Participación en Facebook:accesibilidad, compromiso y empoderamiento

Abstract

Recent socio-political mobilizations in North Africa, the Middle East and Western countries seem to prove that Facebook, with its over 901 million users, has prompted new forms of (online) political participation and thereby strengthened the conventional (offline) ways. The present study aims to review and systematize existing literature on the impact of this social network on participation, especially in relation to political activism. After providing insight into the success of this social medium, this paper applies the scale proposed by Macintosh (Grönlund, 2009) that identifies three levels of political participation: e-Enabling, e-Engaging and e-Empowering. Finally, as a possible overstatement of the usefulness of Facebook is observed, its limitations are also considered.