Friend Request: Social media and political engagement

By Dave Hunt '10

In  November 2009, Facebook announced it had registered its 350 millionth active user. That means that if Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world — and its potential impact on how people live, work and even engage with politics is fertile ground for research.

“Old media,” such as print, radio and even to some extent television, have historically informed and influenced how Americans engage with and practice politics. But while “old media” struggles for an audience, new forms of media like Facebook are flourishing at unprecedented levels.

How did users of Facebook experience and practice political engagement? Prior studies have found there was a correlation between Internet usage and increased political participation, but few studies had looked at social networking. Were Facebook users becoming more politically engaged simply because they had joined a social network, or were there other mitigating factors?

These questions and issues were what I decided to explore for most of 2009 as I worked on my Senior Research Seminar project for the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh's Center for New Learning. However, rather than looking at statistics, my study examined the experiences of the participants in my study. These kinds of findings don't have a generalized application the way statistics might, but qualitative studies allow a researcher to delve further into a topic, and the results can guide future larger-scale studies by illuminating areas for future research.

How Facebook users engage in politics

Participants were first asked to share how they were engaged in politics in the most recent presidential election. Responses fell into four different categories: traditional, old media, Internet and social media.

Traditional political activities happen in the real world. Politicians and campaigns are particularly interested in these activities because they are end-game, mobilization activities that involve active participation. Traditional activities include things like voting in an election, attending a rally and volunteering for a campaign.

Old media political activities might be the most passive kinds of activities. These kinds of activities include things like using television to watch political news and debates, listening to political information on the radio and reading political articles in newspapers. Participants in my study still experienced significant television usage, though print and radio were cited less frequently.

Internet usage political activities include things like visiting campaign Web sites and political news Web sites. I drew a distinction between these kind of activities and social media activities because Internet usage activities, as I define them, involve static content.

Social media political activities, in contrast, deal with dynamic, evolving and user-generated content, such as researching comments made by people on Facebook and Twitter, joining Facebook groups in support of candidates, posting political content on a Facebook user page, announcing support for a candidate through a blog, actively campaigning for a candidate through blogging, and joining and using candidate social networks.

Reasons for engagement

All of the study’s participants reported being more engaged in the 2008 election than in previous elections. The most frequently cited reasons for increased engagement fell into four themes:

• Demographics shift: Participants noted that having children made them feel like politics were more important and also noted evolving interests as they aged that led to their increased engagement.

• Better candidates: Participants felt there was a wider field of qualified candidates and/or that there was a candidate who closely represented their own views. One participant wrote, "It was the first time I felt like I wasn't just voting for the lesser of two evils."

• The historic nature of the election: As one participant wrote, "Regardless of the outcome, history would be made: A black president or a woman as vice president. And I wanted to say I was part of it."

• Better campaigns: Participants noted that campaign usage of branding techniques, social media, and online and in-person organization building made the participants feel more engaged.

Implications and future research

As seen above, there are other mitigating factors that may more accurately explain increased political engagement beyond simply joining a social network like Facebook. It is notable, however, that participants who cited campaign quality were also volunteers. This seems to point to social media as a viable tool for electorate mobilization.

In addition, while it is true that my study was small-scale, there may be potential significance to the high rate of voter turnout among my participants. All five of them voted in both the general election as well as in a preliminary election or precinct caucus. A future large-scale study might examine voter turnout rates among Facebook users as compared to national averages to see if there is really a significant statistical difference.

Other topics for future research might include how life stages, aging and parenthood affect political engagement, particularly in light of the rapid growth of the over-35-years-old demographic on Facebook; and what qualities Americans look for in their candidates in light of increased Internet and social networking usage. Political strategists routinely examine this issue, but this is also fertile ground for scholarly research.

Dave Hunt is a senior liberal studies student at UW Oshkosh. He will graduate in May 2010. Click here to read more about him.