THE REVOLUTION WILL BE NETWORKED : THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ON POLITICAL ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR

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1 THE REVOLUTION WILL BE NETWORKED : THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ON POLITICAL ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR Personalization of Politics Professor: Thomas VITIELLO Article Review Merve GUNDOGAR Given the popularity of social networking phenomenon, its role in involving people in the democratic process has been a quite rare topic to be discussed in the academic field. The paper written by Weiwu Zhang, Thomas J. Johnson, Trent Seltzer and Shannon L. Bichard from Texas Technical University - The Revolution will be networked, The Influence of Social Networking Sites on Political Attitudes and Behavior (2010) - explains the extent to which social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace and YouTube) has engaged citizens in civic and political activities. The research is based on a telephone survey of Southwest residents reaching the conclusion that reliance on social networking sites is more related to increased civic participation rather than political participation. The research is quite interesting since it is willing to show the effect of social networks on participation and not just the communication among citizens. However, the fact that it has taken place in a midsized city in United States with a response rate of 30.2% can valorize it as a slightly limited approach that may be chosen a relatively conservative community on order to examine the effects of only social network sites on civic and political participation. First of all, the article starts from the point that social networking sites actually attract people who are already politically active, having a certain social capital providing them the capacity to participate in the political debate. This participation may take the form of civic participation, activities through which concerns are addressed by using non governmental means, as well as political participation being the activities that aim directly or indirectly to have an impact on the selection of elected officials or the implementation of a certain public policy. The author suggests that these two ways of participation are correlated since civic participation may result to have certain effects on political participation in a second phase. But at the same time it has been said that sites may attract new voters, particularly the young population given the example

2 of Obama campaign in 2008 where it is admitted that one of the reasons about the campaign s success is because it has used a marketing technique of targeting towards the younger population who was not politicized before. In any case, this research still admits that according to the survey results and demographic variables, social networking still is primarily affecting the civic participation. Bearing in mind that the research already admits that the effects on social media on participation can be significant usually on the people who are already politically active and are using the means of social media, the fact that the research takes place in a group where average age is 52 decreases the credibility of the argument. One could suggest that even though the researchers have tried to build their arguments on a relatively heterogeneous survey groups opinions by choosing people from different origins, sexes, degrees; we could suggest that they may have failed in two point: first of all, the average age could have been younger since social media as well as its use for political participation is a very new phenomenon bearing in mind that Facebook was launched in Another point is that about 50% of respondents identified themselves as conservative, 37.2% as moderate, and 12.5% said they were liberal. Also the average score for political interest was about 5, indicating that respondents were quite interested in politics. But at the same time, it can be seen that the survey takes place in a community that may be more conservative than the American society in total. Probably, the results could be more significant if the survey group could be more mixed, especially given the fact that the results are aiming to show the degree of involvement in political activities not only governmentally but also by civic participation by the means of social media such as participation to associations. The article also tries to show the impact of mass media on political and civic participation concluding by three main results: according to the respective authors, the surveys have shown a positive correlation between newspaper reading and political participation. Meanwhile, in order to measure the effects of TV, the research contributes to the literature by tracing the nuance of the different effects of TV programs according to their content. As the third means of media, Internet is shown to have a great impact especially on the social/ civic area but again the content matters since it can result to a greater participation by news sites or social media forming a new public sphere but also cause an alienation if the individual is spending spare time in games or chat rooms.

3 According to the research, interpersonal discussion through social media plays a major role in political involvement by facilitating the transmission and exchange f political information. This discussion may even serve to the crystallization of political opinions that may result to solidification of party affiliations and contribute to voting. Another aspect shown by the article is that it can serve as a mechanism for community integration. The fact that social networking sites provide discussion for even controversial topics, this may have democratic outcomes such as increased tolerance and political knowledge as suggested by the authors. On the other hand, the article claims that social networking sites are bridging social capital that connects people from various social categories to bring about social and political change. But again, this effect has a certain limit since according to the authors, these relations are mostly with the people that we already know offline. We could suggest many counter examples such as the militants of the Arab revolutions, Spanish indignados, or the Occupy Wall Street activists interconnected online beforehand. In all examples, the role of this deliberation of ideas is often pointed out even though the article suggests that the primary role of social media is connecting people who we already know. Last but not least, individual political factors are shown to have an impact on the extent to which political and civic participation could take place passing by the means of social media and also increasing trust among citizens. These factors are listed as political interest, political efficacy, political trust and party identification. We can say that while the results about political trust and party identification are not very clear, the conclusions about political interest and efficacy should not be underestimated. Today, the decreasing political interest among young people is a major concern seen by the authors as the fault of traditional political institutions in engaging them. As another factor for fostering the impact of political discussion on social media, the respective authors claim political efficacy, the facts that citizens should first believe that they are actually capable of affecting change. According to Lee (2006), Internet could be a solution by helping users to connect with potentially active groups and by increasing the channels for communication applying pressure to political institutions. Its been suggested that many studies have failed to show this. According to Sociologist Manuel Castells The networked society organizes itself on the basis of information networks. This reorganization of public sphere has resulted in what is now called The New Public Sphere

4 which can be seen through press readers and multiple platform social users acting as vanguards for sharing content with friends and they do it to a high degree using social devices. First, the reader is politicized the very important posts and then starts to promote his opinion by using the means of social network pages. Therefore, the civic deliberation s impact on individuals and its political potential can be seen as more important than the article suggests even though its foster on political attitudes has not been proven enough by researches. The study is a major contribution to the literature providing detailed results about the effects of social media on participation. To sum up, it has been suggested that interpersonal discussion influences civic participation. It has also the potential to stimulate the political participation but not necessarily political attitudes. The research aiming to see the effects of political variables, reliance on social networking and interpersonal discussion on political participation, civic participation and confidence in government seems to contribute to the literature in many interesting ways as we have seen but though still limited to the extent that the social group used may be restraint as well as the comments made from the research results. Though, the article being well structured and objectively detailed after a brief introduction of the research, with arguments, survey results, methodology, contributions and limits needs to be appreciated.

5 Biblioghraphy Ø Brasset & Smith, Deliberation and global civil society: agency,arena, affect. Retrieved from ociety_agency_arena_affect Ø Castells, Manuel. Communication power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Print. Ø McConnel & Becker. The Role of Media in Democratization, July Retrieved from: