Clicktivism and Control: The Governance Illusion in the Social Media Era.

Abstract

In the classical administrative era of the early 2000s, governance systems depended heavily on structured feedback loops—documentary, hierarchical, and mediated through multiple bureaucratic layers—to assess the impact of policies and programmes on target groups. Yet, such inputs were often filtered, adjusted, or diluted to suit institutional comfort zones, leaving critical shortcomings unaddressed. With the rise of social media, e-governance tools, and networked governance paradigms, a new form of public feedback has emerged.

This paper argues that social media enables immediate, visible, and largely unmediated channels of citizen input, compelling traditional bureaucracies to acknowledge that digital narratives can no longer be ignored or suppressed. In this sense, social media appears to bridge key governance gaps by allowing primary stakeholders to signal failures in policy design or implementation and by pressuring policymakers to respond for reasons of legitimacy and public optics. 

However, this shift is double-edged. While scholarship shows that social media can enhance transparency, facilitate citizen–state interaction, and strengthen accountability, research on “clicktivism” reveals that low-effort digital engagement may create an illusion of participation without substantive impact. Studies from Sri Lanka and Nigeria indicate that although social media mobilises awareness, its capacity to generate sustained civic engagement or policy change is modest. Thus, this paper examines whether social media-driven feedback mechanisms genuinely reform governance processes or merely construct a governance illusion. It concludes that the central challenge for democratic governance is converting online voice into offline accountability.