Government Communication Management in Digital Ecosystems: A Real Case of Country Brand Analysis

The Open Government emerges as a new paradigm and model of relationship between society, administrations and governors: collaborative, multidirectional, transparent and oriented to the participation of citizens, both in monitoring and in public decision-making. Communication is one of the main axes where this new paradigm is sustained, since it helps governments to show and justify the actions carried out, and which, on many occasions, are discussed by citizens. Government communication, therefore, is framed within political communication itself and refers to the exercise that determines the management agenda of institutions, attitudes and processes, its main objective being to generate a consensus leaving aside particular interests of political parties and personalities, to focus on management and public administration, because without a general acceptance of the principles there can be no successful management. In this context, the country brand is one of the items where consensus is fundamental, a bad management of the communication around it, can cause discrepancy that affects the Open Government. This paper analyzes a real case of communication in relation to the Spanish Country brand (España Global) and how it has affected the commitment and belonging of citizens.