Comuni 2.0. Una ricerca esplorativa sull’impiego dei social media negli Enti Locali

Abstract

The current technological advances have made possible the availability of information and communication technologies more and more powerful and allowed to public and private organizations to be profoundly transformed. Web 2.0 and social media are increasingly taking on a major role in the socio-economic contemporary context, helping to change not only the processes and procedures for communication of individuals, citizens and businesses, but also the same organization and business management. With the development of the Web social networks it has become primarily a place where conversations take place, we dialogue, creating new opportunities for connecting people. Millions of users around the world log on every day to different social sites, through which the information arise, circulate and spread with a speed and following completely new paths. The evolution that characterizes the current information and interaction via the Web scenario is profoundly changing the public sector approach to the network, even in our country. Many Public Administrations (PA), in their path of renewal and improvement, have recently begun to manage profiles and pages of different social media to seek more room for dialogue and cooperation with citizens and all other stakeholders. This paper aims to investigate aspects related to the use of web 2.0 tools by the Public Administration in the particular area consists of the Italian municipalities.Exploratory research on which the theory is based is intended to provide an overview on the adoption and diffusion of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube) among the Italian municipalities. Given the strong link with the citizens and the territory, the municipalities are therefore a particularly suitable context to investigate how social mediawereused in the public sector. In the first part, purely theoretical mold, it will focus on the public administration reform process by reviewing the main contributions of the literature, and especially from the paradigm of the new public management to public governance, in order to understand the logic and purpose that inspired the Italian administration's change process. In this context, the purpose of a fair assessment of the perspective, then we will focus on the analysis of e-government tool, that is, the use of digital technologies in carrying out their functions of government institutions, and in relation to specific functions the government of the territorial systems, focusing on the state of computerization of public administrations. The third chapter of the thesis is dedicated to reviewing the web 2.0 phenomena and social media, with particular attention to the spread of the Internet and new technologies for communication. The themes examined relate in particular to social media in government, the use of internet in the Italian population as well as the growth and structure of social networks. 5 In the fourth chapter, we present the main results of the conduct exploratory research on Italian municipalities The research was conducted by administering an online questionnaire divided into the following sections: - Level of diffusion of social media and intensity of investments made in this area by the municipalities in the last three years, - Purpose and characteristics of the use of social media by municipalities; - Forecasting of investments in social media over the next three years. Research conducted on Italian municipalities has shown that, in general, these organizations recognize social media in an innovative tool that can edit some important government processes traditionally managed by the municipalities, for example, the offering of services, strategic business planning the definition and evaluation of policies. In most cases, however, the actions of the municipalities concerned almost exclusively processes of unidirectional communication type, namely the mere exchange of information to citizens by the city or conversely. The experiences of Italian municipalities that fully exploit the features of web 2.0 social media are, in fact, still few and embryonic, namely their ability to start and manage discussions and debates (not only exchanges of information but also of opinions, judgments, etc.) of multilateral (including citizens). It is not possible to assess with certainty the actual stage of maturity reached by the e-Government and made implementation type (soft or hard) in the various municipalities that were subject of this research. Nonetheless, confirming the lack of uniformity in the spread and the limited "maturity" of the e- Government development stage in Italy, investment in these instruments covers a percentage of municipalities still contained. The Italian context was characterized by being misaligned in some way than the average trend of the UE countries, with particular reference to the objectives and digitization of PA performance. In addition, the presence of many regulatory constraints, as well as constraints on organizational, technological, cultural, and financial, in fact, admits a number of critical issues related to the absence of a centralized coordination of initiatives undertaken. States, therefore, the implicit need for a central coordinating structure, centralized governance that addresses and monitors the entire spectrum of projects for the digitization of the PA. The relationship between Government and citizens is experiencing a period of profound change: institutional sites are no longer the main point of access to information. More and more people are looking for on the Web solution to their problems, inform through their networks of relationships, and seek direct dialogue with your partner. The Italian public administration must build new modes of interaction and participation, enhancing the perception of transparency and efficiency. [edited by Author]