Can social network sites facilitate civic engagement? Assessing dynamic relationship between social media and civic activities among young people

Abstract

PurposeThe primary goal of this article is to review the existing studies and offer clarity regarding the association between social media adoption and youth civic engagement.Design/methodology/approachThis research systematically summarizes and reviews 42 original articles published from 2010 to 2019 with an objective of offering insightful results. Additionally, a theoretical framework was carefully designed by adopting various conceptions from citizen participation and computer-mediated communication research literature.FindingsThe findings demonstrate that social media usage could generally have a positive correlation with civic participation among younger generations. Moreover, the result also highlights that certain functional features of social media uses including using social media for news consumption and expression could significantly predict civic engagement.Originality/valueDespite the ever-growing importance of social media technologies, investigations on their differential, nonlinear and even inconsistent effects on civic engagement remain theoretically ambiguous and empirically unsubstantiated. The study represents one of the first scholarly attempts to review, summarize and analyze the extant research evidence from the past ten years.