Towards a networked public sphere: how social media triggers civic engagement through news consumption and political discussion

This dissertation studies the affordances of Social Network Sites (SNSs) that appear to amplify the participatory effects of news information and political talk on civic engagement. It also advances a theoretical model that might account for these amplifying effects. More particularly, due to SNSs’ underlying properties that make the structure of political discussion more translucent, and that motivate media information seeking by contacts’ notifications, I argue that this participatory dynamic has a positive effect on collective efficacy ( a personal-psychological mediator traditionally associated with civic engagement). Drawing on the O-S-R-O-R (orientations-stimulus-reasoning-orientations-response) model of communication effects and following a network perspective, I suggest that the ways SNSs facilitate access to news information and promote political discussion through integration of peer generated information, affect how people engage with others and process information. This, in turn, affects the traditional mediation of news consumption and political discussion on civic engagement. To test the relationships between the variables identified in the proposed model, I rely on data collected from a survey of college students (N = 808). Results indicate that whereas political discussion originated in SNSs has a stronger effect on civic participation compared to face-to-face and Email conversation, collective efficacy partially mediates the association between interpersonal discussion and civic engagement. Concerning structural features in which political discussion occurs, it was found that network heterogeneity and discussion among weak ties moderate positively the effects on civic engagement. Further, the positive effect of news consumption and political discussion on civic engagement was found even in non-active information seekers and those exposed serendipitously to information. To test in an experimental setting whether participation in SNSs, in the form of discussion about civic-related issues, has an impact on political collective efficacy, 151 students participated commenting on Facebook and YouTube accounts of the White House and other federal agencies during a two-week interval. The experiment confirmed that discussion in social media served as a catalyst for collective efficacy. This positive relationship was found to be stronger in Facebook than in YouTube, supporting the view that the formation of a networked public sphere is strongly affected by the type of audiences (contacts) in users’ networks.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Daniel Halper