Mobilizing for some: The effects of politicians' participatory Facebook posts on young people's political efficacy

Autor(en)

Raffael Heiss, Jörg Matthes

Abstrakt

This study investigated the effects of politicians' nonparticipatory and participatory Facebook posts on young people's political efficacy a key determinant of political participation. We employed an experimental design, using a sample of N = 125 high school students (15-20 years). Participants either saw a Facebook profile with no posts (control condition), nonparticipatory posts, or participatory posts. While nonparticipatory posts did not affect participants' political efficacy, participatory posts exerted distinct effects. For those high in trait evaluations of the politician presented in the stimulus material or low in political cynicism, we found significant positive effects on external and collective efficacy. By contrast, for those low in trait evaluations or high in cynicism, we found significant negative effects on external and collective efficacy. We did not find any effects on internal efficacy. The importance of content-specific factors and individual predispositions in assessing the influence of social media use on participation is discussed.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft

Journal

Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications

Band

28

Seiten

123-135

Anzahl der Seiten

13

ISSN

1864-1105

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000199

Publikationsdatum

2016

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft, 508014 Publizistik

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Communication, Social Psychology, Applied Psychology

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/12c1a2d5-a78a-4b65-9e2d-9512fb8c6c54