Leticia Bode

A New Space for Political Behavior: Political Social Networking and its Democratic Consequences

Social networking sites SNS currently boast more than half a billion active users worldwide, the majority of which are young people. With notable exceptions, few studies have ventured into the growing political realm that exists on these sites. This study expands research on SNS by examining both what encourages people to express themselves politically in this realm, and what effects such expression may have on classic questions of political participation. We test the proposition that political use of SNS among teens offers a new pathway to their political participation using hierarchical linear regression and panel data analysis. Results demonstrate that political SNS use strongly impacted both levels of and growth in traditional political participation during the 2008 election.

Agenda setting in a digital age : tracking attention to California Proposition 8 in social media, online news, and conventional news

This study compares the agenda-setting cues of traditional media alongside those of online media in general and social media in particular. The main line of inquiry concerns (a) whether people posting content to openly accessible social media outlets may be acting in response to mainstream news coverage, possibly as a “corrective” to perceived imbalances in that coverage, or (b) whether such posts seem to have influenced professional media coverage of the issue, possibly reflecting broader opinion dynamics. We do not view these as competing hypotheses, as this relationship may run in both directions and shift at different points in the evolution of an issue. Our goal is to establish important preliminary findings by addressing these questions in the context of a particular issue that is (a) prominently covered in professional media, and (b) contentious enough to inspire individuals to “take the media into their own hands” by producing and publishing their own “coverage.” Proposition 8 in California, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as the exclusive right of opposite-sex couples, provides this context. Our analysis focuses on the thousands of videos posted to YouTube and coverage of Proposition 8 in professional news media, tracing the relationships among them.

Political News in the News Feed: Learning Politics from Social Media

Although literature about the relationship between social media and political behaviors has expanded in recent years, little is known about the roles of social media as a source of political information. To fill this gap, this article considers the question of whether and to what extent learning political information occurs via Facebook and Twitter. Theory suggests that social media may play a significant role in the learning of political information within the modern media environment. Making use of a combination of experimental and survey-based studies, the data suggest that the potential for users to learn political information from social media exists but is not always realized within the general population.

Politics in 140 Characters or Less: Campaign Communication, Network Interaction, and Political Participation on Twitter

The methods by which politicians and policy makers communicate with the public are constantly adapting to the ever-changing media environment. As part of this changing landscape, this study considers the case of Twitter. Specifically, the authors conduct a survey of political Twitter users, in order to understand their use of the medium and their political behaviors within it. Results indicate that political Twitter users are more interested in and engaged in politics in general and less trusting of the mainstream media. Moreover, the study investigates the extent to which followers of a campaign may affect its overall influence in the Twitterverse.

Candidate Networks, Citizen Clusters, and Political Expression Strategic Hashtag Use in the 2010 Midterms

Twitter provides a direct method for political actors to connect with citizens, and for those citizens to organize into online clusters through their use of hashtags (i.e., a word or phrase marked with # to identify an idea or topic and facilitate a search for it). We examine the political alignments and networking of Twitter users, analyzing 9 million tweets produced by more than 23,000 randomly selected followers of candidates for the U.S. House and Senate and governorships in 2010. We find that Twitter users in that election cycle did not align in a simple Right-Left division; rather, five unique clusters emerged within Twitter networks, three of them representing different conservative groupings. Going beyond discourses of fragmentation and polarization, certain clusters engaged in strategic expression such as “retweeting” (i.e., sharing someone else’s tweet with one’s followers) and “hashjacking” (i.e., co-opting the hashtags preferred by political adversaries). We find the Twitter alignments in the political Right were more nuanced than those on the political Left and discuss implications of this behavior in relation to the rise of the Tea Party during the 2010 elections.

The Correspondent, the Comic, and the Combatant The Consequences of Host Style in Political Talk Shows

Tailored within the increasingly competitive news environment, political talk shows have adopted a range of styles, heralding a rise in “combatant” and “comic” hosts to complement the conventional “correspondent.” Using an experimental design to rule out self-selection biases, this study isolates the impact of host style on media judgments. In comparison to the other styles, the correspondent host increases perceptions of informational value, enhances host and program credibility, and reduces erosion of media trust, while a comic host mitigates some of the negative impact compared to a combatant host. Implications for media accountability and democratic functioning are discussed.

Beyond Self-Reports: Using Eye Tracking to Measure Topic and Style Differences in Attention to Social Media Content

ABSTRACT Research on social media content overwhelmingly relies on self-reports, which we suggest are meaningfully limited and likely biased. Instead, we apply an under-utilized method—corneal eye tracking—for gauging attention to content in social media. We expose subjects to different types of Facebook content and track their gaze as they browse through posts. Substantively, we find that news and social content garner equal attention, with politics trailing behind both. We also find that the style of the post matters for attention patterns, with richer content (e.g., pictures, links) enhancing attention especially for social and news posts. Methodologically, we conclude that participants are unable to accurately report the topics and types of content available on the Facebook feed, even immediately after exposure. We discuss the implications of these findings and also make recommendations for appropriate methods in this area.

Blurred lines: Defining social, news, and political posts on Facebook

ABSTRACT Although a growing body of literature examines exposure to social, news, and political information via social media, we have little understanding of how users delineate these categories. In this study, we develop over 100 discrete Facebook stimuli varying these topics, and then test to what extent and which users match our definition of those posts. Our results suggest that users and researchers often agree on defining social and political content, but are more likely to disagree on categorizing news content. Therefore, researchers should carefully define all concepts—especially news—when considering prevalence and effects on social media users.

Closing the gap: gender parity in political engagement on social media

ABSTRACT Historically, major gender differences exist in both political engagement and online content creation. Expanding on these literatures, this study considers the extent to which men and women engage in politics specifically in social media. Novel survey data are employed to test for any gendered differences in encountering and responding to political content via social media. Despite measuring a robust set of political behaviors within social media, few gender differences emerge. Where differences do emerge, they are most likely among the most visible political behaviors, suggesting that women may strategically engage in less visible or less-likely-to-offend political behaviors, as compared to men. This poses important questions regarding political participation, representation, and gender.

Do parents still model news consumption? Socializing news use among adolescents in a multi-device world:

This study seeks to understand how American youth (aged 12–17 years) learn to consume the news, with specific concern for which devices (television, computer, tablet, and mobile phone) they employ in consuming news. Using a national survey of parent–child dyads, we explore (1) the role of demographics in creating a home environment supportive of news use, (2) the importance of parental modeling of news use via different media devices and whether the effect of modeling is complicated by the shift from shared to individualized media consumption, and (3) the impact of other socialization agents, such as peers and schools, in promoting youth news consumption above and beyond characteristics of the home. Results indicate that parental modeling remains an important factor in socializing news consumption, even when modeling takes place via mobile devices. Additionally, we find consistent evidence for “matched modeling” between the devices parents use for news and those used by youth.