Emerging Practices in Facebook at National Parks

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to analyze recent data about the behavior of national park administrations on Facebook. As public organizations, they endeavor to proactively communicate information to citizens, promoting transparency and accountability. It is important to study the case of national parks because of their relevant role in preserving natural and cultural heritage and promoting a very rich scenario of policy-making and responsible local and global citizenship. Some insights have arisen for political management of these institutions. According to the analysis of the results, it is shown that there exists a significant presence of these entities in Facebook, even if this type of communication is perhaps in its infancy. The results suggest that a potential factor (country in which each park is located and the corresponding administration style) exists, in order to explain significant differences between parks.

Keywords

• national parks
• online transparency
• institutional dialogue
• corporate facebook
• social media.