US Cities and Social Networking

This chapter presents the results of a random study of US cities' and mayors' uses of five social networking features: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn as well as city use of online surveys. Data from a random sample of fifty cities stratified on population indicates that only Facebook is used by a majority of cities' websites and mayors. The lower level of use of Twitter and YouTube and less than universal use of Facebook is complemented by a very low level of citizen followers, viewers, and friends. Most cities also do not use online surveys on their websites. This low use likely just reflects government's tendency to follow trends rather than lead and is not a statement about cities' lack of citizen orientation. It also appears to be a reflection of smaller cities adopting information technologies more slowly than larger cities when we compare 2010 data with that from early in 2011. Nonetheless, the result is that the potential positive opportunities for cities and mayors to connect and converse with citizens via Web 2.0 are under-realized if we just look at the Internet social networking face presented, and if cities do not get on the Web 2.0 bandwagon in this regard, citizens, especially younger ones, may feel that it is another example of government being out of touch with what is happening in the "real" world.