Impact of Artificial Intelligence Based Social Capital on Civic Engagement in an Environment of Changing Technology: Development of a Theoretical Framework

The field of civic engagement is at its cross-roads with more volunteers opting out of the activities recently. The problem is further compounded with a number of challenges that have affected the civic engagement movement. In addition, changing technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) have brought in new problems like lack of user understanding of the technology leading to confusion in the minds of people leading to questions on their participation in civic engagement activities. On the one hand technology is touted to be a very useful tool for human beings while on the other lack of understanding on how to use and employ the technology has the potential to drive away people leading to disengagement of people from civic engagement knowledge about which is lacking in the literature. This paper has thus tried to fill this gap in the literature through the method of literature review and developing a conceptual model that is based on the relationship between civic engagement and social media characterized by AI (a factor representing social capital). The research has brought into play the role of knowledge sharing, trust and value in the relationship between social capital and civic engagement characterized by AI. A theoretical model has been developed and hypothesis have been posited. Since this is work in progress this paper should be viewed as a contribution to the theoretical aspects surrounding civic engagement.