Following Politicians on Social Media: Effects for Political Information, Peer Communication, and Youth Engagement

Abstract

Young citizens increasingly turn to social media platforms for political information. These platforms enable direct communication between politicians and citizens, circumventing the influence of traditional news outlets. We still know little about the consequences of direct contact with politicians on such platforms for citizens’ political participation. Here, we argue that the interplay of different actors in the political news diet of citizens should be investigated from a networked communication perspective. Relying on a cross-sectional survey of young Danes (15–25 years old, <em>n</em> = 567), we investigate the relationship between following politicians on social media and: (a) the composition of young citizens’ political media diet; and (b) their civic messaging and campaign participation. Following political actors on social media relates to increased campaign engagement and can be a catalyst for young people’s exposure to campaign news, but their friends and followers function as the main node of their political online networks. We document a process of the de-mediation of politics on social media: Established news media lose influence as primary information sources for young citizens. We discuss these results in the context of users’ active curation and passive selection of their political social media diet.

Algorithmic social media use and its relationship to attitude reinforcement and issue-specific political participation – The case of the 2015 European immigration movements

“…Research suggests that citizens on social media tend to select information that agrees with their personal predispositions; moreover, algorithmic media preselects content that is shown to users based on their previous user behavior (Bakshy, Messing, & Adamic, 2015;Messing & Westwood, 2014;Mothes & Ohme, 2019). So far, algorithmic influences on individuals' news exposure have been rarely explored (but see: Marquart, Ohme, & Möller, 2020;Thorson, Cotter, Medeiros, & Pak, 2019). The present study extends previous work on the role of news media use for attitude formation (e.g.…”

Youth Digital Participation: Now More than Ever

“…For politicians, social media offer a way to communicate with citizensincluding young citizens-directly, circumventing the influence of traditional news outlets. Surveying Danish youth, Marquart, Ohme, and Möller (2020) investigate to what extent young Danes follow politicians on social media, and how this is related to their civic messaging and campaign participation. The authors find that following politicians on social media is related to increased campaign engagement, but it is youths' friends and followers who are the main node in their political online networks.…”

Patterns of Incivility on U.S. Congress Members' Social Media Accounts: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Influence of Platform, Post, and Person Characteristics

“…Social media have become an important part of political communication: Especially during election campaigns, but also during more routine political times, politicians have widely adopted social media for broadcasting information, interacting with relevant publics, or mobilizing voters (Larsson and Kalsnes, 2014;Stier et al, 2018). Likewise, citizens now routinely use various social media platforms to follow political information and actors (Marquart et al, 2020;Newman et al, 2021). However, this increased engagement is accompanied by concerns over the incivility of interactions on social media platforms, which we broadly define here as "features of discussion that convey an unnecessarily disrespectful tone toward the discussion forum, its participants, or its topics" (Coe et al, 2014, p. 660).…”