The Diffusion of Social Media Among State Governments in Mexico

AbstractMost of the research about how state governments use social media focuses on services, comparative perspectives or assessment of e-governments. The authors' focus is on the adoption of social media by state governments in Mexico. Many state governments may be slow to adopt social media due to a lack guidance on where their efforts may lead. The purpose of this research is to provide some insight into the factors affecting adoption of social media by state governments in Mexico. Guided by diffusion of innovation theory, the authors analyzed data from Twitter and Facebook accounts of all 32 Mexican state governments from 2010 to 2015. According to diffusion theory, the results find that only one state government in the sample is classified as an innovator, four state governments are early adopters, eleven are early majority, eleven are late majority, and five are laggards. The use of social media by state governments in Mexico is in its infancy, and there is a significant difference in the use of social media among the different states.