LAHORE: The Punjab University Institute of Administrative Sciences has carried out a research stressing the government to increase its social media presence for citizens’ online participation in its various programmes.

The research titled “Can government’s presence on social media stimulate citizens’ online political participation — investigating the influence of transparency, trust, and responsiveness — was conducted by collecting feedback from about 400 social media users. The findings of the analysis were obtained using structural equation modeling technique. The feedback shows that provision of ‘quality information’ (by any government department) on social media helps increase citizens’ online participation.

It says there is a need to devise appropriate social media strategies where people can be encouraged to provide input and be assured that their input/feedback will actually influence policy decisions made by the respective government departments.

The report says the government departments which are still not effectively utilising the social media platforms to reach the maximum number of people are required to build their online presence and engage the people for better delivery.

The research was carried out by IAS Assistant Professor Dr Sobia Khurram and MPhil scholar Saman Arshad which was also published in the Government Information Quarterly (GIQ) journal.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2020