Implementing Facebook communication to empower engagement and responsibility with citizens during COVID-19 lockdown. Preliminary results from a T-Lab study on a mayor’s page

It is much easier for a politician to spread news on the web and reach millions of people in a short time and, in the same way and with equal ease, the reader can capture news in real time with a simple search, commenting and sharing his own thought or that of the politician himself (Prete et al., 2015). Without any doubt, the Internet has clear advantages over traditional media (Bimber & Davis, 2002) and presents politicians with ample opportunities to improve and enhance their image, both in terms of administrative efficiency and personality traits (Lodge, McGraw & Strohl, 1989; Kern & Just, 1997; Capelos & Huddy, 2002) The purpose of this paper is to carry out an appropriate analysis based on the theme of political marketing and communication between a mayor and his citizens through Facebook in the critical period of Covid-19 lockdown. For this purpose, a case study was conducted to investigate the way in which administrative transparency and political marketing find a synthesis within social networks. An in-depth analysis of the data relating to the levels of interaction between one and the other was conducted, through a sample selection, proceeding to an analysis of the content of posts and comments, in order to capture more qualitative aspects related to the relationship established online. Some preliminary results are presented in this paper.