Media Effects Research Lab - Research Archive
Perceived issue importance, social media platforms, and online activism: Different relationships on four socio-political issues
Student Researcher(s)
Gelan (Evelyn) Yin (Masters Candidate);
Faculty Supervisor
Introduction
Online activism is a significant way of people being informed of, discussing, and acting on contentious topics. Thus it is important to look into the question of how people are engaged in online actions. Although the relationship between online and offline activism is under great scrutiny, the leading factors of people to participate online has not been enough studied, not to mention the uniqueness across platforms and issue categories. Drawing on the notion of issue publics and techno-social affordances, this study focuses on the relationship between perceived issue importance and online activism across different platforms and different issues.
Research question/Hypotheses
Overall Research Question: For American people over 18, what is the relationship between perceived issue importance and online activism?
H1: For each specific issue, perceived importance is positively associated with online activism.
RQ1: Is level of online activism different among users on each four platform?
H2: People who use Twitter most frequently will show higher level of activism than those who most frequently use other platforms.
H3: The mostly used social media has a moderating effect on the relationship between perceived issue importance and online activism.
Methodology
An online Qualtrics survey was conducted containing 30 multiple choice questions. 119 respondents living in the US over 18 were recruited through Amazon MTurk, and 19 incomplete responses were excluded. The demographic information of respondents are as follows: gender (Identify as male = 55%), age (M = 34.16, SD = 9.43), sexuality (Identify as heterosexual = 66%, identify as bisexual or pansexual = 24%), ethnicity (White = 69%, Black/African American = 11%), highest education level (Bachelor’s degree = 55%, Graduate degree = 26%). A MANCOVA multivariate test was first performed to represent the within-subject effect of issue category. In next step, five ANCOVA jjmtests were applied to each issue to study the relationship between IVs and DV, as well as the interaction effects of social media platform and perceived importance.
Results
H1 is partly supported on climate and gender issues, while they show no significant relationship when five issues are combined. On Twitter and TikTok, in some cases, even a negative relationship is demonstrated.
RQ1 could be answered by the significant relationship between the different mostly used social media and online activism. The platform choice also showed main effect on race, economy, and LGBT issues.
H2 specifically focuses on the activist potential of Twitter. Contrary to expectation, Twitter constantly shows the lowest level of activism, and hence H2 is rejected on all five social issues.
The moderating effect of cross-platform difference hypothesized by H3 is supported on issue of climate change, racial justice, and LGBT+ rights, and the interactive effect is also significant when calculating five issues as a whole.
Climate change issue
Only perceived importance had a significant main effect to predict online activism of climate change, F (1, 92) = 5.28, p < .05. The two-way interaction between perceived importance and SM was significant, F (3, 92) = 3.91, p < .05.
Racial justice issue
Only social media platforms had a main effect F (3, 92) = 4.90, p < .01. Twitter still exhibited the lowest level of activism (M = 3.05, SD = 0.22), and Facebook witnessed the highest level of activism (M = 3.95, SD = 0.15). The interaction between perceived importance and platform was also significant, F (3, 92) = 2.80, p < .05.
Economic justice issue
Only platform factor showed a main effect, F (3, 92) = 5.45, p < .01, with Twitter having the lowest level (M=3.02, SE = 0.23), and highest participation belonged to Facebook (M = 4.02, SE = 0.16). The interaction between perceived importance and SM was not significant, F (3, 92) = 1.86, p = .14.
LGBT+ rights issue
Only platform choice had main effect, F (3, 92) = 2.42, p = .07, and Twitter users still displayed the lowest level of activism (M = 2.56, SE = 0.23). The interaction between perceived importance and SM was also significant, F (3, 92) = 2.77, p < .05.
Gender equality issue
Only perceived importance of gender issues showed a main effect, F (1, 92) = 15.27, p < .001. On all four platforms, users demonstrated a positive relationship between how important they treat gender equality and how active they are on this topic, though the interactive effect was not significant, F (3, 92) = 2.59, p = .06.
Discussion
Casting light on nuances from the dimension of platforms and issue categories, one major implication of this research is to infer the different ecosystems on social media. The low level of activism engagement on Twitter might indicate it doesn’t provide the most friendly environment for socio-political discussion and participation. In contrast, with increasing tactic repertoire available on other platforms, we may conceive more creative forms of online activism other than text-based one springing up. Yet on issues of marginalized groups under the matrix of race, class, and gender expression, TikTok might cultivate a harsh atmosphere for activists. Facebook and Instagram generally exhibit a positive environment by having all positive relationships between perceived issue importance and activism, probably due to the privacy control and expressive motivation respectively. On the other hand, practically, different issues may also take different routes of activism to maximize the effect.
For more details regarding the study contact
Dr. S. Shyam Sundar by e-mail at sss12@psu.edu or by telephone at (814) 865-2173