Civil society

Role of social media in public engagement

Social Media have rapidly grown in importance as a forum for political activism in its different forms. Social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube provide us with new ways to stimulate citizen engagement in public life.

• The Arab Spring has shown the world what is possible when you combine social unrest with brave citizenry and powerful digital tools.
• In Iran, even though Facebook is officially forbidden in the country, it is still widely used by the population - currently there is around 16 million of active profiles of Iranians using proxy server applications in their computers and Iran is the second Middle East country with highest number o internet users. Facebook was forbidden after last anti-government upheaval in 2009. The paradox is the fact that the supreme leader of the country Imam Khamenei uses all available social media to spread information on Islamic revolution.

Source

Personal communication via social media allows people to communicate faster and reach citizens of the same or similar interest in a more targeted manner and vice versa without the intermediate role of mass media. Reactions, feedback, conversations and debates are generated online as well as support and participation for offline events. Messages posted to personal networks are multiplied when shared, which allows new audiences to be reached.

Although the presence of social media is increasing and media use patterns are changing, online civil engagement is largely restricted to people already active or at least with high motivation and interest and familiar with the Internet. Other groups are less responsive. For example, television news together with print and online newspapers are still the most important sources of information in most EU Member States. Social media has reshaped structures and methods of contemporary communication by influencing the way politicians interact with citizens and citizens and politicians with each other. However, the role of this phenomenon in increasing engagement and public participation is neither clear nor simple. In practice, it is said that the organiser can expect only up to 50% or even less participants out of all people that have confirmed the attendance through the social media.

Questions to reflect on

• Are you active on social media and why?
• Do you try to organise something actively through social media in order to make a change in society?
• Are you a member of any active civic group on Facebook ? Do you join their activities and participate actively on their actions also beyond the area of social network?