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This paper aims to measure the potential for electronic participation of Brazilian citizens via Facebook as social media, identifying latent factors that provide a favorable environment for such participation by Brazilian municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Based on these factors, the Potential Index for Electronic Participation (PIEP) of municipalities is calculated.

The theoretical discussion is based on the literature on electronic government and citizen participation. In the methodology, exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis have been used to identify latent factors and to classify PIEP according to the clusters.

The results of the research point to serious regional discrepancies regarding the level of participation in social media, highlighting an urgent need for national e-government policies to be rethought from a regionalized point of view.

The research enhances understanding of the relation between sociodemographic indicators such as income, education, employment and those concerning the access to and effective use of social media technologies by citizens and local governments.