Social Media Usage in e-Government: Evidence from Suriname

Social Media has made its’ way of playing an important role in e-Government implementation strategies. Many governments include social media as a tool to approach and engage its’ citizens, to increase transparency, trust and online participation. Although social media is not yet fully understood by governments on how to effectively utilize social media as a tool to be beneficial to the government and the general public. This research focuses on the Social Media activity of the Government Departments of Suriname. With around 1.9 billion active users, Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms in the world. This study furthers analyzes how active social media accounts are being used by the departments and how online users respond to departmental online activities. In order to achieve the goal of this paper, the 14 social media accounts of Suriname government departments will be taken as a case study. Several accounts indicate that government to citizen engagement show much potential for citizens’ active online participation. While the use of social media in e-Government initiatives is a feasible approach to successful implementation, there are still some improvement governments should take into consideration to increase online participation and fulfilling the needs of their citizens.