Political participation on social media : a conceptual and empirical state of the art and research agenda

Over the past decades, the topic of political participation in an online context has gained substantive attention. However, it is only recently that conceptual advancements have been made in terms of the specific expressive and mobilizing practices that occur on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok (e.g. Theocharis, 2015). Building on such recent advancements, this paper argues on the importance and implications of recognizing political participation on social media as a conceptually distinct mode of political participation, shaped by unique social media affordances that highlight its networked and political character. Specifically, the paper provides a conceptual and normative state of the art regarding online and social media political participation, a discussion of the empirical implications of prominent theoretical assumptions in the field and a research agenda. We argue that many scholarly critiques towards political online behaviour have given rise to many of the current limitations towards political participation in a social media context, by being dismissive of its political nature and the unique networked features of such engagement. If we accept political participation on social media as a legitimate and distinct mode of political participation however, several empirical research gaps in the field of political communication become apparent and it becomes possible to identify avenues for further research. First, there is a lack of validated empirical approaches to capture political participation on social media, across diverse platforms. While a first quantitative survey measure was recently developed to fit the platform affordances of Facebook (Waeterloos et al., 2021), the field lacks an aligned understanding of how we can and should measure and operationalize political participation on social media (Lane et al., 2021). Future work should therefore include a stronger focus on (digital) mixed method designs and validation of existing measures in shifting media and platform contexts. Second, there is a one-sided focus on social media platforms as a stepping stone. Sparked by optimistic and pessimistic readings of the democratic potential of the internet and new media, empirical research towards political participation has mainly been concerned with how behaviour in the online sphere might affect offline activities. This paper argues that such a research focus is problematic, as it appoints online behaviours an inferior position within the political repertoire of citizens and ignores alternative ways of studying political participation in a new media context (Earl, 2014; Piat, 2019). We therefore argue for a broader adoption of repertoire-based approaches in the field of political communication and more attention towards detangling the relationship between offline and online participatory modes Finally, there is a need for insight in the particular antecedents of political participation on social media. Due to the one-sided focus on online and social media political participation as an independent variable in empirical research, very little is known about the possible unique processes underlying these behaviours. From a participatory democracy perspective, if we are to accept social media political participation as a distinct part of citizens’ political repertoires, gaining insight in the factors hindering or stimulating such behaviours is essential