Raphael Zumofen

• PhD in Public administration
• Research fellow at University of Lausanne

Following the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, in Israel, communication instantly became an essential tool for public officials needing to inform and protect the population. This paper analyzes how Facebook was used by Israeli public organizations after the attack, and the impact of social-media content on citizen engagement in the case of a terror...

Les médias sociaux exercent une influence croissante sur la communication des organisations, qu’elles soient privées ou publiques, ainsi que sur les échanges entre celles-ci et les individus dans l’environnement numérique. Dans ce contexte, il devient indispensable de mieux connaître ces outils, souvent devenus nécessaires dans lacommunication de...

Cet article s’appuie sur la littérature relative à l’adoption des nouvelles technologies et sur des études empiriques portant sur l’adoption des médias sociaux dans le secteur public pour analyser le cas des municipalités belges. Notre objectif est triple : (a) proposer une nouvelle approche pour évaluer l’adoption des plateformes de médias sociaux...

De nombreuses contributions académiques ont démontré que les réseaux sociaux permettent de diffuser des informations gouvernementales et de transformer les dynamiques d'engagement citoyen. Toutefois, le potentiel d'interactivité offert par ces plateformes reste le plus souvent inexploité, en particulier au sein des organisations publiques. Nous déc...

La recherche scientifique a exposé tout le potentiel des médias sociaux lorsqu'il s'agit de diffuser des informations gouvernementales et de transformer les dynamiques d'engagement citoyen. Toutefois, la pleine exploitation de ce potentiel reste difficile, en particulier dans les organisations publiques. Le succès et les effets relatifs aux nouvell...

Recently, many organizations have identified social media influencers (SMIs) as relevant communication intermediaries, mostly because they provide access to and influence hard-to-reach stakeholders, for example teenage and young adult consumers. Research on SMIs has defined them as ‘third-party actors that have established a significant number of r...

Research has shown the potential of social media to disseminate important information as well as transforming citizen engagement with government. However, implementation remains difficult, especially in public sector organizations. The success, impact, and performance of these new forms of networked interactions are yet to be fully explored, especi...

This article relies on the literature on public sector communication to analyse the activity of local governments on social media. We aim to describe the adoption patterns of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in Belgian municipalities over 10,000 inhabitants. To achieve this objective, we gathered information manually and through a data retrieving so...

Inspiré par la littérature sur la communication publique, cet article étudie l’activité des municipalités sur les médias sociaux. L’analyse porte sur l’adoption de Facebook, Twitter et Instagram dans les communes belges de plus de 10 000 habitants. Les données ont été collectées manuellement et à l’aide d’un logiciel, ce qui nous a permis d’étudier...

This article relies on the literature on technology adoption and empirical studies on social media adoption in the public sector to analyze the case of Belgian municipalities. Our objective is threefold as we aim to: (a) provide a new approach to assess the adoption of social media platforms by governments, (b) describe the current situation in Bel...

The concepts of accountability and responsibility are widely used key principles of public governance and manifest themselves in different ways. For example, they can promote transparency, structure relationships between the state and decentralized administrative units, and ensure that third parties provide public services in ways that align with t...

Social media are extending the information and communication technology landscape in the public sector. These platforms are used increasingly as a common organizational resource by public bodies. Measuring the activity of cities on social media is thus a recurrent topic of interest among scholars and practitioners. So far, few measurement models ha...

Research has shown the potential of social media to disseminate important information as well as transforming citizen engagement with government. However, implementation remains difficult, especially in public sector organizations. The success, impact, and performance of these new forms of networked interactions are yet to be fully explored, especi...

Purpose This paper aims to explain the impacts of the ongoing digitization reform in Benin. It demonstrates that a well-conducted reform can reduce corruption, improve performance and bring citizens closer to the administration. It also highlights the elements needed to ensure the success of such a reform. Design/methodology/approach The impacts o...

Lien fondamental entre gouvernants et gouvernés, la communication publique assure la diffusion de l’information auprès de la population. Elle vise à accroître à la fois la légitimité des organisations publiques et la cohésion sociale. Cette contribution se penche spécifiquement sur la composante numérique de la communication publique, les supports...

While a vast majority of local governments in Europe are communicating on social media, the situation differs in few states. Although Switzerland is often depicted as a technological advanced and innovative country, cities are still largely resisting the temptation to share information on social media platforms. In this study, we rely on a survey d...

This article assesses the links between accountability and transparency in the case of the public procurement system in Switzerland. It focuses on the relationship between the two concepts through the prism of the theoretical frameworks developed by previous authors, using data gathered through experts’ interviews. Findings demonstrate that the rel...

Transparency and accountability, both considered as pillars of good governance, are often associated in contemporary research and practice. They are praised by a wide range of international institutions and non-governmental organizations. This normative perspective relies mainly on the strong intrinsic value of both concepts. Their instrumental val...

Article d'opinion dans le journal suisse "Le Temps" sur l'adoption des réseaux sociaux par les villes helvétiques

Adoption of social media platforms by Swiss towns and cities remains timid for the moment. Facebook has by far the greatest success, doubtless because it was the first platform available and because its format lends itself well to public communication. Surprisingly, Twitter is used far less, although its format also is well-suited to certain commun...

Accountability and transparency are of growing importance in contemporary governance. The academic literature has broadly studied the two concepts separately, defining and redefining them, putting them into various frameworks, and sometimes mistakenly using them as synonyms. Curiously, the relationship between the two concepts has been studied only...

Accountability and transparency are of growing importance in contemporary governance. The academic literature have broadly studied the two concepts separately, defining and redefining them, and including them into various framework, sometimes mistakenly using them as synonyms. The relationship between the two concepts has, curiously, only been stud...

In contemporary society, accountability and performance have obtained a new status of golden concepts. While accountability has expanded and diversified, performance worries have become more prevalent guiding policies towards the reinforcement of the first concept to stimulate the latter. It is thus worth questioning the normative assumption that m...