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This study examines how citizens’ social media use may have influenced their participation in highly polarizing protests during the 2016–2017 corruption scandal in South Korea. As social media users mobilize politically by acquiring varied political information from other users, social media use created more incentives for citizens to participate in both pro- and anti-impeachment protests during the scandal. Given that social media is an important arena for political activism, participation in rival protests also influences many motivated protesters to strengthen their side’s voices online. Thus, protests may increase citizens’ political use of social media. Our empirical analysis suggests that social network service use does not influence citizens’ political activities in a unidirectional manner. We have found that social media use and participation in rival protests reciprocally influence each other.

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This paper mainly deals with the relationship between citizens' levels of news exposure and their behaviors toward the president's corruption scandal in South Korea. In particular, we examine how an individual's level of news exposure affected his/her level of political information about the corruption scandal, perception of then President Park Geun-hye's responsibility for corruption, and participation in anti-Park protests or counter-protests. In this paper, we argue that more exposure to consistent news reports of the president's corruption increases the amount of information citizens with different political dispositions have in common. The more their sets of political information overlap, the closer their perceptions and behavioral choices regarding a corruption scandal are likely to be.