Paradoxes of Deliberative Interactions on Government-Managed Social Media: Evidence from China

Abstract

The presence of government agencies on increasingly popular social media platforms potentially enables interactions that go beyond one-way government-to-citizen information or service provision, and include citizen-to-citizen open interactions. These interactions can either contribute to deliberative practices, characterized by mutual understanding, reasonableness, and cross-opinion exposure, or hinder them, resulting in increased homophily and polarization. Using the theoretical lens of public deliberation, this study investigates attitudinal and cognitive aspects of user conversations on government-managed social media accounts. Drawing on a survey of 417 users of the Chinese social media platform Weibo, data show that, on the one hand, general conversations between users are characterized by homophily and polarization, even though participants tend to perceive their own interactions as deliberative in some key aspects; and, on the other hand, that participants in conversations on government-managed Weibo accounts -- which are used to a low extent -- perceive their interactions as less deliberative. Findings contribute to research and practice of government social media management aimed at citizen engagement.