Investigating Civic Engagement in Social Media

In the field of Information Systems, scholars have empirically investigated the use of social media as an IT artifact and its influences, offering various understandings of online human behaviour, particularly for business, psychology and sociology implications. Very often, research on social media usage can be classified into internal (e.g. entertainment and satisfaction) and external factors (e.g. connections benefits). While these studies on motivations generated a clear link between internal and external factors for social media usage, it did not relate these motivations to the contributions made in terms of civic engagement behaviour. Even though there is promising evidence that people are adopting social media for civic engagement, research on civic behaviours using social media remains limited. Moreover, there are future research calls to examine the factors that promote online civic engagement and its use for positive outcomes. This research introduces a new insight on how social media is shaping the landscape of civic engagement in the modes suggested by Denning (2000): collection of information, publication of information, dialogue, coordinating activities and lobbying for decision makers and its impact on life satisfaction and virtual social skills.