Social media and political involvement in Cambodia

Abstract A total of 1,300 students in Cambodia were surveyed regarding their opinions on social media and political trust, their feelings regarding social media use, engagement on social media, and interactive relationships with social media. Also, it was conducted using a questionnaire-based quantitative approach. Additionally, it employed a statistical dataset analysis using bivariate and multivariate techniques to understand its operation better. The study founds a significant correlation between trust in the political organization and political engagement. Moreover, it suggests that promoting civic engagement in social media contributes to building trust between governments and citizens. It is also possible to express political views and discuss social issues on social media.


Introduction
Trusting people to a certain degree is a fundamental concern for democratic administration, political life, political stability, and public management. Additionally, to maintaining democratic legitimacy and security, public confidence plays a critical role in enabling legislators to promote social cooperation, gain citizen compliance, provide resources for collective action without intimidation, and create an environment conducive to successful political leadership (Feldheim & Wang, 2004; J. Y. Kim, 2005;K. Yang & Holzer, 2006;Keele, 2007; S. Kim, 2010;Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006). With attention to new public service theories which emphasize the acceptance of government function in responding to general needs and concerns for contributing expressively to society and building trust with one another (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015). Competent and responsive governance is achieved through collaborative efforts, collaborative processes, sharing interests, accountability, and leadership with the people served.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bora LY is a senior lecturer Regional Polytechnic Institute Techo Sen Siem Reap, Cambodia. The research interests include public administration, governance, social behavior, and sustainable issues.

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Social media transformed global communication. It has increased disinformation and hate speech but also democratizes public dialogue and diversifies popular media. The study revealed that social media has a significant impact on Cambodian millennials. In addition, there is evidence that social media participation in politics can enhance citizen-government trust. Thus, social media facilitates social and political discourse.
As can be seen, with the growth of the internet and mobile networks, information transparency and new technologies have become inevitable factors affecting government perceptions of the public (Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006;Welch et al., 2004). For this reason, political trust is a significant indicator of communication between the government and citizens. At the same time, it is also beneficial to increase public responses to government policy and political dissatisfaction. Additionally, social media is a way to connect with families and friends. Therefore, social media channels are becoming a way to communicate in general, even with public and private organizations. By understanding this new trend, governments worldwide are beginning to employ social media to interact with their people. According to studies, institutional consequences have been affected by using social media, which leads to alleviating corruption and contributes to accountability and openness of public services (Bertot et al., 2012;Bonsón et al., 2012;Picazo-Vela et al., 2012). As a result, most of the studies are trying to explore how widespread social media could raise the level of youth involvement in politics and public participation (Bode et al., 2014;Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2012;Valenzuela et al., 2012).
Identically, social media has been a popular means of accessing and communicating with growing crowds. Individuals, corporations, and actors have used their influence in certain situations, but the government has been reluctant to expand social media as publicity. What is the administration unwilling to accept? Organizations can rely increasingly on social media to monitor online debates and consider citizens' desires. Also, the value of social media lies with people, and understanding what people say is of the utmost importance. It ensures that once they have a better view of the environment, they can enable their connectivity through social intelligence to handle and interpret citizen data from social media so that their programs will become successful. An active social media site may be a robust platform for disseminating information to those who need it.
Similarly, the government must do more by developing a large follow-up base to connect and strengthen a post. It is essential because it offers valuable information and input into the resources provided to people. Despite these concerns, this information will potentially contribute to saving lives-the government should express the value of social media channels to build a public uprising that can lead to broader adoption. Thus, Feeney and Brown (2017) claim that local administrations differ significantly in the utilization of technology because of the internet propositions openings for direct connection.
In Cambodia, social media sites have been present since early 2008 and reflect the shape of politics. Social media sites such as Facebook gained popularity during the parliamentary election in 2013. F. Greenwood (2013) reports through the electoral drive that the Facebook page was broadcasted frequently with dialogues and posts prompting the citizens to poll. As a result, Chan (2015) indicates that political views are the most common practice on social media, in general, and are the avenue for voicing political and social issues (Vong & Hok, 2018).
According to Digital Cambodia (2019), there are internet users account for 12.5 million (76%), active social media 8.4 million (51%), and mobile social media users account for 8.1 million (49%) among the nations of the Cambodian population, which accounted for 16.36 million. Surprisingly, Cambodian's political interaction on social has become popular activity since the 2013 national election. As noted, the rapid increase in internet and mobile phone usage has led to a paradigm shift in citizen-government engagement. Notably, On 15 October 2015, Prime Minister Hun Sen established an official government Facebook page for citizens to express their opinions and concerns. As a result, the government's deliberate changes are being used by Cambodian citizen who is active on social media (Phong et al., 2016). The following section will elaborate on participation in democratic processes, social trust, social media, discussion, and conclusion.

Participating democracy
Many political theorists emphasize that active participation in political affairs is a crucial and normative requirement of a democratic society. For example, J.S.Mill contended that citizens could see their neighbors as a group of the same interest rather than as competitors because of scarce resources to promote a shared sense of citizens' interest. Donner (1991) mentioned that he "never thinks of any collective interest, of any objects to be pursued jointly with others but only in competition with them, and in some measure at their expense" (p.201). Additionally, participatory democracy scholars have thought that plenty of involvement through voting is fundamental to legitimated democracy.
Similarly, advocates of participatory democracy have resisted the theory of elitism of pluralism and competitive capitalism, which emphasized the elite rule with the least active involvement of the public. Besides, participating democrats have released a series of ideas on how to encourage public participation. Significantly, one of the most critical thinkers in developing the concept of participatory democracy, Carol Pateman, claims that "participatory democracy fosters human development, enhances a sense of political efficacy, reduces a sense of estrangement from power centers, nurtures a concern for collective problems and contributes to the formation of an active and knowledgeable citizenry capable of taking a more active interest in government affairs" (Webb et al., 2006, p. 14).
As a result, a series of ideas on how to encourage public participation has been presented through democratic participation. Therefore, two notions particularly relate to this consideration of social media and political trust: involvement in a rational and deliberative discourse on political issues (Scammell & Semetko, 2000). These two activities work together to support the goals of the participating democrats with better known and active citizenship. By participating in rational discussions with colleagues, citizens educate themselves and others and reach an agreement that represents the common good in an ideal world. In the same way, by participating in small groups, citizens learn to lay the foundation for such considerations and consider themselves as influential people of a larger group. Under those circumstances, these two notions are facing difficulty: solid ties with small clusters can energize social clashes inside society and undermine reasonable talk and the idea of the entire nation. Additionally, these tensions raise essential issues on the role of social media in promoting politically active citizenship. Accordingly, social media is a social and gloomy space that can strengthen political cooperation and deepen sectarian violence in society.

Social trust and political participation
Trust is an ambiguous term for complex and multi-dimensional concepts (Feldheim & Wang, 2004;Grimmelikhuijsen, 2012). However, as a critical factor of social capital, social trust is generally associated with citizen participation and is considered essential to the functional performance of a democratic society (Burns et al., 2000;Putnam, 2000). Rosenberg (1956) argues that typical social trust can be determined as the natural boldness of individuals to human characteristics, especially human trust humans. Also, Halpern (2005) identified by measuring the term that most local or national communities trust each other. Also, Bäck and Kestil view trust in government institutions and representatives resulting from trusting others. Similarly, political trust is the connection between the government and the public from the individual citizen's viewpoint. Therefore, trust in government implies a person's conviction that the legislature works in their best interest.
To enumerate, one believes that online activities are unsuccessful in shaping political change and people's consideration of offline politics increases the paradigm as a valuable participation model. Putnam (2000) believes that this model of citizen participation is the key to citizen participation, which is essential for maintaining democracy (Putnam et al., 1994). Moreover, the connection between the government, democratic system, and internet-based, as treated by online communication, has not been concentrated experimentally within political theory, sociology, or communications. Consequently, these two ideas can be shaped into a typology of trust and engagement, which can be examined using the form of online interaction to define the relationship between the government and the open citizen perspective. This observation indicates that the relationship between political trust and citizen participation is contingent on the form of the engagement gesture. Therefore, this work suggests that: H1: There is a positive relationship between trust in the political institution and political engagement.

Social media and political participation
The core purpose of social media is to collect online and offline social capital and to continue and improve the online and offline social media that citizens use (Ellison et al., 2007). Comparatively, the internet-based platform has become a tremendous factor in governmental issues and civics in decisions, spreading data, getting enactment and appeal support, and other political exercises (Kahne et al., 2014). For this reason, social media platforms are progressively utilized by public domains to promote user communication and play a crucial tool in reaching a large number of citizens (Mainka et al., 2014).
Equally important, social capital has been described as a relational partnership between personal and social media and the shared benefit and trust rules that emanate from them (Putnam, 2000). It is incorporated into social media rather than individual goods, and resources should be available by "direct or indirect ties" (Lin, 1982(Lin, , p. 132, 1999(Lin, , 2001. In addition to Lin (2008), social capital has been comprehensively known by numerous social researchers as networking based. Through social media and relationships, people can adopt or have other people's resources (such as wealth, power, or reputation) (Lin, 2008). Therefore, social capital should be built up to its likelihood of producing benefits-a resource pool embedded in social media-with the expectation that you have more or more prosperous interests (Lin, 2008). In conclusion, Lean's new capitalist course to social capital aims to uphold and extend social media as a resource.
Indeed, online networking has changed how political correspondence happens in Cambodia (Thun, 2014). In this case, political institutions, political parties, ideological groups, organizations, and governmental research organizations generally utilize online social media boards to communicate with citizens. Another critical point is that the internet-based platform has become a tremendous factor in governmental issues and civics in decisions, spreading data, getting enactment and appeal support, and other political exercises (Kahne et al., 2014). Moreover, social media platforms are progressively utilized by public domains to promote user communication and play a crucial tool in reaching a large number of citizens (Mainka et al., 2014). Social media studies conducted by various scholars have contributed experimental evidence that using social media could increase offline and online social users (Ellison et al., 2007;Steinfield et al., 2008;Valenzuela et al., 2009;Y. M. Kim & Geidner, 2008). As an illustration, online communication is noticeable, as reported by the Pew Research Center (Anderson & Perrin, 2017;Conrads & Reggiani, 2017;S. Greenwood et al., 2016). Politicians, commentators, and decision-makers can also express their opinions, join a broad network, and connect with like-minded people. Equally, sources of information are widely spreading on social media (Papacharissi, 2015), a mutual interaction in a user-contended space (Bechmann & Lomborg, 2013), and the critical gateway for political publicity.
Also, social media is a tool to mobilize and inform users and can change the political engagement with their citizens. For this reason, users can communicate directly with government officials and interact with political activities in new ways. Notably, engineers customize every online networking platform in code, making a unique computerized design that impacts how politicians and residents can utilize it for political culminations (Bossetta, 2018). To point out, Soeung (2013) noted that "social media has created a nascent and more pluralistic online political environment where Cambodians exchange different political viewpoints freely" (p.2). Additionally, Meyn (2013, p. 1) noted that "the rapid spread of social media is altering Cambodia's political landscape, and the old guard is struggling to keep up." Younger people seem more engaged in the media world (Ellison et al., 2007) and are more likely to be critical of government institutions in the media they see and post. Research in the US indicates that younger people view online media as more credible, meaning social media reporting significantly impacts this audience (T. J. Johnson & Kaye, 2000). Thus, social media is widely used among millennials in developed countries and developing countries (Ahmad et al., 2019). Based on these arguments, this work suggests that:

Method
This study was conducted to determine how social media users (students) perceive the current situation and respond to and trust local governments. Also, these informants were well-considered and regularly active on social media. Furthermore, bivariate and multivariate analyses of the dataset were conducted to understand its behavior better. Therefore, this work decided to employ a quantitative approach since it provides an in-depth explanation and evaluation of relationships between variables (Bloomfield & Fisher, 2019). This method aimed to examine the relationships between variables in a study using numerical data from respondents (R. B. Johnson & Christensen, 2019). In addition to providing ease of administration, cost efficiency, and minimal bias, quantitative surveys can provide researchers with a quick means to gather feedback from many participants (Mgqibi & Sines, 2020). Equally, the sampling methods used in this study were convenience sampling techniques, which were convenient and available (Bryman, 2016) to Cambodian students through an online self-administered questionnaire. Under local regulations or institutional requirements, the study did not require ethics review or permission. Participants were informed not to provide personal information or identification in the questionnaire. Participants completed a consent form after they were adequately informed about the study. In addition, SPSS version 25 was used for statistical analysis. As a result, 1,300 questionnaires returned in response to the survey.

Dependent variable
A dependent variable is established by taking the trust level of local political entities. The respondents are asked how much they trust the local government coded on a 4-point scale from "not at all" (0) to "a lot" (3). Respondents expressed "somewhat trusted" (M = 1.52, SD =.53).

Social media
Social media utilization is the key independent variable. People are asked how often they receive news from social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter . . .). However, Facebook is the most widely used social media among Cambodian youth in terms of dissemination of political information, as compared to other social media, such as Twitter. Also, LinkedIn primarily serves the purpose of facilitating communications and job searches. Therefore, social media, particularly Facebook, was the most used method of participation in politics by the respondents to the survey. Similarly, respondents were asked to indicate their media frequency on a 4-point scale from "less than once a month" (0) to "every day" (3). The informants responded, "few times a week" (M = 2.37, SD =.57).
Political discussion is the second type of control variable. It was coded into three levels from "No" (0) to "Yes" (2) with the result of "Maybe" (M = .80, SD =.72). The following variable is freedom of expression, which was coded into a 5-point from "not at all free" (0) to "prefer not to say" (4), yet the result revealed, "somewhat free" (M = 2.14, SD = 1.25). The frequency of politically posted trustworthiness is also a control variable that was coded into 3-point from "some time" (0) to "always" (2) with the result of "sometimes" (M = .31, SD =.64). Finally, social media helps citizens communicate with political leaders/local government is coded into 3-point from "No" (0) to "Yes" (2) with the result of "Yes" (M = 1.80, SD =.45).

Analysis
Turning to the findings, we continue with the online interactive form to assess the relationship between the government and the open citizen viewpoint. Although to analyze this, we analyzed the usage of social services with political trust in the results as a first step, as the dependent variables are more than one survey item (4-point scale from "not at all" to "a lot" in the trust within the local government), this work approximates models for Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). Therefore, it enters the models using social media as a variable and reports the results (see Table 1).
We also evaluate ordinal logit models for a robustness test and generate similar results (the results of ordinal logit models may be accessed on request). The dependent variable is the local government's trust. The primary independent variable, the coefficient of use in social media, is positive and statistically significant (Coef = 0.162, p < .001). Also, individual predictors are positive and statistically significant, including freedom of expression (Coef = 0.045, p < .001), and social media help citizens communicate with political leaders/local government (Coef = 0.110, p < .001), which contribute to the whole model. Thus, the findings revealed a substantial correlation between trust in the political institution and political engagement, which indicated the support of the entire H1 model.
Next, we present the model under which the effects of the bivariate analysis are discussed. We regress separately between the predictor variables and political trust. The beta coefficient indicates the level of political trust changes as the indicator variable changes with one unit. As a result, the age group is negative and statistically significant (Coef= − 0.071, p < .001). It implies that when the age group of usage becomes so high, the positive effect reduces slightly. Location and education are not essential to contribute to the whole model. However, the social media use coefficient is positive and statistically significant (Coef = 0.147, p < .001). Also, occupation (Coef = 0.075, p < .001), freedom of expression (Coef = 0.047, p < .001), and social media help citizens communicate with political leaders/ local government (Coef = 0.113, p < .001) are positive and statistically significant contributed to the whole model. Thus, the findings revealed a substantial correlation between trust in the political institution and age group, which indicated the support of H2 in the entire model (see Table 2). Additionally, to test H3, the study employed Multiple Regression Models, considering the frequency of social media usage as the leading independent variable (see Table 3). According to the findings in the model, there are positive and statistically significant (Coef = 0.168, p < .001). Furthermore, individual predictors showed that social media helps citizens communicate with political leaders/local government is also positive and statistically significant (Coef = 0.108, p < .001), contributing to the whole model. However, political discussion and frequency of political discussion variables are not significant predictors of the overall model. Thus, the findings revealed a substantial correlation between the time consumed on social media and online social capita, which indicated the support of H3 as the whole model.

Discussions
This study aimed to explore the relationship between social media use and political involvement among Cambodian students by focusing on individual perceptions. Though most informants were undergraduate students between 18 and 24, these findings may provide insight into the Cambodian  millennial generation. Several studies suggest that young people actively utilize new technologies, particularly the internet and social media. Besides, they argue that youth, especially university students who are considered well-educated, use social media sites to socialize and engage in political discourse (Duggan & Brenner, 2013; H. C. Yang & DeHart, 2016;Hamat et al., 2012).
Consequently, trust in political institutions and engagement are significantly correlated findings in this study. In this regard, civilians could communicate with political leaders and local governments through social media. As a result, it facilitates the interaction between administrative bodies and individuals. Also, it revolutionized how people communicated across historical, social, political, and geographical barriers. In the past, gatekeepers have mitigated and mediated access to social media outlets; anyone, and any content, could reach millions of people simultaneously. As a result, it offers tremendous opportunities for democratizing public discourse and diversifying popular media, but it has also exacerbated the impact of misinformation and hate speech.
Consequently, the outcomes bolster the argument that media play a crucial role in developing residents' democratic citizenship. Accordingly, media use improves democratic socialization and prompts a more prominent contribution to political practices. In addition, the buzzwords debating on the government representatives and officials should consider their communication with each other, and citizen is generally focused on transparency.
It is commonly understood that political trust refers to how the government (including elected and appointed officials and civil servants) works on behalf of individual interests. Particularized confidence rather than general trust will be reached from a person to a particular element. Identically, M. J. Hetherington (1998) explained political belief as "a basic evaluative orientation toward the government founded on how well the government is operating according to people's normative expectations" (p.791). Social order is trustworthiness in the institution, with attention to the significant component of democracy (Kuenzi, 2008;M. J. Hetherington, 1998;Misztal, 2013). The most compelling evidence is that the presence of a country with an irregular political reputation can increase the credibility of an apparent political foundation of that state, which could improve extraordinary economic performance and popularity. Caballero and Soto-Oñate (2015) referred to this as the component of comprehending the progression of institutional behavior in society. The previous study has demonstrated the significance of political trust in diverse traditions (M. Hetherington & Husser, 2012).
In this regard, showing political trust sets the level of provision for compliance (Marien & Hooghe, 2011), the awareness of corruption environment (Wroe et al., 2013), and touches civilians' assessment of government representatives (Seyd, 2015). The indication displays that political trust is substantial. Notably, Confucius' philosophy is also rooted in his belief that a ruler should rely upon weapons, food, and faith. In the short run, grains and arms, while political trust, is the key to preserving long-term (Newton et al., 2018). The concept of political trust may be understood as the desire for the political establishment to act in the interest of citizens. This way, trust is a fundamental factor in the worthiness of civic associations (Aarts et al., 2012).
Similarly, cooperation with civil society in government activities can strengthen government agencies and allow them to do more work directly to the "performance-oriented dialogue" between public servants and their people for expanding services area through feedback from the citizenry (Arnstein, 1969;Holzer & Kim, 2008, p. 21;Schorr & Stevens, 2011). Undoubtedly, correspondence of supporting procedures among government organizations and the public promote an open discussion and affect the citizen building up an increasingly great perspective on government authorities and office forms (Kang & Gearhart, 2010). Furthermore, there is a potential for these authorities and government issues to grow and evolve when government agents view it as an essential business far from public viewpoints. In other words, citizen participation changes the power of politicians, informal politicians, and bureaucrats to the commonalities. For this reason, civic engagement is a way to improve the strength of politicians, friendly politicians, and administrators to the citizen (Campbell, 2005).
It should be argued that the link between the public administration and the community should be strengthened and empowered. It is also crucial for government agencies to engage society and people to discuss policy improvements and set community development goals (Holzer & Kim, 2008). Among the advantages of expansion is that such effort inclines to surge the sense of citizenry, which can prompt more noteworthy support for government endeavors.
The study also revealed that social media usage and political trust for the age group are correlated. However, compared to this, the favorable impact marginally declines since the age group is too large. However, the location and education seem not to be marginalized. Furthermore, the findings revealed that the time consumed on social media and online social capita are correlated but not frequently for political purposes. Thus, this research aligned with the previous study on political participation on social media, a common practice in Cambodia and used as online social capital (Asia Foundation, 2015;Chan, 2015). Equally, it is essential to realize that social media and/or Facebook integration incorporates offline social contexts like family, school, work, and other social activities that allow Facebook features alone because heterogeneous friends can expose individuals to different content (Bakshy et al., 2015). With this in mind, wellthought democracy is based on extensive public relations but has been approved as a central issue for decision-making in the "market-place of ideas" (Bakshy et al., 2015(Bakshy et al., , 1132. Moreover, when an individual is wholly exposed to people or limited information to strengthen their credibility, democracy will deteriorate (Bakshy et al., 2015).

Conclusion
Ultimately, the study found that social media significantly impacts millennials in Cambodia. Equally, the selected sample of students actively using social media is better informed about government issues. As a result, it facilitates communication between respondents and political issues, specifically, their local government. Additionally, this finding suggests that encouraging political participation in social media can enhance citizen-government trust. Hence, social media provide an opportunity for individuals to express their political opinions and discuss social issues.

Limitations and future research
There are a few limitations to this study that should be considered when evaluating its results. First, since the conceptual ideas presented in this study are generic at the local level, they require more contextual approaches at the national or regional level. Therefore, it is essential to conduct further research to compare social media and political trust based on contextual factors. In addition, since the study used only quantitative methods, it is difficult to analyze the factors that led students to engage in political discussion more deeply. Therefore, future research should consider qualitative and quantitative approaches to understand these findings more deeply.