Local public sector big data communication on social media: A sentiment analysis in Twitter

La rápida difusión de las redes sociales en las administraciones públicas requiere un análisis desde la información y comunicación institucional. Uno de los aspectos detectados recientemente es el tono con el que emiten sus mensajes las organizaciones públicas, a través del cual pueden fomentar la colaboración y participación ciudadana. Este trabajo analiza el tono que los ayuntamientos españoles de más de 50.000 habitantes están empleando en sus perfiles de redes sociales. Se parte de dos preguntas de investigación: (a) cuál es el tono general empleado por los ayuntamientos en su uso de redes sociales; y (b) cuáles son los factores que explican la elección de un tono u otro. Recurriendo al estudio de Twitter mediante técnicas de big data y análisis estadísticos, el artículo encuentra un tono comunicativo general positivo. Los factores organizativos, institucionales y ambientales clásicos parecen no tener una influencia estadísticamente significativa sobre el tono. El artículo concluye con propuestas de mejora de cara a futuros estudios en diferentes aspectos a partir de los resultados obtenidosThe rapid adoption of social media by public administrations deserves attention from the side of institutional information and communication. One of the points recently identified is the tone used by public sector organizations to deliver their messages, as it may encourage citizen collaboration and participation. This paper explores the tone that Spanish city councils with more than 50,000 inhabitants are using in their social media profiles. This paper is based in two research questions: (a) What is the general tone used by the city councils in their use of social media?; (b) What explanatory factors are behind the adoption of one tone or another? Studying Twitter through big data techniques and statistical analysis, this study finds a positive general communicative tone. Traditional organizational, institutional and environmental factors do not seem to have a statistical significant influence over the tone. This article concludes with proposals for improvement on future research derived from the research resultsEsta investigación es resultado del proyecto de investigación Gobernanza inteligente de las redes sociales digitales en las administraciones locales de la Unión Europea. Estrategias de implementación, factores de éxito y modelos de servicio público en España, Países Bajos, Reino Unido y Suecia” #SocialGovNet (IN[16]_CJS_CCP_0190), financiado por la Fundación BBV

Revisiting social media institutionalization in government. An empirical analysis of barriers

Social media have become a common organizational resource of governments and public administrations in different contexts. Previous authors have stated that social media institutionalization encompasses a process including stages from experimentation to complete command of the innovation. However, an understanding of barriers to social media institutionalization in public administration needs to be developed. In this article we focus on exploring what factors operate as barriers of the social media institutionalization process. Methodologically, we use a mixed-methods strategy combining different sources of data for triangulation purposes, including a survey on social media conducted to Spanish largest local governments. Based on this data, and following the literature on social media institutionalization, we construct a Social Media Institutionalization Index (SMI). Our SMI is founded on a set of variables measuring to what extent social media have been embedded in public sector organizations. Also, we conducted a case study in a city council based on semi-structured interviews. Our results suggest that social media institutionalization has not been fully developed in our sample of local governments. In addition, different variables (including security, lack of resources for maintenance, control and evaluation, organizational culture, or absence of governance framework) are perceived by public managers as institutionalization barriers, whereas the governance scheme of social media seems to be the critical variable. At the same time, we emphasize that some inhibitors might be overvalued by public employees. This article encourages future avenues of comparative research and practical recommendations to public managers leading social media in the public sectorThis study was supported by the Research Grant RTI2018-095344-AI00 (SmartGov_Local), State Research Agency, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovatio

El impacto de las redes sociales digitales en las administraciones locales. Mitos y realidades en el caso español

Les xarxes socials digitals han començat a ésser eines d’ús freqüent en les administracions públiques espanyoles en els últims anys. Hi ha elevades expectatives per part dels ajuntaments de què aquestes tecnologies socials puguin ajudar-los a millorar la seva relació amb la ciutadania. No obstant això, amb prou feines trobem estudis a Espanya que explorin el procés d’adopció de les xarxes socials digitals i les seves repercussions. Aquest article proporciona dades empíriques sobre el seu ús als ajuntaments espanyols de més de 50.000 habitants. Seguint un enfocament teòric basat en el neoinstitucionalisme en el sector públic, aquest article aborda les següents preguntes de recerca: quines són les principals estratègies plantejades per al foment de les xarxes socials en les administracions locals? Quin és el nivell de desenvolupament en el procés d’implementació de les xarxes socials dins del sector públic local? Metodològicament, les dades per a aquest article deriven d’un qüestionari dirigit als responsables de la gestió de les xarxes socials en els municipis objecte de l’anàlisi. Els primers resultats mostren una alta difusió d’aquestes tecnologies, si bé hi ha mancances en les estratègies, mentre el seu desenvolupament dins de les organitzacions és encara incipient i amb prou feines ha aconseguit la seva institucionalització. Per tant, aquest article contribueix al creixent camp d’estudi de les xarxes socials digitals en les administracions públiques, així com a la seva consolidació en l’àmbit de parla hispana.Social media have begun to be frequently used by the Spanish government in recent years. Municipalities harbour high expectations that these social technologies can help them improve their relations with citizens. However; in Spain there are few studies that explore the process of adopting social media and their impact. This article provides empirical data on their use in Spanish municipalities of over 50 000 inhabitants. Following a theoretical approach based on neo-institutionalism in the public sector; this article addresses the following research questions: What are the main strategies laid out for promoting social media in local government? What is the level of development in the process of implementing social media within the local public sector? Methodologically; data for this article were drawn from a questionnaire sent to the heads of social media management in the municipalities under analysis. Early results show a high take-up of these technologies; although there are gaps in strategies; while their development within organisations is still in its infancy and their use has hardly been institutionalised. Therefore; this article contributes to the growing field of study of social media in public administration and their consolidation in the Spanish-speaking area.Las redes sociales digitales han comenzado a ser herramientas de uso frecuente en las administraciones públicas españolas en los últimos años. Existen elevadas expectativas por parte de los ayuntamientos de que estas tecnologías sociales puedan ayudarlos a mejorar su relación con la ciudadanía. Sin embargo, apenas existen estudios en España que exploren el proceso de adopción de las redes sociales digitales y sus repercusiones. Este artículo proporciona datos empíricos sobre su uso en los ayuntamientos españoles de más de 50.000 habitantes. Siguiendo un enfoque teórico basado en el neoinstitucionalismo en el sector público, este artículo aborda las siguientes preguntas de investigación: ¿Cuáles son las principales estrategias planteadas para el fomento de las redes sociales en las administraciones locales? ¿Cuál es el nivel de desarrollo en el proceso de implementación de las redes sociales dentro del sector público local? Metodológicamente, los datos para este artículo derivan de un cuestionario dirigido a los responsables de la gestión de las redes sociales en los municipios objeto del análisis. Los primeros resultados muestran una alta difusión de estas tecnologías, si bien existen carencias en las estrategias, mientras su desarrollo dentro de las organizaciones es aún incipiente y apenas ha logrado su institucionalización. Por tanto, este artículo contribuye al creciente campo de estudio de las redes sociales digitales en las administraciones públicas, así como a su consolidación en el ámbito de habla hispana

Norm reasoning services

Norms are used in open Multi-Agent Systems as a formal specification of deontic statements aimed at regulating the actions of agents and the interactions among them. In this paper, we propose a set of services facilitating the development of both non-normative and normative agents for norm-governed MAS. Specifically, we propose to provide agents with norm reasoning services. These services will help agent designers/developers to programme agents that consider norm reasoning without having to implement the needed mechanisms to reason about norms by themselves. This article shows how these services perform as well as the results of the experiments that we conducted to evaluate their performance

Exploring quality-aware architectural transformations at run-time: the ENIA case

Adapting software systems at run-time is a key issue, especially when these systems consist of components used as intermediary for human-computer interaction. In this sense, model transformation techniques have a widespread acceptance as a mechanism for adapting and evolving the software architecture of such systems. However, existing model transformations often focus on functional requirements, and quality attributes are only manually considered after the transformations are done. This paper aims to improve the quality of adaptations and evolutions in component-based software systems by taking into account quality attributes within the model transformation process. To this end, we present a quality-aware transformation process using software architecture metrics to select among many alternative model transformations. Such metrics evaluate the quality attributes of an architecture. We validate the presented quality-aware transformation process in ENIA, a geographic information system whose user interfaces are based on coarsegrained components and need to be adapted at run-time

Choosing a leader on a complex network

In many real life applications a group of people interact through a communication network, mathematically modelled as a connected graph linking each element of the group. These participants may have diverse objectives and play very different roles depending on their knowledge and privileges. We focus on a particular scenario, in which a certain node is absolutely essential for completing the intended task. Moreover, if a technical failure results in disconnection of a participant to this leader node, this participant can no longer take part in the group's performance. In this setting a sound choice of the underlying network topology could minimize the damage caused by random or provoked technical failures. We study different criteria for choosing suitable communication networks, from the point of view of both efficiency and robustness.Partially supported by PPR-2004-16 from Universidad Rey Juan Carlo