PM Edi Rama and his ministers uses public funds and an extensive network of public relations employees to promote private accounts on social networks, leaving their official institutional accounts dormant.
Albania’s Prime Minister, Edi Rama, starts his workday at 8 a.m. on his Facebook page, posting photos or videos that foster an aura of optimism, often showing fragments of infrastructure projects from across the country.
Rama has turned his private Facebook page into the main communications channel between the government and the public; it has some 1.6 million likes and posts appear six or seven times a day. Each post gets hundreds of comments and thousands of likes.
Since 2013, the Prime Minister’s office has had another Facebook page, called Kryeministria. However, it’s a lot less popular, with just 3,500 followers, few interactions and no real public influence.
Rama is not the only member of the Albanian government to concentrate public communications in his private channels. Most of his ministers follow the same model; they have more followers and much more content on their personal pages than on the pages of the official institutions they lead.
Social media has been transformed over the last decade into a major political tool in elections; however, to be efficacious, they need to be fed continuously.
Data obtained through a Freedom of Information request also show that Prime Minister Rama and his ministers use public funds and resources and for this, alongside an extensive network of public employees, to produce content and promote their social media accounts.
By analyzing data collected by Crowdtangle, a tool developed by Facebook, BIRN discovered that the personal Facebook pages of Rama and his ministers are fed with far more posts, videos and lives than their institutional pages. About 98 per cent of the total interactions go to their personal pages, compared to just 2 per cent to their institutions’ pages.
The management of the digital communication channels of the Prime Minister, ministers, the Prime Minister’s office and the ministries is the responsibility of the Media and Information Agency, MIA, a body created amidst debate a year ago, which is led by his spokesperson, Endri Fuga.
Although the Socialist government’s communications through social media networks are not regulated by law, civil society groups accuse it of using public resources for political purposes.
“Ministers’ political profiles are supported by ad money from the state budget, while their official duties are later used as weapons to support their parties in election campaigns,” said Rigerls Xhemollari, from the Qëndresa Qytetare, an NGO.
Fuga, director of the MIA, told BIRN that the management of the content of the social media accounts of the Prime Minister and his ministers serves to inform the public. He dismisses suggestions that public resources are being misused.
“Employees of the MIA, including the spokespersons of the ministries, are engaged in producing content that is related only to the government duties of the Prime Minister and members of the government,” Fuga said.
“Their work serves the purpose of informing the public through the social networks about the government’s activities, not the personal or political-party activities of the ministers,” he added.
Private accounts much busier than public ones
Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama flashes a Victory gesture to the media as he casts his ballot at a polling station near Tirana, Albania, 25 June 2017. Albanians head to the polls on 25 June for parliamentary elections. EPA/MALTON DIBRA
The MIA was created in September last year through a decision of the Council of Ministers. It is responsible for providing transparency over the policies and activities of the Council of Ministers, ministries and any central government body.
The agency also produces government propaganda and manages and supplies the social networks of the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s Office, the ministers and their ministries with content.
MIA told BIRN in an answer to an FoI request that the content for the social networks of the Prime Minister and his office is the responsibility of four employees of the sector for informing the citizens, and is supported by the sector handling Design and Creative Product. The MIA did not divulge the number of employees engaged in this latter sector.
The MIA answer stated that the social network accounts of the members of the government and their ministries are managed by their spokespersons, supported by “structures responsible in each ministry”.
On Rama’s and his ministers’ pages on social media networks they often post personal statements or about their political or party activities, but the MIA insisted these are not their responsibility.
“The publication of posts of a personal character, such as opinions… are the responsibility of the Prime Minister or the ministers, while the publication of the activities or materials of political character and their publication on the social media accounts of the Prime Minister and the ministers are prepared and managed by their political staff, attached to the Socialist Party,” the MIA said.
The number of PR officers that work for the Prime Minister and ministers and their ministries is difficult to ascertain. However, a former ministerial adviser told BIRN on condition of anonymity that there are far more people engaged in this than the official numbers.
“Apart from the spokesperson, each minister has an advisor for media relations and three or four specialists that produce the content for social media,” he said, adding that part of the PR staff usually are paid formally for other positions not directly related to the job they actually do.
In the virtual world of the Facebook, the most popular social network in the country, the success of a page or profile is measured by the number of posts, shares or likes – which are counted as “interactions”.
Using data obtained through the Crowdtangle tool, BIRN discovered that the private pages of Rama and the ministers have an aggregate content and interactions that dwarf the activity of the official pages of the respective institutions. In this analysis, the private profile of Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku is excluded, as she doesn’t have a page on Facebook.
Over a one-year period, the personal page of Rama and ministers together had some 8,801 posts while their official pages have some 5,342 posts. About 62 per cent of posts went to the private pages while 38 per cent to the official ones.
The private pages also had 53 per cent of the all videos posted on Facebook and 69 per cent of live transmissions.
However, the gulf is much wider when views or videos and interactions are also taken into account.
Data collected by using Crowdtangle shows that the private pages of Rama and the ministers together secured more than 15.2 million interactions during a one-year period, while their official pages had just 292,000 interactions. It means that some 98 per cent of the interactions went to the personal pages, compared to just 2 per cent to the official ones.
‘Historical memory ending up on mobile phones’
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama speaks to media as he arrives for an EU-Western Balkans leaders’ meeting in Brussels, Belgium, 23 June 2022. The progress on EU integration and the challenges which the Western Balkans countries face in connection to the Russian invasion of Ukraine are topping the agenda when EU and Western Balkan leaders meet prior a European Council meeting. EPA-EFE/STEPHANIE LECOCQ
The normal practice of Western leaders in communicating through social networks involves a clear division between their personal pages and the official pages of the public institutions, which carry most of the burden in communicating with the wider public.
In Albania, the strategy of the government effectively favours the individual pages at the expense of the institutional ones.
Afrim Krasniqi, director of the Institute for Political Studies, criticizes the practice of publishing official acts on social networks, claiming it has effectively “personalized” the state.
Krasniqi says there is cause for concern over the consequences this might have for the documentation of the government’s work.
“Historical memory is ending up on mobile phones or on the personal emails of officials,” Krasniqi said, providing examples of when official conduct was never properly documented elsewhere, except on the personal social media pages of the Prime Minister.
“From a legal aspect, this is a violation of the law, while from an administrative aspect, this is a violation of the rules; from a political aspect, this is an abuse of public office while from a historical aspect this is an investment against the memory of the state and the archives,” Krasniqi said.
Xhemollari, from Qendresa Qytetare, told BIRN that channelling official communications via personal Facebook pages is a reflection of the general practice of the current government, which is based on the individual and not on the institution.
“This communication philosophy creates a party state, individuals that are stronger than institutions, while at the same time it violates the election law and the ethical codes on communication and erodes the rule of law and the transparency of governance,” he said.
However, not all believe in a complete separation between the political leaders and the institutions in terms of communications.
Erla Mehilli, a journalist and former spokesperson of former PM Sali Berisha, told BIRN that while social networks should not replace official channels through which the state communicates to citizens, personal pages can be useful in sharing some informal moments.
Mehilli believes officials cannot be banned from using their personal accounts for official communications, though she also believes that some form of regulation is needed.
“It is not easy to separate the individual from the office that he/she holds. I am not aware whether any law bans an official from using their personal pages along with the official ones for communicating, even for official communications,” she said.
MIA didn’t answer queries from BIRN about what happens with the ministers’ personal pages once they leave office, and have the possibility of using social media created at public expense for their future political careers.
Fuga said the content doesn’t change and is not deleted from these pages. “Such content continues to be accessible for the public in these pages beyond the time of the holding of the office by a minister,” he said.