Social media and democracy

  1. Homero Gil-de-Zúñiga 1
  2. Brigitte Huber 1
  3. Nadine Strauß 1
  1. 1 University of Vienna
    info

    University of Vienna

    Viena, Austria

    ROR https://ror.org/03prydq77

Revue:
El profesional de la información

ISSN: 1386-6710,  1699-2407

Année de publication: 2018

Titre de la publication: Información política y redes sociales (II)

Volumen: 27

Número: 6

Pages: 1172-1180

Type: Article

DOI: 10.3145/EPI.2018.NOV.01 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openAccès ouvert editor

D'autres publications dans: El profesional de la información

Résumé

Slowly approaching the second quarter of the 21st century, research on social media and its effects over democracy has quickly permeated across various fields in social sciences, particularly political communication. Based on accumulated evidence in this strand of literature, this paper briefly summarizes several established research areas. First, it highlights how social media facilitates individuals’ political expression. Second, it sheds light on how this enhanced communicative behavior has reinvigorated a more participatory society in democracy. Third, it examines social media’s democratic deficit mechanisms in regards to stagnant political knowledge acquisition. Finally, the paper offers a theoretical explanation to this lack of knowledge acquisition through the lenses of the ‘news-finds-me’ perception theory. Overall, the present manuscript explains specific ways in which social media helps and hinders the advancement of healthy democracies, thereby also providing promising guidelines for future research.

Références bibliographiques

  • Barnidge, Matthew; Huber, Brigitte; Gil de Zúñiga, Homero; Liu, James H. (2018). “Social media as a sphere for ‘risky’ political expression: A 20-country multi-level comparative analysis”. International journal of press & politics, v. 23, n. 2, pp. 161-182. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161218773838
  • Bem, Daryl J. (1967). “Self-perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena”. Psychological review, v. 74, n. 3, pp. 183-200. https://goo.gl/1sQvYx https://doi.org/10.1037/h0024835
  • Bimber, Bruce (2003). Information and American democracy: Technology in the evolution of political power. Cnmbridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978 0 521804929
  • Bimber, Bruce; Cantijoch-Cunill, Marta; Copeland, Lauren; Gibson, Rachel (2015). “Digital media and political participation: The moderating role of political interest across acts and over time”. Social science computer review, v. 33, n. 1, pp. 21-42. https://www.dhi.ac.uk/san/waysofbeing/data/citizenshiprobson-bimber-2015.pdf https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439314526559
  • Bode, Leticia (2016). “Political news in the news feed: Learning politics from social media”. Mass communication and society, v. 19, pp. 24-48. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2015.1045149
  • Bonchi, Francesco; Castillo, Carlos; Ienco, Dino (2013). “Meme ranking to maximize post vitality in microblogging platforms”. Journal of intelligent information systems, v. 40, n. 2, pp. 211-231. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10844-011-0181-4
  • Boulianne, Shelley (2015). “Social media use and participation: A meta-analyis of current research”. Information, communication & society, v. 18, n. 5, pp. 524-538. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2015.1008542
  • Boulianne, Shelley (2018). “Twenty years of digital media effects on civic and political participation”. Communication research, pp. 1-20 (online first). https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650218808186
  • Bright, Jonathan (2016). “The social news gap: How news reading and news sharing diverge”. Journal of communication, v. 66, n. 3, pp. 343-365. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12232
  • Cacciatore, Michael A.; Yeo, Sara K.; Scheufele, Dietram A.; Xenos, Michael A.; Brossard, Dominique; Corley, Elizabeth A. (2018). “Is Facebook making us dumber? Exploring social media use as a predictor of political knowledge”. Journalism & mass communication quarterly, v. 95, n. 2, pp. 404-424. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699018770447
  • Chadwick, Andrew; O’Loughlin, Ben; Vaccari, Cristian (2017). “Why people dual screen political debates and why it matters for democratic engagement”. Journal of broadcasting & electronic media, v. 61, n. 2, pp. 220-239. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2017.1309415
  • Chaffee, Steven H.; Kanihan, Stacey F. (1997). “Learning about politics from the mass media”. Political communication, v. 14, n. 4, pp. 421-430. https://doi.org/10.1080/105846097199218
  • Chan, Michael (2016). “Social network sites and political engagement: Exploring the impact of Facebook connections and uses on political protest and participation”. Mass communication and society, v. 19, n. 4, pp. 430-451. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2016.1161803
  • Chandler, David (2014). Resilience: The governance of complexity (critical issues in global politics, n. 7). New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN: 978 0 415741392
  • Correa, Teresa; Jeong, Sung H. (2011). “Race and online content creation: Why minorities are actively participating in the Web”. Information, communication & society, v. 14, n. 5, pp. 638-659. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2010.514355
  • De-Aguilera, Miguel; Casero-Ripollés, Andreu (2018). “¿Tecnologías para la transformación? Los medios sociales ante el cambio político y social”. Icono14, v. 16, n. 1, pp. 1-21. https://doi.org/10.7195/ri14.v16i1.1162
  • Dimitrova, Daniela V.; Shehata, Adam; Strömbäck, Jesper; Nord, Lars W. (2014). “The effects of digital media on political knowledge and participation in election campaigns: Evidence from panel data”. Communication research, v. 41, n. 1, pp. 95-118. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650211426004
  • Doyle, Jon (1999). “Rational decision making”. In: Wilson, Robert A.; F. Keil, Frank C. (eds.). The MIT encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 701703. ISBN 0 262 73124 X http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/project/oplan/documents/1999/1999MITECS.pdf
  • Elin, Larry (2003). “The radicalization of Zeke Spier: How the Internet contributes to civic engagement and new forms of social capital”. In: McCarthy, Martha; Ayers, Michael D. (eds.). Cyberactivism: Online activism in theory and practice. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 97-116. ISBN: 0 415 94319 1
  • Eveland, William P.; Schmitt, Josephine B. (2015). “Communication content and knowledge content matters: Integrating manipulation and observation in studying news and discussion learning effects”. Journal of communication, v. 65, n. 1, pp. 170-191. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12138
  • Fletcher, Richard; Nielsen, Rasmus-Kleis (2018). “Are people incidentally exposed to news on social media? A comparative analysis”. New media & society, v. 20, n. 7, pp. 24502468. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817724170
  • Ganley, Dale; Lampe, Cliff (2009). “The ties that bind: Social network principles in online communities”. Decision support systems, v. 47, n. 3, pp. 266-274. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2009.02.013
  • Gil de Zúñiga, Homero; Diehl, Trevor (in press). “News finds me perception and democracy: Effects on political knowledge, political interest, and voting”. New media & society. https://journals.sagepub.com/home/nmsa
  • Gil de Zúñiga, Homero; García-Perdomo, Víctor; McGregor, Shannon (2015). “What is second screening? Exploring motivations of second screen use and its effects on online political participation”. Journal of communication, v. 65, n. 5, pp. 793-815. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12174
  • Gil de Zúñiga, Homero; Liu, James H. (2017). “Second screening politics in the social media sphere: Advancing research on dual screen use in political communication with evidence from 20 countries”. Journal of broadcasting & electronic media, v. 61, pp. 193-219. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2017.1309420
  • Gil de Zúñiga, Homero; Molyneux, Logan; Zheng, Pei (2014). “Social media, political expression, and political participation: Panel analysis of lagged and concurrent relationships”. Journal of communication, v. 64, n. 1, pp. 612-634. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12103
  • Gil de Zúñiga, Homero; Veenstra, Aaron; Vraga, Emily; Shah, Dhavan (2010). “Digital democracy: Re-imagining pathways to political participation”. Journal of information technology & politics, v. 7, n. 1, pp. 36-51. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331680903316742
  • Gil de Zúñiga, Homero; Weeks, Brian; Ardèvol-Abreu, Alberto (2017). “Effects of the news-finds-me perception in communication: Social media use implications for news seeking and learning about politics”. Journal of computer-mediated communication, v. 22, n. 3, pp. 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12185
  • Greene, John O. (1984). “A cognitive approach to human communication: An action assembly theory”. Communication monographs, v. 51, n. 4, pp. 289–306. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637758409390203
  • Hargreaves, Ian; Thomas, James (2002). New news, old news. London: Independent Television Commission/Broadcasting Standards Commission. ISBN: 978 0 900485992
  • Hermida, Alfred (2010). “Twittering the news: The emergence of ambient journalism”. Journalism practice, v. 4, n. 3, pp. 297-308. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512781003640703
  • Holt, Kristoffer; Shehata, Adam; Strömbäck, Jesper; Ljungberg, Elisabet (2013). “Age and the effects of news media attention and social media use on political interest and participation: Do social media function as leveller?”. European journal of communication, v. 28, n. 1, pp. 19-34. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323112465369
  • Hopmann, David-Nicholas; Wonneberger, Anke; Shehata, Adam; Höijer, Jonas (2016). “Selective media exposure and increasing knowledge gaps in Swiss referendum campaigns”. International journal of public opinion research, v. 28, n. 1, pp. 73-95. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edv002
  • Huckfeldt, Robert R.; Sprague, John (1995). Citizens, politics, and social communication: Information and influence in an election campaign. New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978 0 511664113 https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511664113
  • Kim, Ji-Won; Chadha, Monica; Gil de Zúñiga, Homero (2018). “News media use and cognitive elaboration: The mediating role of media efficacy”. Revista latina de comunicación social, v. 73, pp. 168-183. https://doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2018-1251en
  • Kim, Yonghwan; Chen, Hsuan-Ting; Wang, Yuan (2016). “Living in the smartphone age: Examining the conditional indirect effects of mobile phone use on political participation”. Journal of broadcasting & electronic media, v. 60, n. 4, pp. 694-713. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2016.1203318
  • Kim, Yonghwan; Chen, Hsuan-Ting; Gil de Zúñiga, Homero (2013a). “Stumbling upon news on the internet: Effect of incidental news exposure and relative entertainment use on political participation”. Computers in human behavior, v. 29, n. 6, pp. 2607-2614. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.06.005
  • Kim, Yonghwan; Hsu, Shih-Hsien; Gil de Zúñiga, Homero (2013b). “Influence of social media use on discussion network heterogeneity and civic engagement: The moderating role of personality traits”. Journal of communication, v. 63, n. 3, pp. 498-516. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12034
  • Kwak, Nojin; Lane, Daniel S.; Lee, Sigi S.; Liang, Fan; Weeks, Brian E. (2018). “From persuasion to deliberation: Do experiences of online political persuasion facilitate dialogic openness?”. Communication research, pp. 1-23 (online first). https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650218793050
  • Lecheler, Sophie; De-Vreese, Claes H. (2017). “News media, knowledge, and political interest: Evidence of a dual role from a field experiment”. Journal of communication, v. 67, n. 4, pp. 545-564. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12314
  • Lupia, Arthur; Sin, Gisela (2003). “Which public goods are endangered? How evolving communication technologies affect The logic of collective action”. Public choice, n. 117, pp. 315–331. https://goo.gl/yPcVmN
  • Ma, Long; Lee, Chei-Sian; Goh, Dion H. (2013). “Understanding news sharing in social media from the diffusion of innovations perspective”. In: IEEE Intl conf on cyber, physical, and social computing. New York: IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/GreenCom-iThings-CPSCom.2013.173
  • McGregor, Shannon C.; Mourão, Rachel R. (2017) “Second screening Donald Trump: Conditional indirect effects on political participation”. Journal of broadcasting & electronic media, v. 61, n. 2, pp. 264-290. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2017.1309418
  • Mitchell, Amy; Gottfried, Jeffrey; Barthel, Michael; Shearer, Elisa (2016). The modern news consumer. News attitudes and practices in the digital era. Pew Research Center. http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/the-modern-newsconsumer
  • Müller, Philipp; Schneiders, Pascal; Schäfer, Svenja (2016). “Appetizer or main dish? Explaining the use of Facebook news posts as a substitute for other news sources”. Computers in human behavior, v. 65, pp. 431-441. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.09.003
  • Newman, Nic; Fletcher, Richard; Kalogeropoulos, Antonis; Levy, David A. L.; Nielsen, Rasmus K. (2017). Reuters Institute. Digital news report 2017. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/ Digital%20News%20Report%202017%20web_0.pdf
  • Newman, Nic; Fletcher, Richard; Kalogeropoulos, Antonis; Levy, David A. L.; Nielsen, Rasmus K. (2018). Reuters Institute. Digital news report 2018. http://media.dig ita lnewsreport .org/wp-content/ uploads/2018/06/digital-news-report-2018.pdf?x89475
  • Nordensen, Bree (2008). “Overload! Journalism’s battle for relevance in an age of too much information”. Columbia journalism review. http://www.uvm.edu/~jbrown7/envjournalism/overload.cjr.pdf
  • Oeldorf-Hirsch, Anne (2018). “The role of engagement in learning from active and incidental news exposure on social media”. Mass communication and society, v. 21, n. 2, pp. 225-247. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2017.1384022
  • Papacharissi, Zizi (ed.) (2011). A networked self: Identity, community, and culture on social network sites. New York: Routledge, pp. 304-328. ISBN: 978 0 415801812
  • Pariser, Eli (2011). The filter bubble: What the Internet is hiding from you. New York, NY: Penguin. ISBN: 978 0 241954522
  • Park, Chang-Sup; Kaye, Barbara K. (2018). “News engagement on social media and democratic citizenship: Direct and moderating roles of curatorial news use in political involvement”. Journalism & mass communication quarterly, v. 95, n. 4, pp. 1103-1127. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699017753149
  • Pingree, Raymond J. (2007). “How messages affect their senders: A more general model of message effects and implications for deliberation”. Communication theory, v. 17, n. 4, pp. 439-461. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2007.00306.x
  • Prior, Markus (2007). Post-broadcast democracy: How media choice increases inequality in political involvement and polarizes elections. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978 0 521675338
  • Rojas, Hernando (2010). “‘Corrective’ actions in the public sphere: How perceptions of media and media effects shape political behaviors”. International journal of public opinion research, v. 22, n. 3, pp. 343-363. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edq018
  • Saldaña, Magdalena; McGregor, Shannon; Gil de Zúñiga, Homero (2015). “Social media as a public space for politics: Cross-national comparison of news consumption and participatory behaviors in the United States and the United Kingdom”. International journal of communication, v. 9, pp. 3304-3326. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/3238
  • Segesten, Anamaria D.; Bossetta, Michael (2017). “A typology of political participation online: How citizens used Twitter to mobilize during the 2015 British general elections”. Information, communication & society, v. 20, n. 11, pp. 1625-1643. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1252413
  • Shehata, Adam (2013). “Active or passive learning from television? Political information opportunities and knowledge gaps during election campaigns”. Journal of elections, public opinion, and parties, n. 23, n. 2, pp. 200–222. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2013.771362
  • Shehata, Adam; Hopmann, David-Nicholas; Nord, Lars; Höijer, Jonas (2015). “Television channel content profiles and differential knowledge growth: A test of the inadvertent learning hypothesis using panel data”. Political communication, v. 32, n. 3, pp. 377-395. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2014.955223
  • Sørensen, Mads P. (2016). “Political conversations on Facebook – the participation of politicians and citizens”. Media, culture & society, v. 38, n. 5, pp. 664-685. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443715620924
  • Stewart, Ian; Cohen, Jack (2000). The collapse of chaos: Discovering simplicity in a complex world. London, UK: Penguin. ISBN: 978 0 140291254
  • Strömbäck, Jesper; Djerf-Pierre, Monika; Shehata, Adam (2013). “The dynamics of political interest and news media consumption: A longitudinal perspective”. International journal of public opinion research, v. 25, n. 4, pp. 414-435. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/eds018
  • Sunstein, Cass (2018). #Republic: Divided democracy in the age of social media. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 978 1 400884711
  • Tetlock, Philip E.; Skitka, Linda; Boettger, Richard (1989). “Social and cognitive strategies for coping with accountability: Conformity, complexity, and bolstering”. Journal of personality and social psychology, v. 57, n. 4, pp. 632-640.
  • Thorson, Emily (2014). “Beyond opinion leaders: How attempts to persuade foster political awareness and campaign learning”. Communication research, v. 41, n. 3, pp. 353-374. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650212443824
  • Trilling, Damian; Schöenbach, Klaus (2012). “Skipping current affairs: The non-users of online and offline news”. European journal of communication, v. 28, n. 1, pp. 35-51. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323112453671
  • Tromble, Rebekah (2018). “Thanks for (actually) responding! How citizen demand shapes politicians’ interactive practices on Twitter”. New media & society, v. 20, n. 2, pp. 676-697. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816669158
  • Vaccari, Cristian; Valeriani, Augusto (2015). “Follow the leader! Direct and indirect flows of political communication during the 2013 Italian general election campaign”. New media & society, v. 17, n. 7, pp. 1025-1042. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444813511038
  • Waisbord, Silvio (2018). “Truth is what happens to news. On journalism, fake news, and post-truth”. Journalism studies, v. 19, n. 13, pp. 1866-1878. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1492881
  • Wang, Yiran; Mark, Gloria (2013). “Trust in online news: Comprising social media and official media use by Chinese citizens”. In: CSCQ’13. San Antonio, TX: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2441776.2441843
  • Williams, Bruce A.; Carpini, Michael X. Delli (2011). After broadcast news: Media regimes, democracy, and the new information environment. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978 0 521279833
  • Yoo, Sung-Woo; Gil de Zúñiga, Homero (2014). “Connecting blog, Twitter and Facebook use with gaps in knowledge and participation”. Communication & society, v. 27, n. 4, pp. 3348. https://doi.org/10.15581/003.27.4.33-48
  • Yoo, Sung-Woo; Kim, Ji-Won; Gil de Zúñiga, Homero (2017). “Cognitive benefits for senders: Antecedents and effects of political expression on social media”. Journalism & mass communication quarterly, v. 94, n. 1, pp. 17-37. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699016654438
  • Yu, Rebecca-Ping; Oh, Yu-Won (2018). “Social media and expressive citizenship: Understanding the relationship between social and entertainment expression on Facebook and political participation”. Telematics & informatics, v. 35, n. 8, pp. 2299-2311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2018.09.010
La source de données: Dialnet