Does Context Matter?
Systemic features can play a relevant role in shaping the relationship between political experiences on social media and political participation. The positive relationship between exposure to supportive political content on social media and participation is stronger in countries with majoritarian patterns of political competition than in countries with proportional dynamics. The positive relationship between being targeted by electoral mobilization on social media and participation is stronger in party-centric political systems than in candidate-centric ones. By contrast, the relationship between accidental exposure to news on social media and participation does not vary across different types of media systems. The fact that some features of political systems moderate the relationship between political experiences on social media and participation highlights that comparative research can help us understand how contextual characteristics that vary across countries shape the political implications of social media.