The institutionalisation of social media in politics: dynamics, applications, critiques, and challenges

Abstract

Nowadays, the role of social media in politics becomes more crucial due to the increasing importance of political communication and network technologies. Some scholars have confirmed that social media can be applied as an effective and efficient political communication instrument. However, many criticisms and challenges should be considered in social media use, particularly in regards to its informality and irregularity in the political system. This paper presents a comprehensive discussion on the dynamics of social media in politics, surrounding its applications in the policy process, critiques of its existence, as well as various challenges that might be encountered in the future. By adopting the term of 'three development stages' which are intrapreneurship, order from chaos, and the institutionalisation stage; and by reviewing various researches that have been done before, this paper argues that the 'institutionalisation' of social media becomes the main issue for the future of social media in politics.