Social Media In E-Governance And Political Participation In Enugu State, Nigeria

Abstract

The basic question of this research was whether social media, which is the newest phenomenon in internet technology, helps to foster political engagement and participation among citizens in Enugu State. To ascertain the situation, we triangulated the research technique by using Desk study, Survey and qualitative content analysis methods in the data gathering process. In summary, survey data showed that, the government scored low (2.5 below the accepted level of mean score) in the use of social media to bring their programmes and services to the people- an action which has the potentials of alienating the people from the government. Citizens on the other hand, employed social media adequately to participate in the political issues of the State, either through political debates, expressing opinion on controversial issues, voting decision, interact with friends on certain political issues and campaigns. The cumulated mean score was 3.6 higher than the lowest mean score of 3.0 which was the acceptance level for the research. This finding was collaborated by data from the other methods used. As a result of this finding, we recommended among others that, there should be a policy that mandates all government departments and agencies to have social media presence and to encourage their clients to transact via the social media platform.