Government innovation through social media ☆ J. Ignacio Criado a , Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan b, ⁎, J. Ramon Gil-Garcia c a Department of Political Science and International Relations, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain b Accounting and Business Administration Department, Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico, Mexico c Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas (CIDE), Mexico abstract article info Available online 18 November 2013 Keywords: Social media e-Government Twitter Facebook Web 2.0 Innovation Digital government Government 2.0 Social media in government is becoming one of the major trends in Electronic Government (e-government) research and practice worldwide. During the last few years, several authors have addressed the potential of social media for the innovation of public sector organizations. Most of these contributions have focused on the technical dimensions of social media, while other aspects have not attracted equal attention. In contrast, this introductory article interrogates the role of social media in the basic areas of e-government: government information flows and the availability of government information; the use of information technology to create and provide innovative government services; the impact of information technology on the relationships between the governed and those governing; and the increasing importance of information policies and information technologies for democratic practices. Accordingly, the next few pages propose and develop three dimensions of social media in government: tools, goals, and topics. We think that these dimensions could help to better understand the use of social media in government settings. Then, after a brief review of current trends in social media and government research, we present the articles included in this special issue. Finally, we present some practical lessons and suggest ideas for future research. This special issue could be seen as a starting point for the development of innovation through social media in public administrations around the world. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The existence of social media tools in government is changing the landscape of public agencies and bureaucracies around the world. During the last years, public administrations have adopted different Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs, microblogging, wikis, social networking, multimedia sharing, mashup applications, tagging, virtual worlds, and crowdsourcing, among others. After some years of experimentation, testing, and assessment, the diffusion of social media in government is now intended to innovate how public bureaucracies operate internally and how they interact with the public outside government's organizational boundaries. This article serves as the introduction to the special issue and considers the existing potential, pitfalls, opportunities, and/or risks derived from the implementation of social media in government settings. So far, emerging contributions to the study of social media in government are guided by individual more than by collective efforts. Although researchers are progressively developing a research agenda of common interests in different conferences and journals within the e- government community, this agenda is by no means complete or comprehensive. For example, the special issue coordinated by Chun and Luna-Reyes (2012) showed three schematic representations of how government, citizens, and data models interact through social media (social media-based citizen engagement model; social media- based data sharing model; and social media-based real-time col- laborative government model). Nonetheless, it is an example of the current ad hoc approach to the analysis of social media in government and the need to foster a comparative, transnational, and more integrated agenda of research in the future. This special issue has welcomed contributions from different perspectives and areas of research on social media in government. In that regard, this issue has brought together international high quality research to produce theoretical and empirical insights on aspects related to the adoption, use, results, and impacts of social media in government settings, with a particular emphasis on policy and management aspects, as opposed to technical. This special issue attempts to provide an integrated perspective on social media in government with a particular focus on the implications of innovation in the public sector. To do so, we have used a structure based on three dimensions: tools, goals, and topics. Although the articles accepted for publication have underlined those dimensions in different ways, we asked all authors to consider them as an overall analytical framework. Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) 319–326 ☆ Government Information Quarterly Special Issue on Innovating Government through Social Media Tools, Applications, and Strategies. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: ignacio.criado@uam.es (J.I. Criado), rsandovala@uaemex.mx (R. Sandoval-Almazan), joseramon.gil@cide.edu (J.R. Gil-Garcia). 0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2013.10.003 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Government Information Quarterly journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/govinf