Abstract:

This study explains the importance of citizens’ posts on social media beyond the posts of public managers or institutions to evaluate political participation in terms of interaction. Studies on the impact of social media on governance and politics, support that public institutions and managers must be adopted to the participatory governance approach. However, these studies present that public institutions and managers do not use social media as supporting two-way communication, interaction and engagement. The results of these studies imply that the potential of social media is not realized in order to improve political participation in accordance with the principles of participatory democracy and governance. This study presents that the recognition of citizens as the source of communication on social media challenges the results on political participation claimed by studies focused on interaction between government and citizens. This study emphasizes that citizens’ posts on social media are more constitutive on political participation than the posts of institutions. At this point, the question of how this potential could be included in the decision making process gains importance.

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