Civic engagement is a core value of democracy that approves legitimacy of democracy itself and decisions made by public institutions. In Latvia, civic engagement rates are decreasing, thus for public institutions it is important to find new ways how to engage citizens in the decision-making process. In the twenty-first century, it means that public institutions should also be present in social media. The objectives of the article are to identify foreign experience how public institutions are using social media for civic engagement and evaluate the reasons for Latvian public institutions to learn from this foreign experience. Accordingly, methods of the research are analysis of scientific publications covering examples about digital democracy, civic engagement and use of social media by public institutions, as well as analysis of data about the Internet and social media usage in Latvia. The study findings suggest that Latvian public institutions are already using social media for one-way communication. Moreover, in Latvia, availability of the Internet and participation rates in social media are above the EU average, thus there is potential to use social media also for two-way communication and foster civic engagement.

Abstract. This study supports topical discussion about the possibilities to use social media as a tool for citizen involvement in democratic processes. Contemporary academic views and statistics on the use of social media for communication between institutions and citizens are gathered in the study. The research focus is on social media publications, analysing the content of four European Parliament`s social media accounts in Latvian during the period from 1 July 2015 to 31 December 2015. The aim of the research is to identify the potential of the information published on European Parliament`s social media accounts in shaping the European citizenship notion among youth in Latvia. The conclusions present clear idea on the frequency of European citizenship topics in the corresponding social media accounts as well as on the amount of feedback and the share of youth involvement in this communication. The results of the study suggest that for now European Parliament`s social media publications in Latvian have little potential to develop the notion of European citizenship and there is a need for a well-considered use of social media to assure that the opportunity for two-way communication is fruitfully used.