Keywords

1 Introduction

The governance includes all governing processes of political, social, economic, educational, development, city infrastructure and administrative work to enhance the prosperity and growth in the cities as well as country. The quality of governance [25] affects the development of cities. The smart cities are an ICT enabled city, which facilitates fast communication, real-time information to citizens, quality life, well connected transport, better civic services, health facilities, continuous energy and water supply, environment conservation and appropriate use of natural resources.

To maintain the self-aware nature of smart cities, citizens are expected to retrieve all information and participate actively in the government actions, development plans, and future policies etc. For the successful smart cities, citizens’ suggestions, participation and feedbacks in government process are essential. Therefore, there is need for an efficient governance structure [8] and the two ways communication channels to make the city government smart.

2 Literature Review

The smart administration, integration of various services, and multiple channels of communications [22] are required for the development of the smart cities. Social media has the unique ability to enable politicians and policymakers to mine user-generated data and content from their Facebook pages and twitter accounts to look for reactions to various policy proposals [23, 27]. The participation, collaboration and transparency in governance could be improved via open government policies [6, 19, 24]. The evaluation criteria of social media use in the Korean government [29] was developed among four dimensions i.e. openness of information, Promptness of information, mutuality of information, and control of information.

The social media could be used for citizen empowerment [16] and crisis situations [12]. Automation in governance [1] through e-governance has improved the efficiency and transparency in the government processes and services [9]. The government can use social media to discuss about implementation challenges, new services, monitoring the process, crowdsourcing over various issues to get the appropriate solutions.

3 Selection of Indicators for Smart Governance

Some indicators have been identified from the various research articles (Table 1) which are considered essentials for smart governance.

Table 1. Various indicators for smart governance
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4 Conceptual Framework and Discussions

Social media meliorate the government’s vision, strategies, planning, leadership and resources utilization. The rapid increase in the internet usage and social media have forced government to show presence on social media for public engagement and mobilizing individuals. The study designs a conceptual framework with five dimensions to find the social media role to improve the city governance (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.
figure 1

A conceptual framework to achieve smart governance through the social media practices.

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The indicators for smart governance (Table 1) have been classified into framework dimensions (Fig. 1) based on social media involvement towards the smart governance. Table 2 shows the key role of social media in improving the city governance.

Table 2. Characteristics features of each dimension
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Citizen Engagement Through Social Media.

Social media encourages the citizens to participate in government processes as a co-producer in the policies, decisions making and planning for the city development. The citizens can play an active role in giving feedbacks or suggestions to the government schemes and programs. The citizens may take part in government process at anytime from anywhere.

Improved Serviceability Through Social Media.

The citizens may inform their problems and requirements directly to government officials through social media. Adoption of open data and crowdsourcing solutions through social media could lead to the new innovations and wisely resources consumption.

Social Media and Government Responsiveness.

Information could be shared in fast pace over social media to create the awareness or to manage the disasters. Adoption of social media by government officials and responses over these sites would increase the government accountability and trust among the citizens.

Social Media and Influence Chains.

Influence chains enhances the capacity of government to mobilize changes in the city as per citizens’ requirements. E-participation over social media enlarges the scope of citizen participation and equality of participation among the citizens in decision making. Social media increases the transparency and openness in government via reducing the middleman in the government procedures.

Best Practices for Smart Governance.

The facility for E-information, E-consultation and E-participation through social media fulfills the basic criteria of smart governance for a smart city. The interactive monitoring process for planning and policy implementations increases the transparency in the government.

Thus, the framework suggests that the social media improves government functionality, planning and reachability, and user participations for the cities development. Therefore, the social media plays a crucial role in the transformation of city governance into smart governance.

5 Conclusions, Limitations and Further Research

Social media is a two way medium for sharing the thoughts, feelings and opinions that could be used to deliver the smart solution for smart cities. It increases the potential of city government to grow into effective, responsible and well-resourced unit to improve the urban conditions. The smooth functioning of all systems, good strategies, integrated operations & maintenance, and controlled civic services to the citizens are the main keys of smart governance for the smart cities.

Government needs to set up the privacy and security solutions and also legitimacy check of the information spread over the social media. The effects of social media issues like privacy, authenticity of data, fake social accounts, hacking of the personal accounts, and misuse of social media to get political or religious benefits could also be considered while making the social media as an open governance platform.