A framework for using data analytics to measure trust in government through the social capital generated over governmental social media platforms

It has been noted that citizens' trust in public institutions is continuously declining. Low social capital has been confirmed as one of the main reasons for this decrease in trust towards government. As social media offer a number of features that could foster social capital, governments worldwide are embracing these new tools in an attempt to restore citizens' trust. Having an existence on social media doesn't guarantee that it would increase trust; it can even compromise on the reputation of a public agency in the absence of a clear strategy targeted towards developing confidence and trust. To ensure the reflection of this strategy on the content of governmental social media, there should be a mechanism that measures the degree of trust on social media in government taking into account different aspects related to trust. Despite the importance of this kind of evaluation, it is though overlooked in both academia and practice. This paper therefore aims to fill this research gap through suggesting a standard technique to measure different trust dimensions on social media accounts of governments. A proposed framework for evaluating trust was applied on Facebook accounts of three Egyptian ministries - selected based on their apparent contribution to the national economy- taking into account six dimensions of trust: Responsiveness, Accessibility, Transparency, Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Participation.

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