Page 87 - Proceeding 2015

URS Nicolae FAMP

SOCIAL NETWORK USE IN ROMANIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: BIG CITIES, SMALL STEPS
CCASP

1. INTRODUCTION

E-government services are increasingly seen, even in Romania, as part of the public institution’s raison
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
d’etre. More than half of Romanians use the internet on a regularly basis, and most of the new connections
to the internet are made from mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). Being able to interact with public
administration from anywhere and with ease is something that people (especially young people) expect.
This is particularly evident in big cities, where over 70% of people use the internet.

This trend of demanding more and better services is intertwined with changes in media consumption
patterns. More and more people use social media as one of the most important (if not the most important)
source of information. Aside from that, social media sites offer something that the traditional media could

not provide: easy two-way interaction and constant updating. The old media paradigm of one-to-many is
blown away by hundreds of millions of users, connected through a bewilderingly complex network, many
of them plugged-in round the clock.

30 th – 31 st October 2015 ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” Bucharest evident: increase unmediated contact with citizens, greater visibility for government projects, and quick
Public administration institutions are expected to take part in this global discussion. The advantages are

response in case of emergencies. But seizing these benefits requires a paradigm shift in the way public

institution communicate with the public.

In this paper, we analyzed the Facebook accounts of the Romanian Counties Capital Cities, plus those
of the 6 Bucharest Sectors. We have also tried to gauge the importance that these cities give to e-

government, using as a proxy the number of people reserved in the organizational chart for the IT
department.

Our findings show that all of the cities taken into account use a Facebook account, but the new

communication paradigm requested by this new media actor is not yet well understood. This could be
also linked to the relatively low priority given to ICTs and to e-government development.

2. THE INTERNET AND THE CHANGE IN COMMUNICATION PATTERNS

At the time we write this article, more than 3.2 billion people are using the internet on a regular basis
(Telecommunication Development Bureau, 2015). Of these, over 2 billion are using social media (Kemp,

2015). These numbers will surely be out of date by the time this article is published. Internet and social
media user growth rate shows little signs of slowing, at least for now.

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