13th European Conference on eGovernment – ECEG 2013 1 | Page 30

Hany Abdelghaffar and Lobna Sameer

The R value is above 0.5 meaning that there is a high probability that any changes in the independent variable would affect the dependent variable by 73 % change.

Table 4: Regression analysis

6. Discussion, recommendations and limitations

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter played a vital role in the Egyptian revolution and almost all of the Arab spring revolutions. During the uprisings, protestors organized themselves mainly through the use of such networks and through mobile phone SMSs( Arthur, 2011). In hopes of controlling the uprisings in Egypt, the government cut down internet and mobile phone services completely for few days( Arthur, 2011;( Shenker, 2011). When the services were back again, the government in vain used mobile SMSs as a counter weapon and sent anti‐revolutionary messages in hopes of controlling the protestors( Shenker, 2011). These events demonstrate how the protestors were able o utilize social networking to enforce democratic change, and raises the question on wither social networks could become a governmental tool to improve democracy in any country.

This paper proposed a hypothetical model to investigate how social networks could be used by governments to support decision making on the local government level, and to enhance the e‐democracy process. The research provided a theoretical contribution by validating the proposed model. Findings confirmed that awareness building( β = 0.657, p < 0.05) is the highest independent factor that significantly affect the local government decision making. Respondents thought that the use of social networks to spread awareness of political issues would help the decision makers in their decisions. The explanation is that when citizens are aware of their local issues, they are able better to form a precise opinion and exercise political pressure on the decision maker. Respondents believed that consultation( β = 0.612, p < 0.05) would improve the local decisionmaking as the government could ask citizens for their input on a certain issue and consequently would be used to form a decision.

While study participants believe social networks could facilitate the organization of campaigns( β = 0.580, p < 0.05) as is also practically evident in the use of social networks for organization and communication during the Arab springs revolutions( Arthur, 2011), they also believed virtual campaigning would not have much effect on local decision making if it is not successfully transferred from the virtual world to real life. Community building is thought to affect local decision making( β = 0.569, p < 0.05). When citizens form communities and unify their opinion in some major directions, it makes it easier for them to channel their opinions to the government. Accordingly, the government would be able to expect and analyze the opinions of each of the communities they govern and thus would be able to make better decisions.

The variable that have the most insignificance impact on decision‐making is deliberation( β = 0.245, p = 0.791). Respondents agreed that the use of a social network to debate on matters of interest with other citizens is of the least importance to decision‐making. This is because deliberation allows discussion members to argue about different viewpoints without a mechanism to facilitate reaching a final decision that could then be communicated to the government. Respondents believed that information provision( β = 0.396, p = 0.665) from the government to the citizens would not influence the decision making of the government. The reason is that the simple act of providing information could be faced by a passive reception by citizens and this it would not affect decision making. On the other hand, information provision is significantly correlated with awareness building as sharing information is essential to build awareness which is a factor that can significantly affect decision making.

Recommendations

The research suggests recommendations for politicians and practitioners for the effective use of social networks in local e‐democracy. Social networks could be used by governments to improve the e‐democracy process on the local government level which would improve their decision making. Consequently, this would lead to reducing the gap between government decisions and citizens’ expectations. Governments could use social networks to facilitate increase awareness of vital issues among citizens and support citizens in building

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