Political will and strategic use of youtube to advancing government transparency: An analysis of jakarta government-generated youtube videos

Abstract

Government transparency is critical to cut government bureaucracy and corruption, which diminish political accountability and legitimacy, erode trust in government, and hinder citizen engagement and government performance. Previously, Jakarta's local governments lacked government transparency, holding high-level meetings under a close-door policy, sustaining a critical and fundamental flaw in policy-making and fueling government inefficiency and corruption. Social media radically increased the speed, reach and transparency of information. Yet, social media-enabled government transparency has not been sufficiently investigated. This research presents strategic use of YouTube by Jakarta's new local government to open doors to high-level political meetings and other reform-oriented government activities for greater local government transparency. We conducted an analysis of 250 government-generated videos on YouTube viewed and liked by Jakarta's 7.8-million net-savvy citizens. We conclude transformational leadership's political will and strategic use of YouTube are the keys to advancing local government transparency and facilitating citizen engagement with government's reform initiatives. © 2013 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.