Civic Participation on Digital Platforms

Civic Participation on Digital Platforms


Smorgunov L.V.

Dr. Sci. (Philos.), Professor, Head of the Political Governance Department, the Faculty of Political Science at the St. Petersburg State University l.smorgunov@spbu.ru

Ignatjeva O.A.

Cand. Sci. (Sociol.), Assoc. Prof., Chair of Political Governance Department, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia. o.a.ignatyeva@spbu.ru

ID of the Article:


This work was supported with a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (grant 19-18-00210 “Political ontology of digitalization: Study of institutional bases for digital forms of governability”).


For citation:

Smorgunov L.V., Ignatjeva O.A. Civic Participation on Digital Platforms. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2021. No 7. P. 101-112




Abstract

The role of digital platforms as intermediaries in the interaction of citizens and political institutions is investigated. The aim of the study is to identify the relationship between the ecology of the use of platforms, the activity of their use and the trust in political institutions. The testing of hypotheses is based on the data of a field study in 2019 – a survey of 1200 citizens in the 10 most developed regions of Russia in terms of the use of digital public services. It was revealed that the use of platforms and trust in institutions are mainly influenced by three factors – efficiency, safety and affordance. The use of platforms is determined to a greater extent by affordance than efficiency and security, then the trust in institutions is more influenced by efficiency and security. At the same time, the actual technical parameters of use, expressed in the affordances, have an impact only in the early stages of interaction, yielding in the future to efficiency and safety.


Keywords
civic participation; collaboration; digital platforms; trust; legitimacy; efficiency; security; affordances

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Content No 7, 2021