ABSTRACT
Scholars have long noted what might be described as a democratic deficit in e-government, with greater emphasis on service delivery and efficiency than on transparency or citizen participation (Musso, Weare and Hale 2000; Ho 2002; Chadwick and May 2003; West 2004; Scott 2006; Coursey and Norris 2008; Dawes 2008; Holzer et al. 2008; Ganapati 2011). Yet, a recent Pew survey shows that a third of all American adults now use online methods for engaging with government, including contacting government officials, signing online petitions, or commenting on a policy issue (Fox and Rainie 2014). Social media, like other interactive features of Web 2.0, may facilitate political and economic participation online (see Boulianne 2009 for a meta-analysis). A majority of online American adults (52%) used two or more social media sites as of 2014, with Facebook, at 71%, the most popular (Duggan et al. 2015). While those who use social networking sites to engage in political or civic engagement online are a minority, still 21% of these users joined or started a political or social-issue group in a social networking site in 2012. This was up from 13% of users just four years earlier (Smith 2013).
