#socialPA - Nexa Center for Internet & Society

Website: http://giovanniarata.tumblr.com/socialPA
Status: concluded
Period: October 2010 – January 2018
Funding organization: Internal funding
Person(s) in charge: Giovanni Arata (project manager)

Executive summary

The project aims at analyzing how Italian local Governmental Agencies use Twitter and Facebook. Through time, a large dataset has been created, fostering further research by other scholars and firms, and algorithmic tools have been developed to help searching and cataloging of governmental agencies on both social media platforms.

Background

Governmental agencies are flowing to social media platforms, especially to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. However, little research has been conducted with regards to the proficiency and actual practices of public organizations online – and no data were actually available about Italian ones before #socialPA was started in 2010.

Objectives

The project aims at providing quantitative and qualitative evidence about the activities of local Governmental Agencies on social media. Data have consequently been gathered with regard to: the overall numbers of the phenomenon, the emerging trends, the legal and organizational issues associated to social media usage by Public Bodies.

Results

The main outputs of the project are the reports, which are released on a yearly basis. 4 Annual papers have been released so far, 3 of which are available at the Nexa Publications: http://nexa.polito.it/publications. One of them has also been traslated to English and is currently available at: http://www.slideshare.net/nessuno2001/twitterpa2011englishvers. Moreover, an app has been developed to help the searching and cataloging of governmental agencies onto Facebook databases.