Municipalities e-Participation initiatives through Facebook: citizens perspective

AYMAN ALARABIAT; DELFINA SOARES; ELSA ESTEVEZ

Atenas

Conferencia; 13th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance; 2020

University of the Aegean

This study provides a general overview of citizens´ perceptions toward e-Participation initiatives through Facebook that are sponsored by municipalities. Through a survey of 400 Facebook users in Jordan, the results provided evidence that Jordanian citizens uphold a positive attitude to participate in municipalities e-Participation initiatives through Facebook, but they show a modest intention inclined to sufficiently participate in those initiatives. Additionally, while Jordanian citizens evidenced a high self ability to participate, they questioned the underlying municipalities´ commitment to seriously consider their inputs into future decisions as well as municipalities´ capability to effectively manage those initiatives. The study findings support major concerns raised by recent related studies that the mere offer of social media interaction initiatives by municipalities does not certainly lead to attaining and earning citizens´ participation. The study recommends municipalities to place high consideration on creating partnership relationships with citizens through two-way communication and devote more efforts to enhance citizens´ trust that real changes will be reached if they participate. As municipalities have a great challenge to encourage citizens to participate, the study recommends that distributing relevant information, discussing vital subjects to citizens´ interests, carefully listening to citizens´ voices and then seriously consider their opinions in municipalities´ future decisions are all practicable and feasible steps to encourage citizens to participate.