Participative Communication of Citizens through Social Media as Evaluation of Development Programs

ABSTRACT : Social media has become a new medium that is used effectively in communicating between government officials and citizens. Community participation in providing input to government development programs can be conveyed through this new media. The purpose of this study is to analyze the communication of citizen participation in Indonesia, especially in Bekasi City through social media in providing input and evaluation of local City Government development programs. The research method uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative virtual ethnographic approaches with the help of Nvivo software. The results showed that participative communication from community was more dominated by complaints about development programs carried out by local governments. Complaints were giving input and or questions which criticizesabout programs that are considered not running well. Social media has proven to be a means for citizens to be used as tools in communicating with the government, because it is more effective and efficient. However, sustainability and responses from city government are not fast enough in responding to the input and complaints submitted. Therefore, this study recommends that local government can respond quickly to complaints and input from the public. Social media accounts created by the government must be managed properly, so that input from the public can also be inventoried as part of the evaluation of the development program carried out.
KEYWORDS : Evaluation, development, participatory communication, social media