Social Media and Governance

"What is the recent evidence on the impact of social media on governance of social, political, and economic bodies? How is social media regulated and governed in low-income and fragile contexts?"

This report presents links to, and an annotated bibliography of, papers exploring intersections between social media - e.g., social networking sites, blogs, microblogs, video blogs, discussion forums - and governance in development contexts, humanitarian contexts, conflict and post-conflict contexts, and fragile states. Across most of the countries studied, Facebook is the most highly accessed social media site. Mobile phones are increasingly used as a means to access the internet, which has increased usage of social media sites, which no longer require access to a personal computer.

In general, there is a strong assumption in the literature that internet access and social media will improve transparency, accountability, and good governance, but little evidence on how this is achieved. For example, many governments are using e-government strategies and disseminating information through online channels but are not soliciting citizen feedback. Where there are two-way channels, it is unclear whether citizen feedback is acted upon. There is promising evidence on social media improving transparency of organisations and government ministries, but less evidence on whether this improves accountability. There is even less literature on social media used to monitor or report on corporate activities or other organisational governance.

The literature review shows that social media has impacted on governance in the following ways:

• Political participation: Governments have provided formal online channels for citizens to report crime, comment on policy, or petition for change. Largely this is restricted to a small elite of internet users, and government websites are not popular. Citizens often use social media to organise activism and protest. For example, one paper cited in the annotated bibliography on government microblogs in China shows that the opening of new input channels on the internet in China may suggest a more responsive approach to social steering and the balancing of state–society relations, but in reality do not mark any major shift in the state's internet strategy. (These government-citizen e-communication platforms may serve a venting function, which is thought to prevent large-scale public dissent.)
• Transparency and accountability: Citizens have used social media to communicate, report, and map issues in society, which has increased pressure on governments to respond. For example, one article cited in the bibliography collates a database of worldwide initiatives to use crowds for governance. It contains 209 applications. "The authors suggest that there is a new wave of IT-mediated governance occurring."
• Peacebuilding: Social media have been used to monitor violence, which can support peacebuilding, although media can also be used to incite violence. For example, one book describes and documents technology-enhanced efforts to stop violence before it happens in Africa, Asia, and the United States. Local approaches often involve digital mapping, crowdsourcing, and mathematical pattern recognition to identify likely locations of violence. However, technological advances are of little value unless they are used by a trained cadre of community organisers, according to the book.
• Private sector: Social media used by businesses can increase transparency and customer communication, as well as create new forms of leadership. For example, one study cited here of the extent to which social media affects organisational culture among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan finds that social media enhances employee communication and the work environment by enabling the sharing of knowledge, building trust, making employees aware of their business, facilitating early detection of organisational wrongdoing, finding new human resources, and fostering change by knowing customers' opinions as well as development of positive changes in the work environment.
• Internal governance: New legislation and regulation of social media is controversial. Some online hate speech constitutes a crime, and some governments have shut down internet services in an attempt to control social media. The authors of one paper included in the bibliography built an event history database of 566 incidents from 1995-2011 in which a regime shut down social media. Comparative analysis indicates that both democratic and authoritarian regimes disable social media networks, citing concerns about national security, protecting authority figures, and preserving cultural and religious morals.