Like social media use affects people's interests in politics, helps people to engage political conversation(expression), and thus leads to the increase of offline political participation.
Hi, Wei:
Great topic to explore! Much academic debate has centered on the impact of new technologies on democracy. While the majority of previous research suggests there are positive relationships between digital media use and political participation and knowledge, most studies have relied on cross-sectional surveys and have thus not been able to firmly establish the chain of causality Also, there is little research investigating use of different forms of digital media and their relative effects on political participation and knowledge!
In a recent research study, Dimitrova, Shehata, Strömbäck, & Nord, (2014) examined (a) the effects of digital media use on political participation and knowledge and (b) whether different forms of digital media use affect people differently. Drawing on two representative panel surveys, the authors demonstrated that there are only weak effects of digital media use on political learning, but that the use of some digital media forms has appreciable effects on political participation!
- Dimitrova, D. V., Shehata, A., Strömbäck, J., & Nord, L. W. (2014). The Effects of Digital Media on Political Knowledge and Participation in Election Campaigns: Evidence From Panel Data. Communication Research, 41(1), 95-118.
Hope this helps!
Nadeem
Hi Wei,
I actually worked on a similar topic for my thesis, considering the motivational processes that drive the relation between online and offline activism.
Nah and colleagues (2006) proposed a framework that suggests that information access (online/offline) prompts interactions (online/offline) and ultimately offline political participation. As far as I know there is less evidence for the mediating role of political interest, but Boulianne (2011) showed that access to online news amplified political interest and thereby political talk.
Hope this is helpful. All the best for your research!
Sandy
Boulianne, S. (2011). Stimulating or reinforcing political interest: Using panel data to examine reciprocal effects between news media and political interest. Political Communication, 28, 147-162.
Nah, S., Veenstra, A. S., & Shah, D. V. (2006). The Internet and Anti‐War Activism: A Case Study of Information, Expression, and Action. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 12, 230-247.
HI Wei,
I pondered on the exact same research question back in 2011 during the climax of the Arab Spring. We run some pilots and collected data through surveys and interviews from two countries (Tunisia & Egypt). As brought up by Mohammed Nadeem, the “cross-sectional” nature of the conducted studies is not allowing us to make any inference about causal mechanisms. Unfortunately, we did not possess longitudinal data which was tough to acquire from Twitter or Facebook during that time. As far as I recall, Wattal et al. (2010) paper paved the way for investigating your research question. Best of Luck!
Wattal, S., Schuff, D., Mandviwalla, M., & Williams, C. B. (2010). Web 2.0 and politics: The 2008 US presidential election and an e-politics research agenda. MIS Quarterly, 34(4), 669-688.
Great! Thanks Mohammed. Even though social media is kind of digital media, the paper you suggested is helpful. I am still think about how social media or media affect political participaiton, maybe it affects people's political knowledge, political efficacy to name a few, and thus leads to a political action.
Hi everyone,
this is a really interesting question and still very open! Mohammed is right, there is much academic debate and research on the question of "new media/Internet/social media use -> democracy/participation/activism". The mechanisms are seldom thoroughly analyzed, though. I found Polat's (2005) paper "The Internet and Political Participation: Exploring the Explanatory Links" one of the best to answer the question. It analyzes how the Internet as a) an information source b) as a communication medium and c) as a virtual sphere might contribute to participation.
As for the empirical part, Boulianne did a meta-analysis in 2009, summarizing 39 studies. She detected inconclusive findings but overall there were either no effects or weakly positive ones on aggregate. Since then the research focus has shifted more and more towards social media and more differentiated measures of Internet use. My colleagues and I tried to summarize some of that research not too long ago in a systematic literature review (see link). We also detected some of the problems of previous studies (the cross-sectional nature of most data was one point) and made propositions for future work.
A range of scholars is also interested in the question of social capital in the context of participation, for example Sebastian Valenzuela and Homero Gil de Zuniga. It might be worthwhile to check their recent work. I linked one of their studies.
@Sandy: Your thesis sounds very interesting! Is it available somewhere online?
@Amr: Thanks for the Wattal study. I need to check it out at some point ;)
Article The Internet and Political Participation
Article Does Internet Use Affect Engagement? A Meta-Analysis of Research
Article Beyond just politics: A systematic literature review of onli...
Article Social Media Use for News and Individuals' Social Capital, C...
Hi Christoph,
four of the studies that I included in my thesis will be published in a paper that is forthcoming in the European Journal of Social Psychology (Schumann, S. & Klein, O. Substitute or stepping stone?: Assessing the impact of low-threshold online collective actions on offline participation). As soon as I receive a final version of the paper I will add it here as a full text.
Cheers,
Sandy
I think that the fact that social media are put under control in Russia proves the fact of their influence
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Geoscience
- Asia
- India