Public Participation or Social Grooming: A Quantitative Content Analysis of a Local Social Network Site

This paper aims to empirically investigate the structure of a local social network site (SNS) by means of a quantitative content analysis. Local SNSs have recently increased in Japan. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication has supported city governments to set up local SNSs with the aim of encouraging public participation of citizens in municipal areas. However, the users of SNSs do not necessarily seem to utilize government-driven local SNSs for this purpose. The authors apply concepts of public participation and social grooming to study a local SNS. A quantitative content analysis was conducted to investigate users’ activity and latent factors that influence them. The result showed three findings. Firstly, the content of a local SNS might relate to three latent factors, namely, social grooming, civic participation, and political participation. Second, the former two factors could relate to users’ emotions. Third, compared to male users, female users might provide content that is more emotional and may be affected by the former two factors.