Affordances and effects of promoting eparticipation through social media

Abstract

A growing body of literature highlights the adoption of social media for eParticipation, focusing on the identification of processes and structures through which ICT supports the relationship between citizens, governments and public bodies. There is a need to better understand the role of technology in such initiatives. This paper addresses this issue by introducing the concept of affordance. We used a case study approach to investigate an Indonesian eParticipation projects from Bandung, identifying affordance perceptions, enabling and inhibiting factors, actualized affordances and affordances effects. From the use of social media we identify nine actualized affordances and their effects, and we discuss the relationship between them. The case introduces findings from a developing country, a context that has largely been ignored within eParticipation research. Our findings provide lessons learned for practitioners on how to organize their eParticipation projects, as well as for researchers identifying future research avenues to strengthen our understanding of the role of ICT by introducing the concept of affordances.