ABSTRACT
A cursory look at the social media profiles of poorest citizens and governmental apparatus will allow us to revisit the genealogy of the new mode of political thinking and contentious political actions triaged by cyberspace. This chapter is an introductory approach to evaluate government on social media manoeuvred on two important principles of democracy in the contemporary times: participation and deliberation. Theories of participatory and deliberative democracies are linked to open government debates. Therefore, the chapter assumes that social media initiatives of government functionaries to reach out to citizens for service deliveries ensure participatory and deliberative ideals of democracy. Extensive examples of social media platforms used by governmental apparatus are cited so as to conclude that there are open government on social media, which is different from governmental engagements in pre-Internet age.
