Social media and citizen engagement: A meta-analytic review

Abstract

This meta-analytic study reviews empirical research published from 2007 to 2013 with an aim of providing robust conclusions about the relationship between social media use and citizen engagement. It includes 22 studies that used self-reported measures of social media use and participation, with a total of 116 relationships/effects. The results suggest that social media use generally has a positive relationship with engagement and its three sub-categories, that is, social capital, civic engagement, and political participation. More specifically, we find small-to-medium size positive relationships between expressive, informational, and relational uses of social media and the above indicators of citizen engagement. For identity- and entertainment-oriented uses of social media, our analyses find little evidence supporting their relationship with citizen engagement.

Social Media as a Platform for a Citizen Science Community of Practice

“…Social media use has been linked to greater civic participation (Skoric et al 2015;Zhang et al 2010). The impacts of the Facebook group remain unknown for the short term.…”

We Face, I Tweet: How Different Social Media Influence Political Participation through Collective and Internal Efficacy

“…Much of the past decade's research on social media has shown a positive relationship between offline and online political participation (Boulianne, ; Skoric, Zhu, Goh, & Pang, ). Although numerous theories have been advanced to explain this positive association, most credit the capacity of social network sites (SNS) to foster ties between users and make available mobilizing information, either through news sharing or discussion.…”

Mobilising the civic curriculum

“…Such understandings include the awareness that although mobile social networks have been shown to facilitate, community engagement (Skoric et al, 2016) they are nevertheless political actants that evoke political results which can include inequality and need to be designed thoughtfully. Drawing upon a long-term study of young NEETs (not in education, employment or training) in Leeds for example, Thornham and Gómez Cruz found that mobile usage was more likely to be a frustrating and disempowering experience for this particular group simply because of their daily status as NEET (for example when there was no free wi-fi on hand, or when their mobile based job search efforts were rejected by the unemployment office):…”