The purpose of this thesis is to examine the how Swedish regions use Facebook in public relations towards citizens, within the field of regional development. The study has the character of a qualitative, comparative case study to illustrate similarities and dissimilarities.

Social media has been described as a way to enable dialog and a tool for organizations to build and care for relations with different publics. At the same time social media, like Facebook, can be used by political organizations to show transparency and give citizens the ability to have influence in the political process by using it dialogical.

The Result shows that both regions work with public relations are characterised by dissemination of information and one-way communication. Citizens are not a prioritized target group within communication regarding regional growth on the region’s Facebook-pages.