Effects of Facebook on the political ideology of the youth

(An article published in 'Media Mimamsa' (January-March 2017; ISSN 2229-5593), refereed research journal, published by Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism & Communication, Bhopal)

Padmanabha K. V., Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism, University College of Arts, B. H. Road, Tumkur-572103. E-mail: sibanthipadmanabha@gmail.com

Dr. Sathish Kumar, Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Kuvempu University, Jnana Sahyadri, Shankaraghatta-577451. E-mail: sathishandinje@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Social media plays a vital role in fostering democratic deliberations. Several studies have revealed that there are significant positive relationships between the use of digital media and political participation. Facebook is, nowadays, one of the widely used social media platforms to discuss news about government and politics. It allows users to share their political beliefs, support specific candidates, and interact with others on political issues. The present study is an attempt to understand the relationship between Facebook and political ideologies among the youth. The study based on an online survey reveals that Facebook can be a platform for political discussions but it does not have much impact on the political ideology of the youth.

Keywords: Social media, political communication, political knowledge, political participation, political ideology, Facebook

Introduction:

Social media plays a vital role in fostering democratic deliberations. Online tools such as blogging, podcasting, political websites with mechanisms for online feedback and participation, social networking, and online video sharing play a critical role in the political communication process (Kaid & Holtz-Bacha, 2008). Research has indicated that levels of political knowledge affect the acceptance of democratic principles, attitude toward specific issues and political participation (Galston, 2001). According to Pew Research Centre, the advent of social media has opened up new ways for people with similar interests to find, share and talk about news including news about politics with friends and colleagues. Several studies have revealed that an increased exposure and attention to online news is positively related to political knowledge, and there are significant positive relationships between the use of digital media and political participation (as cited in Dimitrova et al., 2011).

Social media has a great role to play in a democratic country like India. It is interesting to note that one third of India’s population is comprised of youth in the age group of 15-34 years, and it is expected to be the world’s youngest country by 2020 (Shivakumar, G., 2013). India has been recording a fast growth in Internet penetration too. In 2010, only 7.5% of Indian population had access to Internet, and in 2016, it has leaped to 34.8% (internetlivestats.com). According to a report by Internet and Mobile Association of India, 66% of Internet users in urban India regularly access social media (livemint.com), and at present there are about 21.5 crore social media users in the country (statista.com). Politicians and political parties in India have been making the best use of social media to reach out the voters during elections in the recent years.

Literature review:

Tolbert & McNeal (2003) found out that Internet may enhance voter information about candidates and elections, and in turn stimulate increased participation. Gil de Zúñiga et.al. (2012) found that informational use of social networking sites exerted a significant and positive impact on individuals' activities aimed at engaging in civic and political action. Another study (McClurg, 2003) has revealed that interaction in social networks has a strong influence on the propensity to participate in politics. A study of blogging by Gil de Zúñiga et al (2010) strongly suggest that blog readers are involved in a range of participatory activities, both online and offline, and that these two spheres are highly complementary and mutually supportive.

Cogburn & Espinoza-Vasquez (2011) examined the impact of internet and social media on political participation and civic engagement in the 2008 Obama campaign and found that the campaign created a nationwide virtual organization that motivated 3.1 million individual contributors. A study by Gil de Zúñiga et al. (2014) indicated that social media news use has direct effects on offline political participation and indirect effects on offline and online political participation mediated via political expression. Another study by Yamamoto et al. (2015) showed that online political expression enhanced the effects of political mobile apps, traditional offline and online media, and social media on political participation.

Sorensen (2016) examined the presence on Facebook and Twitter of Members of the Danish National Parliament and revealed that Danish MPs have a relatively high degree of engagement in political conversations with citizens on Facebook. Focusing on usage of Facebook in Hong Kong, Tang & Lee (2013) examined how time spent on FB, exposure to shared political information, network size, network structural heterogeneity, and direct connection with public political actors relate to young people’s online and offline political participation.

Chu (2011) examined the potential link of Facebook group participation with viral advertising responses. The study suggested that college-aged Facebook group members engage in higher levels of self-disclosure and maintain more favorable attitudes toward social media and advertising in general than do non-group members.

A few studies have been conducted in India too with regard to the use of social media by politicians and political parties during elections. However, there have been no specific efforts to understand whether social media like Facebook have any impact on the political ideology of the voters, especially the youth. The present study attempts to explore how young Facebook users’ react to the political posts and what kind of influence Facebook has on the political ideology of its users.

Method:

The primary data for the present study was collected through an online survey that lasted for two weeks. A total of 130 Facebook users, basically natives of Karnataka, in an age group of 18-35 years, were selected via a convenience sampling, who were distributed with a structured questionnaire using Google Forms. The respondents were invited to fill in the questionnaire through e-mails and Facebook messages. A total of 92 people responded to the request with a response rate of 71%.

The questionnaire gauged the demographic characteristics such as sex, age, education, employment and income of the respondents in the first part. In the second part, it collected information on their Facebook usage, like since when they had a Facebook account, hours spent on Facebook, number of ‘friends’ and groups, and reasons why they use Facebook. A question was also asked which political ideology they wanted to be identified with.

The third part of the questionnaire dealt with Facebook and politics. Respondents were asked to rate on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1= strongly agree, 5= strongly disagree) how they treated Facebook as a forum for political discussions. Another set of questions were asked to measure the connection between the respondents’ interest in political issues and their Facebook behaviour. They were also asked to respond to a set of eight items on 5-point scale (1= never, 5= very often) in order to assess their political activities on Facebook.

The respondents were also asked some direct questions with an intention to measure the impact of Facebook on their political ideologies such as, ‘Has your Facebook experience made you think that the political ideology you have is the correct one?’ or ‘not the correct one?’, ‘Have you started admiring a specific political ideology in course of your Facebook experience?’, ‘Have you changed your views on a politician or political party after going through Facebook posts?’, etc. The respondents were also asked which social media other than Facebook and which mass media influenced their political ideology.

Results:

Of the 92 respondents, 59 were males and 33 were females. Majority of them (66.3%) were post-graduates, while 12.8% had an under graduate degree, and 18.6% had an M. Phil. or PhD. Most of the respondents (71.8%) were employed in private sector, while 15.3% were in government sector, 8.2% were self-employed.

Majority of the respondents (77.9%) said that they had Facebook accounts for more than five years, while 16.3% said they created their account 3-4 years ago. As many as 37.2% respondents said they spend 1-5 hours on FB in a week, while 30.2% spent less than one hour and 24.4% spent 6-10 hours. Majority of the respondents (29.1%) had FB friends in between 1001-2000 and FB groups in between 1-10 (66.7%).

Most of respondents (71.4%) use FB for keeping in touch with friends, 57.1% for getting news updates, 47.6% for expressing their views on current issues, 29.8% for getting feedback on the contents they post, 22.6% for making news contacts, 21.4% for passing time and having fun, and 9.5% for promoting business. For a question, which political ideology they wanted to be identified with, 16.3% answered ‘rightist’, 2.3% leftist, 18.6% centrist, while 46.5% said they did not want to be identified with any political ideology, while 16.3% said they did not have any political ideology.

As shown in Table-1, most of the respondents considered FB an appropriate forum to discuss about politics. Majority of them felt that political leaders having accounts/pages on FB is something good.

Statements	Strongly Agree	Agree	Undecided	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
FB is an appropriate place for people to express political views	25.8%	36%	13.5%	16.9%	7.9%
FB can be used to inform and educate people regarding politics	27.3%	40.9%	13.6%	14.8%	3.4%
It is good that political leaders have accounts/pages on FB	47.7%	40.9%	3.4%	6.8%	1.1%
FB can be used to convince people on certain political issues	20.5%	48.9%	17%	11.4%	2.3%

Table-1: Facebook as a forum to discuss politics

However, when asked about their individual behavior in Facebook with regard to political issues, the majority of the respondents were negative in their answers. This is clear in Table-2.

How many times did you do the following things on Facebook in the past one year	Never	Rarely	Sometime	Often	Very Often
Posting a status update about a political issue	36.5%	31.8%	21.2%	7.1%	3.5%
Commenting on a friend’s post on politics	29.1%	30.2%	25.5%	11.6%	3.5%
Posting or sharing a photo or video or link about politics	41.7%	26.2%	23.8%	6%	2.4%
Writing or sharing a note about politics on my network	45.9%	27.1%	20%	3.5%	3.5%
Joining or leaving a group about politics	57.6%	24.7%	10.6%	4.7%	2.4%
Clicking ‘going’ for a political event	69.5%	24.4%	3.7%	1.2%	1.2%
Discussing a political issue on a message	48.2%	28.2%	20%	2.4%	1.2%
Clicking ‘like’ on a political party or politician’s fan page	52.9%	24.7%	14.1%	4.7%	3.5%

Table-2: FB users’ individual behavior in Facebook with regard to political issues

In case of individual reactions to Facebook posts (Table 3), respondents showed varied attitudes.

What do you do with a post/link/photo/ video related to political issues on Facebook?	Never	Rarely	Sometime	Often	Very Often
Read	8.2%	20%	36.3%	24.7%	10.6%
Like	20.7%	35.4%	39%	1.2%	3.7%
Comment	30.1%	43.4%	20.5%	3.6%	2.4%
Share on my wall	56.1%	22%	17.1%	3.7%	1.2%
Share on a message privately	61.4%	22.9%	15.7%	0%	0%
Tag friends	81.9%	12%	4.8%	0%	1.2%

Table-3: FB users’ reaction to political posts

The responses for the questions what do they do with the political posts which they don’t like, or what they do with a friend whose political posts irritate them often, also did not make much difference (Table-4 and Table-5).

What do you do with a post/link/photo/ video related to political issue or party, which you don’t like?	Never	Rarely	Sometime	Often	Very Often
Ignore	14%	15.1%	33.7%	17.4%	19.8%
Comment	57.1%	27.4%	10.7%	3.6%	1.2%
Share on my wall	79.8%	7.1%	11.9%	0%	1.2%
Share on a message privately	79.8%	14.3%	4.8%	0%	1.2%
Tag friends	88.1%	9.5%	0%	0%	2.4%

Table-4: FB users’ reaction to political posts which they don’t like

What do you do with a friend whose political posts irritate you often?	Never	Rarely	Sometime	Often	Very Often
Ignore	16.5%	7.1%	22.4%	18.8%	35.3%
Block	53.1%	14.8%	18.5%	6.2%	7.4%
Unfriend	50%	21.3%	16.3%	6.3%	6.3%
Unfollow	42.5%	15%	16.3%	10%	16.3%
Hide	46.9%	17.3%	16%	9.9%	9.9%

Table-5: Reaction to political posts that irritate users often

Table-6 summarizes the responses for some direct questions which were intended to understand whether FB had any impact on the political ideology of the respondents.

Questions	Yes	No	Don’t know
Has your Facebook experience made you think that the political ideology you have is the correct one?	4.8%	59.5%	35.7%
Have you started admiring a specific political ideology in course of your Facebook experience?	9.5%	75%	15.5%
Have you changed your views on a politician or political party after going through Facebook posts?	17.6%	77.6%	4.7%
Have you changed your option of candidate in any election after going through Facebook posts?	10.6%	78.8%	10.6%

Table-6: Impact of FB on political ideology of respondents

Responding to two other questions, the respondents said Twitter (41%) and YouTube (20.5%) were among the other social media that influenced their political ideology, while 45.8% marked the option ‘none of the above’. According to them, newspaper (79.1%) and television (61.6%) were the mass media that influenced their political thoughts.

Discussion:

The main objective of the present study was to explore how Facebook users’ react to the political posts and what kind of impact Facebook has on the political ideology its users. A large majority of the respondents made it clear that Facebook did not have any impact on their political ideology. As shown in Table-6, 59.5% of respondents said their FB experience did not even reassure them that what ideology they had was the correct one (35.7% replied ‘don’t know).

75% of the respondents said they did not start admiring any specific political ideology in course of their FB experience. 77.6% of the respondents said the political posts on the FB did not made them change their views on a politician or a political party. Finally, a high majority of respondents (78.8%) said they did not change their option of a candidate in any election after going through FB posts (Table-6).

As per the results, many people agree that FB can be an appropriate place to discuss about politics, but when it comes to their personal reaction to political issues, they maintain a distance. They were more positive on ‘reading’ and ‘liking’ certain posts/links/photos/videos related to politics, but negative on commenting, sharing and tagging friends (Tables 2, 3 & 4).

For instance, 36.3% respondents said they ‘sometime’ read, and 24.7% said they ‘often’ read; but 56.1% said they ‘never’ share such posts on their wall, 61.4% said they ‘never’ share them on messages privately, and 81.9% of respondents said they ‘never’ tag friends to such posts. Even most of them were never for blocking (53.1%), unfriending (59%), unfollowing (42.5%) or hiding (46.9%) a friend whose political posts irritated them. However, majority of the respondents said they ignored such friends (Table-5).

An interesting finding that can be noted here is that almost half of the respondents (46.5%) replied that they did not want to be identified with any political ideology. And a large number of respondents found FB a platform for keeping in touch with friends (71.4%), for getting news updates (57.1%) and for expressing views on current issues (47.6%).

Conclusion:

Various researches across the world have shown that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter play a major role in the 21^st century politics. They revealed that the social media have a vital role in improving political knowledge, political expression, and political participation of the people. The present study reassures the phenomenon but emphasizes that Facebook does not have much to do with the political ideologies of the youth.  As the response to the last question indicates, people are highly influenced by newspaper and television with regard to politics but not by social media in the Indian context. However, it should be noted that the study has its own limitations, and further research should be conducted in a larger scale to confirm the results. The authors feel that a study during General Elections will be more helpful in assessing the social media impact on the political ideology of youth in a more precise manner.

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To cite this article:

Padmanabha, K. V. & Sathish Kumar. (2017). Effects of Facebook on the political ideology of the youth. Media Mimamsa, 10(3), 31-36.

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