"You Have One Friend Request"

Abstract

Local governments in the Phoenix metropolitan area have begun to create official government Facebook pages as an additional way to reach citizens. Using social media at the local government level seems to offer the promise of increased citizen engagement, reaching citizens on a common platform and allowing for citizen comments. This article explores those cities' Facebook pages for evidence of citizen engagement from the perspective of Farmer's speaking-from power and speaking-to power theoretical framework, illuminating the paradox between adopting a technology intended for many-to-many engagement and utilizing that technology in a one-to-many or authoritative manner. Through this exploratory investigation of Farmer's three layers—transparent, disciplinary symbolic, and cloacal symbolic—we find evidence that cities continue to take a speaking-from power stance on a platform that is designed to encourage speaking-to power.