The debate on social networking and the usability of SNSs in e-governance

摘要

Social Network Sites brought citizens enormous benefits in communication and information flow. Given their popularity, researchers came to study and acknowledge their potential in e-Governance. This paper will attempt to examine SNSs: providing their opportunities and challenges; discussing their usability in e-Governance; and scrutinising their potential role in e-Participation. Main argument of the paper is that SNSs' utilisation in e-Participation has benefits since SNSs seem to solve some of the problems of e-Participation, concerning citizens' engagement. Nonetheless, the need to expand our knowledge of these new tools and further investigate how successfully SNSs contribute to fostering political activity still exists.