Social Media Enabled E-Participation: Review and Agenda for Future Research

This study presents a review of the current state-of-research on e-participation through social media, and classifies the current literature with respect to four broad aspects, namely, stakeholder, theoretical background, context, and research method. Each of these aspects is elaborated with the discussion on benefits and challenges of using social media in e-participation. Further, an integrated conceptual framework is developed by consolidating the major theories identified in the literature. Our analysis indicates that though social media are considered as promising media for promoting e-participation, the benefits of e-participation are not realized yet, owing to the extant challenges. Accordingly, the study proposes five key areas for future research, which are theoretically valuable and practically relevant to both e-participation researchers and policy makers.