Abstract

This article analyzes the determinants of public engagement on the Facebook pages of municipalities. The sample consists of 170 Italian and Spanish municipalities that used Facebook in 2014. The findings show that posting a lot of information on municipal Facebook pages does not increase the engagement of citizens. Also, frequent posting of information per se does not engage public engagement. However, if the posts are published when public can pay attention to them (e.g., off days), the likelihood of public engagement increases. Furthermore, the citizens’ engagement on municipal Facebook page depends on the level of citizens’ income – there is a negative relationship between citizens’ income and the level of participation.

摘要

本文分析了市政当局在Facebook页面上公众参与的决定因素。该样本包括2014年使用Facebook的170个意大利和西班牙市政当局。调查结果显示，在市政Facebook页面上发布大量信息并不会增加公民的参与度。而且，频繁地发布信息本身不会引起公众参与。但是，如果发布这些帖子时公众可以关注它们（例如，休息日），那么公众参与的可能性就会增加。此外，市民在市政Facebook页面上的参与程度取决于公民的收入水平–公民的收入与参与程度之间存在负相关关系。