From 1.0 to 2.0: Swedish municipalities online

The current study examines the social media use of Swedish municipalities, detailing the potential relationship between traditional forms of e-government initiatives and social media engagement of municipal bodies. By bringing these two forms of digital politics together, a more valid measurement of the supply of online democratic tools for citizen engagement is suggested. Moreover, the potential variation in determinants influencing these two concepts is examined as well. The main results indicate that municipalities' adoption of social media is related to the procuration of more traditional services through their Web sites. Hence, a tendency of a "rich-getricher" effect is indicated. In this respect, drivers of the different types of government use of digital services are to some extent similar. According to previous research, population size has a positive effect on the studied phenomena. Somewhat surprisingly, however, other explanatory factors differ. For example, although socioeconomic factors appear to have a positive influence on more traditional forms of online services, previous ambitions of e-government development appear as important for social media adoption by municipalities.