Virtual Civil Society: How Nigerian NGOs Utilize Social Media Platforms.

The role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in emerging democracies has been widely discussed within the literature. In fact, democratic theorists have long cited the importance of civic activity within a strong democracy. NGOs are one part of a larger civil society sector that might contribute to democratization. The strategies and tools NGOs utilize in order to make these contributions have expanded significantly in the past two decades, as digital connectivity and then social networking platforms became available to a greater portion of the global population. NGOs are increasingly connecting with stakeholders, volunteers, supporters, and beneficiaries via social media platforms, and can now build social capital within the digital sector. The question, however, remains as to whether these groups are successfully contributing to a vibrant civil society through these online networks. While many studies have considered if and how various organizations utilize social media, little research has been conducted on the use of social media within the developing world, where the process of democratization is often still underway. This paper takes a first look at whether and how NGOs within a democratizing state, Nigeria, are utilizing social media by considering the use of Facebook and Twitter by 1988 Nigerian NGOs. Additionally, we analyze Twitter feed content from 151 Nigerian NGOs, considering the level of interactivity of these tweets. We find that, as expected, few Nigerian NGOs in our data set are utilizing social media at all and that when groups do use Twitter, they tend to do so in a way that is more consistent with one-way communication, rather than in a more interactive way. However, while the majority of tweets represent one-way communication, we find that the level of interactivity in terms of tweets is generally higher than what others have found with similar organizations in the United States. Thus, while few NGOs in Nigeria appear to utilize social media, those that do seems to be somewhat more interactive in their usage than we might expect given previous research on nonprofit organizations in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]