Abstract

The management of information is of special importance in municipal institutions because citizens hear about their local government’s achievement of political objectives through messages identified as public communication. The municipal communication structures are essential in these processes, which are designed to shape positive perceptions of government action. However, these structures have undertaken very few initiatives to examine the treatment of news events in the press. In this paper we present a tool to analyze the media agenda concerning municipal affairs, based on political and administrative management of municipalities, in a context in which the management and evaluation of information is added to the standard functions of the communications office.

Abstract

Spanish legislation includes the obligation to publish information, making it available to citizens, in order to improve public management. However, such information is not created using journalistic criteria, but rather political control. This study of news published by six city councils on their websites between 2011 and 2016 shows that the current legislation has improved the number of public information items (raw data material), but not the quality of the news. It also highlights the lack of innovation in the use of social networks to promote citizen participation with information.