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The paper intends to explore the role and function of citizen-led social media forums in the marketing of political discourse. Using the entrepreneurial marketing (EM) perspective of “co-creation of value”, this paper aims to explore the manner in which consumers of political communications in a specific region have created user generated value via setting up Facebook forums to manage the risk created by fake news and the trust deficit between citizens and mainstream media (MSM).

The paper adopts a “netnographic” approach to investigation and the data is analysed manual coding (Kozinets, 2015). Facebook groups form the virtual research field in in the context of this study. This approach is adopted because in a social media environment, netnography capitalises over a growing virtual and online communities and allows researchers to study the richness of these online communities (Mkono and Markwell, 2014).

The study provides insights on how administrators and moderators of Facebook groups create value for other users by identifying and communicating the risks emerging from social media-based political communication. The study finds that such citizen-led initiatives act as online social aggregators. The value that such groups offer its users/members resides within a well-bound, controlled and moderated online medium that encourages users to counter fake news and misinformation – thereby solving a key problem within the user market i.e. citizen-media trust deficit.

The study uses a qualitative, netnographic approach and the emerging insights cannot be generalised. The emergent findings are specific to the context of this study and researchers are encouraged to further test the propositions emerging from this research in varied contexts.

The study extends the application of EM in political contexts using the seven dimensions of EM, which will provide impetus for future political campaigns in terms of unique value creation for publics. The paper also emerges with the role citizen-initiated forums can play in the effective dissemination of digital political communication as user generated content is aiding political debate.

The study helps highlight the role Facebook forums can play in informing the political discourse within a region. The general distrust amongst the citizens over information produced by MSM has meant vocal critics have taken to Facebook to provide their subjective opinions. Although the findings of this study show that such forums can help identify “fake news” and help citizens discuss and debate the truth, it can also become an avenue to manage propaganda amongst the “unaware” citizens. This paper flags up the issues and benefits of using Facebook forums and in conclusion relates them to similar occurrences of the past to make society aware of the pitfalls of managed propaganda.

The paper takes initiative in investigating the use of social media in politics from the citizens’ perspective, which is comparatively marginalised against the number of studies taking place, which investigate the political party end use of social media for political marketing.

This paper aims to examine major stakeholders’ communication preferences in eParticipation initiatives and discuss how this affects the public sphere. Despite the potential of social media, it has proven difficult to get people actively involved in the decision-making processes. There is a need for more research on how stakeholders manage and use social media to communicate.

The study was conducted as a qualitative case study. Data sources include interviews, social media content, document analysis and field notes.

Communication preferences of stakeholders vary according to their salience level. Stakeholders with higher salience are less likely to participate in social media, whereas those who are less salient will use every available medium to gain influence. This challenges the opportunity to create a traditional public sphere in social media.

The authors contribute to a better understanding of who participates in social media and why. Stakeholder salience analysis shows that in the case of citizen-initiated eParticipation, social media cannot be seen as a Habermasian public sphere.

The authors suggest two approaches for government officials’ handling of social media: to treat social media as a channel for input and knowledge about the concerns of citizen groups and to integrate social media in the formal processes of decision making to develop consultative statements on specific policy issues.

The study shows that power and urgency are the most important salience attributes. These findings indicate that social media may not be as inclusive as early research indicates, and less active social media users may have power and influence through other channels.

The findings extend current knowledge of the public sphere by adding the stakeholder perspective in addition to existing evaluative models of the public sphere.

The purpose of this paper is to explore relatively neglected side of corruption – citizen-initiated bribe offers – to identify the degree to which citizens on the grassroots level are ready to support top-down government anti-corruption policies.

Drawing on Avessalom Podvodny’s framework of modalities, this research analyzes the results of the nationally representative survey of 1,002 respondents, and ten in-depth interviews – both held in Azerbaijan. The author uses both logistic regression and qualitative description to highlight research inferences.

Modalities provide a new way of making sense of the factors affecting corruption, and informality. Bribe offers are associated with imbalance within Local-Global, Symbol-Content, Active-Passive pairs of modalities. All of the relevant independent variables (except for one), drawn from relevant theories and organized around modalities, are statistically significant in predicting bribe offers.

The paper is able to pose and answer fundamental policy questions: why villagers in Azerbaijan prefer to invest in building mosques and cemeteries rather than schools and kindergartens? Why insurance is not perceived as a sphere of business by the Azerbaijani population? On a practical level, the paper shows that governments’ selective focus on bureaucratic graft neglects formidable argument that the problem of corruption is tightly woven into political culture of a post-Soviet society. Simple administrative measures cannot overcome fundamental value orientations within a society.

The paper adds to corruption researchers’ toolkit, by expanding research to factors affecting citizen voluntary choices to bribe. The research shows what specific variables should be considered and which of them are statistically significant in explaining citizen choices.

This paper explores the sociological, economic, and political reasons for the collapse of Venezuela's 40-year “pacted” democracy, the eight-year conflict between the country's new president and the opposition, where this conflict has led Venezuela, and what its prospects are for the near future. It proposes that the collapse of Venezuela's “ancien regime” can best be understood by an examination of the impact the rise and fall of oil prices had on its economy, society, and polity. A 20-year economic decline led to the election of Hugo Chavez, a radical outsider, who refused to play along with the country's old political class. This class, in turn, refused to accept Chavez as the legitimately elected president and launched the country on an eight-year roller-coaster ride of counter-revolution and radicalization, which recently ended with the reelection of Chavez and a massive popular endorsement for the establishment of “21st century socialism” in Venezuela. Exactly what such a project means is still unclear, but it so far involves state support for self-managed workplaces and an anti-capitalist and participatory democratic state in the midst of a still functioning capitalist economy. With the apparent defeat of obstacles that are external to the Bolivarian movement, as the pro-Chavez movement is called, such as the domestic opposition and U.S. intervention, the movement is now forced to confront its internal obstacles, such as clientelism, corruption, and personalism, if it is to succeed in the long run.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of electronization in improving the effectiveness of citizens' democratic participation in the context of e‐petitioning. With this aim, the current study worked to ascertain what influences citizens' offline and online petitioning and the extent to which electronization empowers citizens for effective e‐petitioning.

The paper uses a case study from Sutharyakeralam meaning “Transparent Keralam” to determine the extent to which e‐petitioning worked for protecting a public irrigation canal in Kerala (India). Data were obtained through in‐depth interviews with relevant government officials, journalists and petitioners who reside near the canal. Secondary data used for the case analysis consist of petitioners' documents. Using a content analysis, this paper assesses citizens' ability to participate and influence decision making.

Findings illustrate adequate citizen participation before and after the electronization of the grievance redress mechanism. Results also show if there are adequate publicizing facilities, e‐petitions can empower citizens to engage effectively in efforts to fight for their human rights.

The scope of the study is limited to exploring the determining parameters that may improve democratic participation in an issue of environmental pollution. Results imply that adequate policies to ensure the involvement of participants are essential to enable e‐government initiatives to deliver on the ideals of e‐democracy for equity and justice.

Earlier studies on e‐participation were less adequate in explaining the influence of electronization on citizens' capability for effective e‐petitioning. The current study attempts to explore the enablers of effective e‐petitioning. Drawing on the canal case study, arguments are presented that explain the possible success and failure of e‐petitioning initiatives in India.

Purpose – The purpose is to show that the influx of new seasonal and year-round residents to the small towns located in and around protected areas has numerous implications for governance associated with land management and regional planning including reconciling the competing values of wilderness (amenity vs. livelihood, motorized vs. non-motorized recreation, active vs. passive land management).

Methodology/approach – We use case studies from the Adirondack Park in Northern New York State and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in the western United States to demonstrate the land management and governance challenges facing local communities in and around internationally renowned, protected areas.

Findings – We highlight how these transforming communities meet diverse needs and competing interests and how partnering with a non-governmental organization benefits local governance issues.

Originality/value of chapter – The paper presents research from the United States, which theoretically and empirically contributes to the scientific discourse on exurbanization, protected areas, and governance.

This study observes the organisational environment of fostering citizen participation in the context of local government. Creating systems of influential citizen participation requires the consideration of organisational prerequisites. This study asks which organisational elements contribute to successful citizen participation in local government.

The data consist of interviews with 14 key actors who work for the city of Helsinki. The interview content was subjected to abductive content analysis and reflected in the analytical framework based on previous literature on citizen participation. The analysis complements and adds insights to the existing literature.

This study illuminates three crucial elements of influential citizen participation: organisational structures, organisational culture and adequate resources. Additionally, the results revealed management to be a crucial enabling element. The findings highlight the importance of seeing citizen participation as an issue of governance and as a systemic part of the administration requiring intentional management efforts.

The study illustrates the key elements (structures, culture and resources) that should be considered when creating an influential citizen participation system. Additionally, the empirical analysis highlights the importance of management, which has been understudied in previous studies concerning citizen participation.

The purpose of this study was to examine the information needs and sources of electorates in Nigeria and identify challenges electorates faced when obtaining electoral information and news.

The study adopts the description survey design and hypothesized the information needs and sources on demographic variables such as age, sex and academic qualification. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. A quantitative approach used based on a questionnaire completed by 236 respondents and a snow ball nonprobability sampling technique was used in this study. The research adapted Wilson 1999 theory of information seeking behavior.

The findings identified five information needs that are of interest to the electorates: registration of voter, level of security, right as a voter, manifestoes and candidate profile. It was discovered that WhatsApp, Facebook and friends were sources electorates used most in obtaining election-related news and information. The research went further to streamline the number of times such election-related news and information items were sought in a day and week; it was discovered that the manual system still dominated with the print newspaper rather than Twitter, WhatsApp, friends and colleagues and Facebook. The young person used social media most as source of information compared to aged respondents in Nigeria. Thekre is increasing in women participating in political and electoral information. Formal education does not have significant impact on the usage of election information and news. Language barrier, erratic power supply, expensive network service and no knowledge of where to source for information proved to be challenges electorates faced when seeking election-related news and information.

This research will help to keep abreast of the information electorate needs and how they get such information. This research is limited to small group of electorates.

This paper includes more information about the electorates and political parties information needs.

The finding was drawn from limited respondents that were ready to participate in the research by responding to various questions in the questionnaire. Therefore, there is need for further study to consider a wider population scope on information-related research of electorate in Nigeria.

This research was carried out by Ayinde Lateef; Keriafe D.E. and Fatima Ghayen.