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

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.

[1]  W. Galston.  Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity , 1996 .

[2]  Homero Gil de Zúñiga,et al.  Social Media Use for News and Individuals' Social Capital, Civic Engagement and Political Participation , 2012, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[3]  S. Ghoshal,et al.  Social Capital and Value Creation: The Role of Intrafirm Networks , 1998 .

[4]  Rex B. Kline,et al.  Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling , 1998 .

[5]  G. Aikens.  A personal history of minnesota electronic democracy, 1994 , 1998 .

[6]  I. Bachmann,et al.  The Whole Online World is Watching: Profiling Social Networking Sites and Activists in China, Latin America and the United States , 2012 .

[7]  Frank Bannister,et al.  Trust and transformational government: A proposed framework for research , 2011, Gov. Inf. Q..

[8]  R. Golembiewski.  Trust and Power Two Works by Niklas Luhmann . By Niklas Luhmann. (New York: John Wiley, 1980. Pp. xix + 208. $28.95.) , 1981, American Political Science Review.

[9]  Izak Benbasat,et al.  Development of an Instrument to Measure the Perceptions of Adopting an Information Technology Innovation , 1991, Inf. Syst. Res..

[10]  Roumen Vragov,et al.  Active citizen participation using ICT tools , 2009, CACM.

[11]  Detmar W. Straub,et al.  Trust and TAM in Online Shopping: An Integrated Model , 2003, MIS Q..

[12]  Paul A. Pavlou,et al.  Building Effective Online Marketplaces with Institution-Based Trust , 2004, Inf. Syst. Res..

[13]  Matthew K. O. Lee,et al.  A Trust Model for Consumer Internet Shopping , 2001, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[14]  J. H. Davis,et al.  An Integrative Model Of Organizational Trust , 1995 .

[15]  Patrick Seyd,et al.  Labour's Grass Roots: The Politics of Party Membership , 1992 .

[16]  Summer Harlow,et al.  COLLECTIVE ACTION ON THE WEB , 2012 .

[17]  Shelley Boulianne.  Does Internet Use Affect Engagement? A Meta-Analysis of Research , 2009 .

[18]  Detmar W. Straub,et al.  Validating Instruments in MIS Research , 1989, MIS Q..

[19]  A. Downs.  An Economic Theory of Democracy , 1957 .

[20]  Wei-keng Liao,et al.  Social media evolution of the Egyptian revolution , 2012, Commun. ACM.

[21]  Duane T. Wegener,et al.  Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research. , 1999 .

[22]  P. Bentler,et al.  Significance Tests and Goodness of Fit in the Analysis of Covariance Structures , 1980 .

[23]  Izak Benbasat,et al.  Business Competence of Information Technology Professionals: Conceptual Development and Influence on IT-Business Partnerships , 2004, MIS Q..

[24]  R. Nadeau,et al.  POLITICAL TRUST AND THE VOTE IN MULTIPARTY ELECTIONS: THE CANADIAN CASE , 2005 .

[25]  Dennis McCafferty.  Brave, new social world , 2011, CACM.

[26]  David F. Larcker,et al.  Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error: Algebra and Statistics: , 1981 .

[27]  A. Strauss,et al.  Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. , 1993 .

[28]  Teresa Correa,et al.  Who interacts on the Web?: The intersection of users' personality and social media use , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[29]  Jessica T. Feezell,et al.  The Civic and Political Significance of Online Participatory Cultures among Youth Transitioning to Adulthood , 2013 .

[30]  Jody C. Baumgartner,et al.  MyFaceTube Politics , 2010 .

[31]  S. Keeter,et al.  A New Engagement?: Political Participation, Civic Life, and the Changing American Citizen , 2006 .

[32]  Ying Lu,et al.  Understanding the Link Between Information Technology Capability and Organizational Agility: An Empirical Examination , 2011, MIS Q..

[33]  M. Bauer.  Exchange And Power In Social Life , 2016 .

[34]  K. Andersen,et al.  A New Engagement? Political Participation, Civic Life, and the Changing American Citizen , 2007, Perspectives on Politics.

[35]  Edward A. Fox,et al.  Social media use by government: From the routine to the critical , 2012, Gov. Inf. Q..

[36]  J. Rowley,et al.  Young people's use of online social networking sites – a uses and gratifications perspective , 2010 .

[37]  Taewoo Nam,et al.  Suggesting frameworks of citizen-sourcing via Government 2.0 , 2012, Gov. Inf. Q..

[38]  Amirkhani Ali.  The Power of Social Media in Developing Nations: New Tools for Closing the Global Digital Divide and Beyond , 2011 .

[39]  Kathleen Richardson,et al.  Archiving the self? Facebook as biography of social and relational memory , 2009, J. Inf. Commun. Ethics Soc..

[40]  Arthur C. Brooks,et al.  Does Social Capital Make You Generous , 2005 .

[41]  Thomas R. Lindlof.  Qualitative Communication Research Methods , 1994 .

[42]  Jon M. Werner,et al.  Managers as Initiators of Trust: An Exchange Relationship Framework for Understanding Managerial Trustworthy Behavior , 1998 .

[43]  S. Valenzuela,et al.  The Social Media Basis of Youth Protest Behavior: The Case of Chile , 2012 .

[44]  D. Harrison McKnight,et al.  Perceived Information Quality in Data Exchanges: Effects on Risk, Trust, and Intention to Use , 2006, Inf. Syst. Res..

[45]  Stuart W. Shulman.  The Case Against Mass E-mails: Perverse Incentives and Low Quality Public Participation in U.S. Federal Rulemaking , 2009 .

[46]  Teun Lucassen,et al.  Propensity to trust and the influence of source and medium cues in credibility evaluation , 2012, J. Inf. Sci..

[47]  John Raacke,et al.  MySpace and Facebook: Applying the Uses and Gratifications Theory to Exploring Friend-Networking Sites , 2008, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[48]  K. Stewart.  Trust Transfer on the World Wide Web , 2002 .

[49]  Sidney C. Sufrin,et al.  The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. , 1966 .

[50]  Mami Kikuchi,et al.  Explicating and Measuring Social Relationships in Social Capital Research , 2008 .

[51]  D. Denning.  Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism: the Internet As a Tool for Influencing Foreign Policy , 2001 .

[52]  M. Jennings,et al.  Internet Use and Civic Engagement: A Longitudinal Analysis , 2003 .

[53]  W. Bennett,et al.  Communicating Civic Engagement: Contrasting Models of Citizenship in the Youth Web Sphere , 2011 .

[54]  G. Tullock.  The paradox of revolution , 1971 .

[55]  R. Putnam.  Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital , 1995, The City Reader.

[56]  J. H. Davis,et al.  An integrative model of organizational trust, Academy of Management Review, : . , 1995 .

[57]  Matthew K. O. Lee,et al.  Trust in Internet Shopping: Instrument Development and Validation through Classical and Modern Approaches , 2001, J. Glob. Inf. Manag..

[58]  Dhavan V. Shah,et al.  "Connecting" and "Disconnecting" With Civic Life: Patterns of Internet Use and the Production of Social Capital , 2001 .

[59]  Paul T. Jaeger,et al.  The impact of polices on government social media usage: Issues, challenges, and recommendations , 2012, Gov. Inf. Q..

[60]  Mahbubur R. Meenar,et al.  Building Social Capital in the Digital Age of Civic Engagement , 2010 .

[61]  Bill C. Hardgrave,et al.  Emotional Dissonance and the Information Technology Professional , 2008, MIS Q..

[62]  Charles Pattie,et al.  Citizenship and Civic Engagement: Attitudes and Behaviour in Britain , 2003 .

[63]  J. Nunnally.  Psychometric Theory (2nd ed), New York: McGraw-Hill. , 1978 .

[64]  Hyun Joon Kim,et al.  The willingness of e-Government service adoption by business users: The role of offline service quality and trust in technology , 2011, Gov. Inf. Q..

[65]  Joseph P. Cannon,et al.  An Examination of the Nature of Trust in Buyer–Seller Relationships: , 1997 .

[66]  Alladi Venkatesh,et al.  Civil Society and Cyber Society: The Role of the Internet in Community Associations and Democratic Politics , 2006, Inf. Soc..

[67]  Pamela Paxton.  Is Social Capital Declining in the United States? A Multiple Indicator Assessment1 , 1999, American Journal of Sociology.

[68]  Hiromi Taniguchi,et al.  The Effects of Social Trust and Institutional Trust on Formal Volunteering and Charitable Giving in Japan , 2014 .

[69]  Cliff Lampe,et al.  It's Complicated: Facebook Users' Political Participation in the 2008 Election , 2011, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[70]  D. Gefen,et al.  E-commerce: the role of familiarity and trust , 2000 .

[71]  B. Misztal.  Trust in Modern Societies: The Search for the Bases of Social Order , 1996 .

[72]  Taejin Jung,et al.  Motivations and Self-Presentation Strategies on Korean-Based "Cyworld" Weblog Format Personal Homepages , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[73]  Michael Parent,et al.  Building Citizen Trust Through E-government , 2005, Gov. Inf. Q..

[74]  Carrie R. Leana,et al.  Organizational Social Capital and Employment Practices , 1999 .

[75]  Dhavan V. Shah,et al.  Connecting, Trusting, and Participating: The Direct and Interactive Effects of Social Associations , 2004 .

[76]  C. Hay.  Why We Hate Politics , 2007 .

[77]  W. Rohe.  Building social capital through community development , 2004 .

[78]  Elizabeth A. Graddy,et al.  Social Capital, Volunteering, and Charitable Giving , 2008 .

[79]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[80]  M. Olson,et al.  The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. , 1973 .

[81]  D. Romer,et al.  Realizing the Social Internet? Online Social Networking Meets Offline Civic Engagement , 2009 .

[82]  Kerk F. Kee,et al.  Is There Social Capital in a Social Network Site?: Facebook Use and College Students’ Life Satisfaction, Trust, and Participation 1 , 2009 .

[83]  Lili Wang,et al.  Community Foundation Development and Social Capital , 2009 .

[84]  B. Muthén,et al.  Assessing Reliability and Stability in Panel Models , 1977 .

[85]  Henrik Serup Christensen.  Political activities on the Internet: Slacktivism or political participation by other means? , 2011, First Monday.

[86]  Lee R. Smith,et al.  The social side of the internet , 2011 .

[87]  Ben Shneiderman,et al.  Realizing the value of social media requires innovative computing research , 2011, Commun. ACM.

[88]  Xianggui Qu,et al.  Multivariate Data Analysis , 2007, Technometrics.

[89]  Robert D Carlitz,et al.  Online rulemaking: a step toward E-governance , 2002, Gov. Inf. Q..

[90]  F. Fukuyama.  Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity Penguin London , 1995 .

[91]  M. Silver.  Political revolution and repression: An economic approach , 1974 .

[92]  Eric van Heck,et al.  Information quality, trust, and risk perceptions in electronic data exchanges , 2013, Decis. Support Syst..