Social media effects on fostering online civic engagement and building citizen trust and trust in institutions

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2013.11.007Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We examine online civic engagement and trust among citizens.

  • We explored the trust perceptions of institutions among social activists.

  • Facebook appears to be a civic communicative tool to mobilize and organize.

  • Online civic engagement is a predictor for increasing citizen trust.

  • Trust in institution can be increased via fostering greater trust propensity.

Abstract

This paper tests the extent to which social media is shaping civic engagement initiatives to build trust among people and increase trust in their institutions, particularly the government, police and justice systems. A survey of 502 citizens showed that using social media for civic engagement has a significant positive impact on trust propensity and that this trust had led to an increase in trust towards institutions. Interestingly, while group incentives encouraged citizens to engage online for civic matters, it is civic publications through postings on social media that intensify the urge of citizens for civic action to address social issues. Post-hoc analysis via ten interviews with social activists was conducted to further examine their perceptions on trust towards institutions. The overall findings suggest that institutions, in their effort to promote a meaningful and trusting citizen engagement, need to enhance trust among the public by fostering social capital via online civic engagement and closing the public–police disengagement gap.

Introduction

Social media is taking a role in defining areas for engagement and mobilizing individuals for civic action. It allows anyone the opportunity to spread social causes and participate in digital activism on various issues. These concerns range from community to world issues to change perspectives and even policies. Citizens are now empowered with social media tools to force people, particularly the government, to listen to what they care about and to demand respect (Kirkpatrick, 2011). The obvious was exemplified when civilians rebelled beyond the expectations of autocratic leaders when the users of Facebook and Twitter toppled dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Research on social media on societal level issues has addressed politics and government (Baumgartner and Morris, 2010, Kumar and Vragov, 2009); for better reach, relevancy, and engagement in India (Rajapat, 2009); for managing national crisis situations, such as earthquakes in the U.S. (Kavanaugh et al., 2012); for justice and democracy in Egypt (Ali, 2011, Choudhary et al., 2012); organizing protests in Chile (Valenzuela, Arriagada, & Scherman, 2012); for improving citizen–government communications (Bertot, Jaeger, & Hansen, 2012); for civic expressions (McCafferty, 2011) and for global community service (Raynes-Goldie & Walker, 2008). Moreover, social media's popularity is suggested by its own number of users. Twitter has 500 million registered users (Rousseau, 2012) whereas Facebook has close to 850 million people using it each month. It has been recognized as a new platform for individuals to communicate and associate with other individuals (Richardson & Hessey, 2009).

While there are promising evidence that people are adopting social media for civic engagement, research on citizens' civic behavior and social capital in the social media context remains limited (see for example Pasek et al., 2009, Valenzuela et al., 2009, Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2012). Moreover, there have been calls for future research to develop a richer measure for social media use (Correa, Hinsley, & de Zúñiga, 2010); what promotes citizens' online civic engagement (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2012, Shneiderman et al., 2011); and, more importantly, what will lead to greater citizen trust in institutions, including the government (Bannister and Connolly, 2011, Parent et al., 2005). In response to the gaps identified and the calls for future research, this study introduces four new insights into how social media is shaping the landscape of civic engagement and building trust by: (i) determining to what extent group incentives motivate online civic engagement behavior; (ii) examining the relationship between two types of online civic engagement behavior, i.e. online civic publication and online coordination of civic activities; (iii) investigating the role of online coordination of civic activities in predicting trust propensity; and (iv) examining the impact of trust propensity towards trust in institutions.

In short, the objective of this study is to investigate the impact of social media as a civic communication channel in supporting online civic engagement behavior and building citizens' trust towards each other and in institutions.

Section snippets

Online civic engagement behavior

Civic engagement constitutes a variety of definitions and civic forms (Hay, 2007, Raynes-Goldie and Walker, 2008; Weissberg, 2005). To some extent, civic engagement refers to the individual or collective involvement of citizens in addressing social issues. Civic engagement has been defined as individual or collective behavior aimed at resolving social problems in the community (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2012, Zukin et al., 2006) while activism, according to Denning (2000, p.15) is “…the use of the

Research model

The foregoing discussion of the predictors and consequences of online civic engagement and trust leads to the development of the research model and hypotheses (Fig. 1).

Methodology

We addressed the research questions (see Fig. 2) by conducting a survey and a post-hoc analysis via interviews with ten social activists. All hypotheses were addressed in accordance with the results from the statistical analysis based on the primary data collected from the survey.

Descriptive results

For a more robust approach in the analysis, we used both SPSS and AMOS for the survey findings. The scope of online civic engagement behaviors and their predictors were examined and the results are tabulated in Table 2. The frequency column is the total number of responses of the measurement items for each scale range. For example, the total response from the online civic publication items (poi1, poi2 and poi3) was 402. This indicates that only about a quarter (26.7%) of the total responses

General discussions

The empirical analysis presents the following two implicative findings about the predictor and consequences of online civic engagement behavior on trust propensity and trust in institutions.

  • Finding 1 To a certain extent, social media can contribute to mobilize citizens to participate in online civic engagement behavior, via the ability of its network capital and the group incentives.

    The study has shown that social media has the potential and the ability to promote online civic participation.

Limitations

This study has three limitations. The first comes from the fact that the study is cross-sectional in nature, hence causal inferences cannot be made. Secondly, despite certain positive and significant indicators of the antecedents and consequences of online civic engagement behavior, the study does not entail detailed analysis of social media as a supporting civic communication channel. As a result, there is limited knowledge concerning how the intended elements of civic initiatives were

Concluding remarks

This paper presented answers to the hypotheses developed and met its objective in delivering four new insights concerning how social media is shaping the landscape of civic engagement and its impact on citizens' trust. Social media has mobilized new patterns for online civic engagement, i.e. citizens are posting links on social issues to be shared; news, photos, videos and images of social issues are posted on Facebook in the hope of spreading the message around and creating awareness of these

Acknowledgment

This research was supported by University Malaya Research Grant RP004D-13ICT.

Anne Marie Warren is a full time PhD student at the Department of Operations and Management Information Systems in the Faculty of Business and Accountancy at the University of Malaya, Malaysia. She holds an MBA specializing in Management Information Systems from the University of Malaya and a Bachelor in Computing from Monash University (Melbourne). Prior to pursing her PhD, she lectured and tutored in Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia. Her work has been presented at conference proceedings.

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  • Cited by (0)

    Anne Marie Warren is a full time PhD student at the Department of Operations and Management Information Systems in the Faculty of Business and Accountancy at the University of Malaya, Malaysia. She holds an MBA specializing in Management Information Systems from the University of Malaya and a Bachelor in Computing from Monash University (Melbourne). Prior to pursing her PhD, she lectured and tutored in Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia. Her work has been presented at conference proceedings. Before joining the academic field, Anne Marie was in the Information System division as a Security Analyst at one of the leading local banks in Malaysia. Anne Marie is currently interested in investigating representations that affect social judgment and civic behaviors in the arena of social media.

    Ainin Sulaiman is a lecturer in the Department of Operations and Management Information Systems, Faculty of Business and Accountancy, University of Malaya. She is currently the Head of the Social Network Dynamics Program under the university's ICT and Computational Science research cluster. Ainin obtained her PhD from the Birmingham University, UK and her MBA from Stirling University, UK. She has been teaching courses related to Information Systems and Research Methodology at the undergraduate as well as postgraduate levels. Her area of research interest includes technology adoption and diffusion, green technology, social network and organizational performance.

    Noor Ismawati Jaafar is a senior lecturer at the Department of Operations and Management Information Systems in the Faculty of Business and Accountancy at the University of Malaya, Malaysia. She obtained her DBA from Macquarie University, Australia and is registered with the Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants (MICPA). She is also a reviewer for Information Development, an ISI journal. Her areas of expertise include Information Technology Governance, Information Technology and Accounting Information Systems Management. Her work has been published in book chapters, academic journals, and newspapers and has been presented in various international conference proceedings. Ismawati's current research interest is in technology preference of using social networking sites among individuals in developing countries.

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