Waldemar Rydzak

Department of Information Economics,

Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poznań, Poland

E-mail: waldemar.rydzak@ue.poznan.pl

ORCID 0000-0001-5771-933X 

Social media institutionalization in Polish municipalities: Associations with budget communication and audience engagement on Facebook

Małgorzata Magdalena Hybka

Poznań University of Economics and Business, Department of Public Finance, Poznań, Poland

ORCID 0000-0002-3524-3489

Jacek Trębecki

Department of Information Economics,

Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poznań, Poland

ORCID 0000-0001-9775-173X

Abstract. This study examines whether the institutionalization of social media communication is associated with the presence, form, framing, and audience engagement of municipal budget content in Poland. It combines Facebook post data, lemmatized text, survey-based Social Media Institutionalization Index (SMI) scores, and financial-demographic characteristics. The main analyses cover December 1, 2023-April 15, 2024. The study includes 518-520 municipalities from six Polish voivodeships, representing approximately 21% of all Polish municipalities and 52% of municipalities in the regions covered. The publication-structure model uses 84,678 posts, while budget-content and engagement analyses use 42,592 posts matched to the lemmatized dataset, including 7,326 budget-related posts (17.20%). Logistic, negative binomial, and linear regression models control for month, municipality type, voivodeship, and structural characteristics. Higher SMI was associated with lower odds that a lemmatized post was budget-related and was not significantly associated with the presence of non-empty text or fiscal versus development-investment framing. Higher SMI was positively associated with engagement for non-budget posts, whereas the corresponding association for budget posts was weaker and not statistically significant. The findings indicate that institutionalization relates differently to engagement across content categories and does not automatically increase the visibility or alter the semantic framing of municipal budget communication.

Received:September, 2025

1st Revision: April, 2026

Accepted: June, 2026

DOI: 10.14254/2071-789X.2026/19-2/13

JEL Classification: D83, H72, H83, O33

Keywords: social media institutionalization, municipal budget communication, local government, audience engagement, Poland