A unified theory of open government and social mediatization

Abstract

Social media use has proliferated and is now omnipresent in the public sector. Numerous studies have shed light on this phenomenon, but few have attempted to theorize it. In this article, we conduct a pragmatic review of existing research on government and public service organization use of social media using an interrogative approach (i.e., what, who, why, how, and where to) to develop a theory that encapsulates the unique peculiarities of social media use in the public sector. Our review proposes a unified theory of open government and social mediatization to explain this finding, wherein the connectivity, programmability, and popularity of social media results in (1) the adoption and use of social media as a technology in the public sector (i.e., social mediatization) and (2) the harvest of information availability, participation, collaboration, and transparency for open government. Our review concludes with several recommendations to pollinate future research in this area.