shift away from the status quo; this fear acts as a strong inhibitor. But this rationale also partly applies to cities present on social media, since their activity remains limited, and most cities are only present on one platform only (Mabillard & Zumofen, 2019).

Nevertheless, we cannot exclude that certain cities are experimenting social media usage at the individual level, as this can be a first stage leading to the institutionalization of social media use and placing these platforms on the organizational radar screen (Mergel & Bretschneider, 2013). In this sense, one respondent explained that one city department had a bad experience with social media, leading top officials to drop the idea of adopting these platforms for the city. However, most qualitative inputs from the survey indicate a reluctance from communication managers to disseminate content on social media, emphasizing that the political dimension of official information would put them at risk, and that administrators would be afraid of losing control over information.

From an administrative culture point of view, Zhang and Feeney (2020) highlight that the prioritization of bureaucratic over participatory culture prevents cities from exploiting the potential of digital communication tools. In addition, when formal institutions require public input in decision-making processes, the usage of these digital tools increases as well. We cannot affirm here that a strong bureaucratic culture leads to a conservative approach to social media platforms in the Swiss case; however, we draw from our data that the absence of binding legislation and of strong incentives to increase cities’ openness online do not foster the adoption of social media platforms. Moreover, the existence of other avenues for public participation in Switzerland reinforces this interpretation of the current situation.

The Swiss managerial culture, which includes specific features such as pragmatism and research of consensus (Boukamel & Emery, 2019) may provide another explanation. The political-administrative culture, marked by collegiality and the principle of concordance, is not innovation-oriented. This results in the following paradox: although Switzerland is often seen as a pioneer in innovation, it is ranked only 43rd in the world in the Networked Readiness Index (Baller et al., 2016) which measures the propensity of the public sector to benefit from digital transformations. The current situation regarding social media usage at the local level somehow reflects this particularity of the Swiss context.

This behavior of cities may also be explained by the fact that most cities do not see social media as essential tools to revisit their communication. Some respondents, especially in cities not present on social media, do not regard these platforms as an added value to their communication while others use it as an additional channel, mostly posting messages that are similar to what is already shared via other channels. This way of downplaying the importance of social media and the detachment expressed by many respondents is echoed by Mergel (2012: 287), who writes that “social media adoption is oftentimes met with resistance and platitudes.”

However, the behavior of cities can also be influenced by other factors, such as the size of local government (Graham et al., 2015). The same rationale could be extended to the adoption of social media platforms. In Switzerland, city population size is moderately and significantly correlated with being present on social media (Pearson’s $r=$ 0.393, $p<$ 0.01); the same result can be observed when we look at the relationship between being present on social media platforms and relying on a communication manager or team (Pearson’s $r=$ 0.445, $p<$ 0.01). Although cities absent from these platforms argue that skills and resources are sufficient, some of them probably underestimate the efforts required to implement and effectively monitor their communication on social media. In this regard, cities present on these channels, which are in general bigger ones, have reported the need to hire additional resources.

We acknowledge that the choice of Swiss cities constitutes a limitation of the study. This choice excludes other countries and municipalities, which may also reveal interesting results regarding social media use. Cities were selected mainly because digital communication tends to be limited in small municipalities (Keuffer & Mabillard, 2020). Moreover, Switzerland represents a compelling field of inquiry since it differs from other contexts. Indeed, although the presence of strong digital infrastructures usually favors the spread of social media among citizens, and despite the fact that the vast majority of the population is active on the internet, several cities, including big ones, are not using social media tools to communicate with the public.

A second limitation refers to the quantitative nature of our survey, which did not allow us to unveil all specific risks related to social media use and adoption. We have used additional comments provided by the respondents, but future research could probably capitalize on qualitative data, retrieved from interviews, to help refine the notion of risk and provide more qualitative inputs about the approach preferred by cities’ actors regarding social media platforms.

7. Conclusion

This contribution sheds a different light on social media usage by governments at the local level. It complements theoretical studies that focus on challenges of using social media platforms and drifts apart from purely empirical studies that investigate the determinants of local governments’ activity on these platforms. By doing so, the article bridges a gap in the literature since it differs from the wide enthusiastic stance about public sector communication on social media, motivated by the promotion of a culture of transparency, accountability, and openness. This culture and the development of new managerial and communication approaches have typically led to the increasing digitization of public bodies’ activities and subsequently to the integration of social media platforms in public sector communication (Lovari & Valentini, 2020). The Swiss case shows that this evolution, widely supported around the globe, should not always be taken for granted, even in advanced industrialized and wealthy countries.

This poses the question of the threats perceived by local governments when facing the opportunity to sign up for social media platforms. Here, we connect theoretical considerations about risk aversion in the public sector with social media adoption by cities. This is especially important in a context where conservative approaches prevail, as it is the case in Switzerland (Boukamel & Emery, 2019). The results underline the lack of political willingness to use social media tools as we discovered that neither resources nor internal competencies seem to be lacking according to the respondents (in contrast to the technical and financial barriers usually mentioned in the literature). In cities that are present on social media, reservations have often been expressed by political executives; as a direct consequence, hiring of new staff and ambitious communication campaigns have remained limited so far. In cities not using these platforms, a strong resistance to social media adoption has been observed, which is not likely to change soon according to the respondents. In this sense, most respondents in these refractory cities highlight that most risks linked to city reputation and information management would surpass the benefits of using the more traditional channels currently used, such as their official website or the city magazine distributed to all households.

A direct implication for practice is that not taking the communicational risks implied by the usage of social media may threaten cities. Indeed, this attitude may put them at a bigger risk than not taking the risk of adopting social media. Cities may be lost and surpassed by other stakeholders in communication, including citizens themselves, and become irrelevant. These developments are usually preferred by large cities, and certainly require more staff and skills to improve the city communication. However, maintaining a conservative posture could certainly be detrimental to the city’s attractiveness in the long run, and cities cannot escape the current trend, in which cities are increasingly competing to attract talents for instance (Andersson et al., 2016).

Although several Swiss cities are using social media actively and have established guidelines to regulate official communication on these channels, most of them still lack a comprehensive strategy. Developing such a strategy would prove useful to better define the missions of the city when communicating on social media, and to engage citizens. This strategy is indispensable if cities want to shift from a “representation tactics” (disseminating information already available on other channels) to a “pull tactics” (inviting citizens to participate in policymaking), as highlighted by Mergel et al. (2013). Certain respondents of our survey have acknowledged the lack of a global approach to social media use and adoption. Developing a clear strategy, together with an adequate regulatory framework, may help cities absent from social media change the conservative attitude that currently prevails.

Nevertheless, a reflexion is ongoing and includes mainly aspects related to data protection (enactment of guidelines), language (getting understood by users), trolls and insulting comments (monitoring and moderation), and political use (partisan administration). These are important elements; however, these aspects should be included in a global strategy that identifies target groups, defines precise missions, and outlines how citizens can be efficiently mobilized to participate in policies designed by the city. Risk mitigation in cities present on social media should be accompanied by a motivation to engage their citizens more actively.

In addition to these practical implications, our study also opens up promising paths for future research in neighboring countries. For example, Austria also comprises a small number of cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants (86 out of 2095 municipalities in early 2020), and 28% of these cities have not adopted any single social media platform, including populous areas (own data). Therefore, it would be particularly interesting to send the same survey to communication managers in Austria and/or states sharing the same features, and to compare the cities’ approach regarding social media use in public sector communication. It would be compelling to see if, from a comparative point of view, conservatism regarding innovation will influence social media adoption, as suggested by Oliveira and Welch (2013).

Finally, our approach could be applied to small municipalities, which tend to use social media less than big cities in general. In this regard, Gao and Lee (2017) have investigated the adoption of Facebook and Twitter through e-government services in the US state of Nebraska. This empirical perspective could certainly be enriched with data from a survey similar to the one used in our study, to better identify the attitude of cities not using social media and the role played by their perceptions of barriers, communicational risks, and more generally inhibiting factors to social media adoption.

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Digital communication in Swiss cities: A closer look at the low adoption and usage of social media platforms in a technologically advanced and innovative country

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

1 For instance, 89% of French municipalities over 20,000 inhabitants are active on Facebook, 97% of all Dutch municipalities, and 88% in England and Wales (Mabillard & Zumofen, 2019).

3. Context

Table 1 Social media-related characteristics in Switzerland (as of 31 December 2018)

5. Findings

5.1 Factors identification and analysis regarding social media platforms adoption

Table 2 Opinions of city communication managers regarding social media platforms adoption (cities absent from social media platforms)

Table 4 Mitigation strategies provided by cities when they become active on social media platforms

7. Conclusion

References

¹
For instance, 89% of French municipalities over 20,000 inhabitants are active on Facebook, 97% of all Dutch municipalities, and 88% in England and Wales (Mabillard & Zumofen, 2019).

Table 1
Social media-related characteristics in Switzerland (as of 31 December 2018)

Table 2
Opinions of city communication managers regarding social media platforms adoption (cities absent from social media platforms)

Table 4
Mitigation strategies provided by cities when they become active on social media platforms