| 1. |
- Baltz, Andre, 1986-
(författare)
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A Longitudinal Analysis of Swedish Local Governments on Facebook : A visualisation of communication
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nordicom Review. - Göteborg : Nordicom. - 1403-1108 .- 2001-5119. ; 41:2, s. 147-162
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Facebook has become an essential channel for local governments to convey information and interact with citizens, and communication on the platform has been studied intensively through a range of smaller case studies in various countries. By looking at the development of Swedish municipalities’ Facebook usage between 2009 and 2017, this article attempts to frame such use in a longitudinal perspective. Based on more than 85,000 posts from 38 Swedish local governments, the findings show that most municipalities have adapted to an online visual culture, using photos and videos “to go viral”. The findings also show large increases in interactions, such as sharing and liking, whilst commenting appears to lag behind. It also shows that local government Facebook pages retain a strong, yet decreasing, tie with government web pages, visible through a tendency of the Facebook page to recycle information from the web page.
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| 2. |
- Baltz, André, 1986-
(författare)
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Disseminating and collecting information : municipalities’ communicative practices and deliberative capacities
- 2022
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Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - : Routledge. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388. ; 48:1, s. 48-67
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper aims to critically explore how citizen dialogues are perceived by the municipalities and public servants who implement them. The question is answered using a multi-method approach: a content analysis of 213 self-reports on citizen dialogues from Swedish municipalities and 11 in-depth interviews with public servants working with citizen dialogues in a Swedish municipality. The findings show that citizen dialogues were thought of along three main narratives: information gathering, informing, and inclusion. Together, these narratives indicated a will to enhance informed decision-making. However, combining informed decision-making is with broad participation poses challenges; the authority had to delimit participation, establish structures, educate, define citizens and adapt existing working methods to external stakeholders. The three narratives address this adaptation.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Baltz, André, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Reputation management in Swedish upper secondary schools
- 2023
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Within the school sector, the development towards a market paradigm has put measurement of performance and accountability in a new context. During the last two decades, this development has been especially apparent in Sweden where substantial reforms have transformed the entire school system and opened up the educational market to for profit organizations and competition between schools. Such reforms have placed an increased stress on performance in schools, for instance through benchmarking and open statistics on grades. Based on such premises, it might be argued that reputation management strategies - i.e. creating an appealing image and coherent brand to consumers on the educational market - become an important practice of the management of educational organizations. Empirical Research on reputation management in the public sector is a growing field (c.f. Wæraas, 2020) and reputation management as a practice appears to be increasingly institutionalized in the public sector (Salomonsen et al., 2016). Previous studies have covered a range of topics such as hospitals (Blomgren et al., 2016), place branding (Wæraas et al., 2015), for-profit schools (Gustrén, 2021). Therefore, we consider this paper as an important contribution to the literature on reputation management and public sector communication in general. The empirical data on which this study is based consists of 15 semi-structured qualitative interviews with public servants responsible for communication/pubiic relations in upper secondary school at the municipal/administrative level. Topics covered in the interviews included media relations and social media use. Furthermore, problems associated with the work of reputation management and potential conflicts between organizational self-interest and public good. Results from the study shows how reputation management in the Swedish school sector is both enabled and constrained by specific institutional conditions inherent to the public sector. The results also underline the importance of the market-driven Swedish school system to produce these specific conditions.
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| 5. |
- Baltz, André, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Tematisk innehållsanalys med temamodellering
- 2021
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Ingår i: Digitala metoder i humaniora och samhällsvetenskap. - Lund : Studentlitteratur AB. - 9789144140551 ; , s. 211-234
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)
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| 6. |
- Baltz, André, 1986-
(författare)
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What's so social about Facebook? : Distant reading of Swedish local government Facebook pages, 2010-2017
- 2023
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Ingår i: International Journal of Strategic Communication. - : Routledge. - 1553-118X .- 1553-1198. ; 17:2, s. 113-133
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social media, particularly its more social aspects, can be challenging for organizations. In this article local governments' communication on Facebook is used as a case study and analyzed through a mixed methods approach, utilizing distant and close readings of 50,000 Facebook posts from 23 Swedish local governments. The aim is to investigate patterns in both content and style with a particular focus on social interaction, drawing on a neo-institutional approach and the idea that communication can play an explicit social function. The findings suggest that local governments used Facebook mainly to inform citizens, whereas dialogue and discussion were directed elsewhere. When local governments translate social media into practice, it seems to be done in line with established channels and ways of communicating. These findings underline the need to understand local governments' use of social media in relation to concepts such as openness and control, where attempts are made to control an uncontrollable online environment. Another key finding is that local governments seemed to post when there was very little or nothing to say; they posted about the mundane, trivial, and ordinary. These findings indicate an adaptation of the language and discourse of social media which contrasts with bureaucratic language.
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