Conference Agenda

In the context of increasing complexity, information overload, and declining institutional trust, public sector organizations are called upon to rethink how they communicate, engage, and create value for citizens. This paper explores how strategic communication and behavioral public marketing can jointly contribute to the creation of public value, strengthen citizen trust, and improve the effectiveness of public service delivery.

The paper argues that public marketing is not merely about promoting services, but about understanding and influencing behaviors, attitudes, and expectations through citizen-centered design. Drawing on the principles of social marketing and behavioral economics, it highlights the potential of segmentation, targeting, nudging, and feedback loops in advancing public goals — from health behavior and environmental sustainability to civic participation.

Simultaneously, it positions public sector communication as a foundational element of democratic governance. In an age of multiple information sources and citizen skepticism, communicative action must be strategic, transparent, and empathetic — capable of responding to crisis, building long-term trust, and reinforcing the legitimacy of institutions.

Beyond theoretical contribution, the paper introduces a concrete public policy proposal: an Integrated Framework for Public Trust and Behavioral Communication. This includes four axes:

Behavioral design of public policy, where each intervention is supported by segment-specific communication, nudging strategies, and message testing.

AI-enhanced targeting for personalized communication in areas such as health, taxation, and crisis preparedness.

A public trust and transparency protocol for communication strategies, ensuring ethical standards, feedback mechanisms, and participatory message development.

The creation of a National Center for Public Communication and Marketing, acting as a cross-government support body for data-informed, citizen-centered communication campaigns.

The research adopts a conceptual-empirical approach, synthesizing literature on public value, behavioral insights, and strategic governance with selected examples from EU Member States. It argues that communication and marketing should no longer be viewed as peripheral tools, but as core functions of responsive, evidence-based, and citizen-trusted governance.

Ultimately, the paper calls for the institutionalization of strategic communication and behavioral public marketing as pillars of public administration reform and a means to bridge the gap between citizens and state in the age of complexity.

The paper discusses the issue of information availability in the accountability process of public authorities. Accountability is considered as a three-stage process consisting of information, discussion and consequences, and is illustrated by a mechanism applicable to local authorities in Poland. Accessibility is defined as a document property that enables users to easily find, navigate and understand it. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the accessibility of the stat- of-the-municipality annual reports, in accordance with a review of the literature, legal requirements and recommendations of the ISO standard on plain language. The research presented in the paper draws on the contributions of three disciplines: political science (in the field of accountability theory), public management science (in the field of public affairs reporting) and linguistics (in the field of readability of official documents). Fourteen municipalities were selected for the study and all reports published during their five-year term of office were analyzed (N=70). The study focused on the availability of annual reports on municipal websites and their content. The research protocol included 13 criteria for the accessibility of the reports. The manual analysis and calculation resulted in an index for each criterion and for each report. The study showed that the annual reports, usually in pdf format, are easy to find and are posted on the municipal websites in time to be read carefully before the scheduled debate on the reports. The reports contain a lot of information about the municipality’s tasks, and this information is supported by graphics. However, it is difficult to navigate through the documents: reading the reports is not supported by a summary, a list of tables, charts and photos. In addition, the reports lack an explanation of the reasons for changes in the implementation of the municipal tasks and a presentation of the municipality in comparison to other municipalities. The FOG index calculated for each report, with an average of 14 across all reports, indicates that annual reports are relatively difficult documents to read, requiring undergraduate studies. The first conclusion from this study is that the content of annual reports is tailored to the expectations of municipal councilors, not to the needs and capabilities of residents. As a result, municipal reports have limited use in holding municipal authorities accountable to citizens. The document therefore recommends the development of a universal standard for municipal reports.

The present paper is based on research funded by the National Science Centre, Poland, No. 2022/45/B/HS5/00084.

The submitted conference contribution focusses on public marketing, a relatively new perspective on the application of marketing to the 'marketing' of democratic governance and its state services. The goal is fundamentally to achieve a qualitatively good and quantitatively adequate distribution of services (effectiveness) while considering the most economical use of resources (efficiency). Not least, the classic objectives of 'relationship marketing' are useful for public marketing, which are committed to the overarching goal of public marketing, namely the maximization of the common good as a public value by means of e.g., long-term relationships, combining performance and dialogue, customer lifecycle, acquisition, winning and regaining customers, customer value.

The presentation delves into the concept of public marketing, clarifying its meaning and interpretation. It distinguishes between primary public marketing, which focuses on promoting democracy and its foundational institutions, and secondary public marketing, which involves marketing various public services provided by the state. Additionally, the presentation introduces the public marketing-management process, which includes elements such as the public marketing-mix (PMM). The five Ps of the PMM, including 'promotion,' represent the communication strategies used by state institutions to promote public services. The presentation will also explore emerging trends, such as the use of AI-driven chatbots for delivering public services. The final section offers insights into the future development of public marketing.

After more than two decades of social media platforms in governments and public administrations, now they are evolving in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Since their inception, when they were oriented to fostering communicative capabilities and external interactions in innovative ways (Criado et al., 2013; Mergel, 2013), social media technologies have been adopted by government and public administration for several motives (Sandoval-Almazan, et al., 2021). Here, different strategies and objectives could be suggested, including self-promotion of activities (DePaula et al., 2018), internal management improvement (Criado et al., 2017), advancing transparency practices (Villodre, 2024), developing engagement processes with external actors (Wukich 2022), or public services delivery (Criado & Villodre, 2021; Young, 2022). All these capabilities have been experienced in different sectors (Mabillard et al., 2025; Meijer & Thaens, 2013; Villodre & Criado, 2020), or even levels of government (Criado & Villodre, 2022; Sandoval-Almazán et al., 2018). In this paper, we explore the next wave of social media platforms implementation in the public sector, that we suggest it is directly linked with the adoption of AI technologies, exploring their potential opportunities and barriers in different dimensions of public organizations.

Methodologically, this empirical paper will be grounded on the utilization of a survey administered to public managers at the local level of government. This survey is based on previous observations about the utilization of social media in the Spanish largest municipalities, and the perceptions of public managers concerning different dimensions of social media adoption, management, and use. Besides, this version of the survey includes some questions about AI adoption to improve social media management in governments and to understand potential barriers to its application. Also, the content of the questionnaire addresses how this group of public managers perceive the challenges they are facing with disinformation in municipal public spheres, and how they are tackling them. All these aspects will be presented offering the latest results of an study that is part of an ongoing and greater research project that explores different dimensions of AI adoption and implementation in the public sector.

The results of this paper will be of interest for the content of this public marketing and communication group in several ways. On the one hand, this study is intended to expand the dialogue with several scholars working in the field of social media from the communication studies side. On the other hand, the results will inform the enduring debate about the potential of social media to promote the communicative capabilities of public authorities and institutions. Besides, this study will make a unique contribution discerning to what extent AI can be adopted to promote social media technologies in public organizations, and to what extent they are potential partners in the nearest future. Finally, other side of the analysis will discern how all these elements are rooted in our approach to the challenges that public administration are facing in this moment of polarization, and democratic backsliding.