Proliferation and diminution of social media usage for civic engagement by NGOs

The current study has analyzed the factors responsible for theproliferation and decrease of social media usage for civic engagementviz. volunteerism. Before determining the use of social media it isimportant to know what hinders Internet usage. So, effect of other mediausage (print, television, telephone, radio and face to facecommunication) on frequency of Internet usage was determined onweekdays and weekends. Gamma test was used to determine the kindof relation between frequency of different media usage and Internetusage. Statistical analysis proved that spending time on any other mediadoes not lower the frequency of Internet usage on both weekdays andweekends. Four factors were studied those may initiate people tovolunteer such as learning volunteerism from parents, affiliation ofreligion/ community , learning volunteerism from friends and self-motivation. Friedman test proved that most of the respondents volunteerbecause they are ‘self- motivated’ to help others while ‘learningvolunteerism from friends’ motivated them least to participate in offlinecivic engagement. Effect of various factors on online civic engagementis also measured such as previous offline civic engagement, lack oftime, perception regarding the utility of social media for volunteerism,non- usage of social media by other members of the NGO and computerproficiency. Friedman test was used to determine the most dominantfactor responsible for online civic engagement. Results revealed thatamong these five factors ‘previous offline civic engagement’ of therespondents motivated them most to use social media for civic engagement. On the other hand, online civic engagement has embracedthe diminution because of ‘non- usage of social media by other membersof the NGO’. Friedman test was again used to determine the features ofsocial media which deterred and promoted civic participation. Analysisrevealed that ‘Affordability’ as a feature of social media has motivatedNGOs most and ‘anonymity of identity’ discouraged the most to use thismedium for civic engagement. Results of the current study are also linkedwith theories such as self- determination theory and theory of evolution