Title: Social media adoption by municipal governments: can it be a path towards a smart governance model in Brazilian cities?

Authors: Mery Blanck; José Luís Duarte Ribeiro

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering (DEPROT/PPGEP), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, 99 Osvaldo Aranha Ave., Porto Alegre, RS, 90035-190, Brazil ' Department of Industrial Engineering (DEPROT/PPGEP), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, 99 Osvaldo Aranha Ave., Porto Alegre, RS, 90035-190, Brazil

Abstract: This study explores how the determinants of unified theory of technology acceptance (UTAUT) predict behavioural intention and institutional use of social media (SM) by municipalities. It also analyses the purposes of this adoption, considering citizen participation assumptions embodied in the smart governance concept. The study adopts structural equation modelling to investigate municipal governments in Southern Brazil. The results revealed that social influence shows, among all determinants, the greatest impact on the behavioural intention to adopt institutional SM. However, unlike UTAUT, facilitating conditions have proven to have a negative effect on SM institutional use. This counterintuitive finding, however, may be due to respondents considering that this activity involves greater time consumption and information overload. In turn, despite the dominance of unidirectional information provision by governments in citizen-government interactions, there is already an embryonic perception of the future use of SM to bring citizens closer to decision-making on public affairs.

Keywords: social media; municipal government; smart governance; UTAUT; structural equation modelling; SEM; citizen participation; Brazil.

DOI: 10.1504/EG.2026.150200

Electronic Government, an International Journal, 2026 Vol.22 No.1, pp.20 - 48

Received: 14 May 2024
Accepted: 03 Dec 2024
Published online: 03 Dec 2025 *

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