Governança pública e comunicação governamental nas cidades: a influência das mídias sociais

Abstract

Public governance, as a public management model that proposes the reformulation of relations between the State and other social actors to increase the capacity to execute public policies, has in government communication an essential element. The general objective of the research is to analyze how City Halls use social media for government communication in the context of public governance. Through mappings of scientific production and systematic review, the study contributes to the theories of Public Governance and Public Communication, applied to the local reality. The research is characterized as exploratory and descriptive, using qualitativequantitative methodology and designing the study of multiple cases. Seven municipalities in Paraná – Brazil, with a population between 32,000 and 350,000 people, were surveyed. The observation unit was the City Hall, and data collection took place from two sources: observation from social media used by City Halls, notably Instagram and Facebook, and interviews with municipal communication managers. The data were analyzed quantitatively using absolute numbers, arithmetic mean and standard deviation, and comparison between the cases and qualitatively through content analysis. The time perspective of data collection and analysis was the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023. The main results of the research demonstrate significant differences in the communication of the municipalities with smaller populations concerning the more populous cities: the more populated cities tend to adopt social media earlier and use more social networks in government communication; in all cases, Facebook was the social media with the most significant number of followers, however, in larger cities, Instagram presents relevant numbers; the communication content of towns with smaller populations tends to be more focused on the dissemination of the actions of the City Hall, while the communication of large cities incorporates educational campaigns, relationship content and use of humor, which leads to more engagement. Public governance communication on social media was verified in all cases studied. From the analysis of the data obtained and the perception of the communication managers interviewed, as well as the theoretical foundation, a model of governmental communication through social media in cities was proposed from three components: adoption of social media; integration of government communication through social media; dialogue, and participation, supported by the principles of public governance. The study contributes to understanding the relations between governments and citizens through social media, contrasting cities of different sizes. At the same time, the construction of the model can help the communication managers of the Prefectures in the practical improvement of public governance at the local level.