What Will They Think If I Post This? Risks and Returns for Political Expression Across Platforms

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 205630512110554
Author(s):  
Elnaz Parviz ◽  
Cameron W. Piercy
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
Privacy Management ◽  
Older Americans ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
Network Characteristics ◽  
Risks And Benefits ◽  
Nationally Representative

Social networking sites (SNSs) allow individuals to establish and maintain a variety of relationships as well as share different aspects of their identity by expressing their views on numerous topics, including politics. SNS also come with perceived interpersonal risks and benefits tied to sharing with a collapsed networked audience. Using a nationally representative sample of US social media users ( N = 2,873) from 2016, this study investigated how perceived network characteristics influence people’s decision to engage in online political expression on three platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Findings indicate that perceived ideological homophily with the audience on an SNS and past use of privacy management settings both predict how much individuals post about politics on Facebook and Twitter, but not on Instagram. On Instagram, Black Americans were significantly more likely to engage in online political expression. On Facebook and Twitter, older Americans engaged in more political expression, and across all platforms, perceptions that political discussion online is uncivil were negatively associated with political expression.

scholarly journals Social Media Posts About Racism Leads to Evaluative Backlash for Black Job Applicants

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 205630512097836
Author(s):  
Simon Howard ◽  
Kalen Kennedy ◽  
Francisco Tejeda
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
Employee Selection ◽  
Racial Group ◽  
Job Applicants ◽  
Cover Letter ◽  
Future Directions

Black Americans post about race and race-related issues on social media more than any other racial group. In this study, we investigated whether Black Americans who post about racism on social networking sites (i.e., Facebook) experience evaluative backlash during the employee selection process. Participants ( N = 154) were given a Black job candidate’s cover letter, resume, and a scanned printout of their social media. Depending on what condition they were randomly assigned to, the applicant’s social media contained posts about racism or posts that were race neutral. Results indicated that Black individuals whose posts were about racism were evaluated less favorably than Black individuals whose posts were race neutral. Specifically, they were perceived as being less likable. In addition, Black individuals whose social media posts were related to racism were less likely to be offered an interview for a job. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

scholarly journals A Trigger or a Muffler? - Examining the Dynamics of Crosscutting Exposure and Political Expression in Online Social Media

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-27
Author(s):  
Soo Young Bae
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Online Social Networks ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Social Networking Site ◽  
Online Social Networking ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Candidate Support

This study explores the potential of online social media to serve as a sphere for political discourse and investigates the extent to which everyday uses of online social networking sites can expose citizens to politically diverse viewpoints.  In addition, this study asks whether such crosscutting exposure in online social networks will act as a trigger or a muffler for political expression – that is, whether exposure political difference will stimulate or discourage political discussions.  With analyses of a sample of online social networking site users in the context of the 2012 presidential election in South Korea, this study explicates the link between crosscutting exposure and citizens’ political expressions in social media.  Results reveal that contrary to the predictions in previous literature, exposure to politically incongruent viewpoints in online social networking sites does not seem to undermine users’ expressive behaviors but instead positively contribute to political expression.  In addition, this study shows the significant role of citizens’ perceptions of candidate support in their own networks, and illustrates that the dynamics of political expression differ significantly depending on the users’ age.

scholarly journals The Onset of Menstruation and Social Networking Site Use in Adolescent Girls: The Mediating Role of Body Mass Index

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (19) ◽  
pp. 9942
Author(s):  
Chenyu Lv ◽  
Ofir Turel ◽  
Qinghua He
Keyword(s):  
Body Mass Index ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Adolescent Girls ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Social Networking Site ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Nationally Representative

Evidence suggests that girls spend much time on social networking sites (SNS), often more than boys do. It has been proposed that this may have to do with sex-based differences in the need and approaches for socialization. We posit that adolescent girls are also unique in that they are developing physiologically and start menstruating. Based on prior research, we hypothesize that the onset of menstruation can drive physiological changes (increased body mass index (BMI)), which together with common behavioral–psychological (social and emotional) responses to menstruation can contribute to an increase in SNS use. We therefore aim to test whether BMI partially mediates the relationship between menstruation and SNS use in adolescent girls. Results based on a large nationally representative sample in the United Kingdom suggest that the age of menarche was negatively associated with daily hours of SNS use, and that BMI elevation partially mediated this association. These results extend the negative effects of the early onset of menstruation and imply that BMI control strategies may help to reduce the use of SNS in girls who experience menarche at an earlier age.

Determinants of cross-cutting discussion on Facebook: Political interest, news consumption, and strong-tie heterogeneity

2020 ◽  
pp. 146144481989987
Author(s):  
Yanqin Lu ◽  
Jae Kook Lee
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
National Survey ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Mediating Effect ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
News Consumption ◽  
Facebook Use

Scholarly debate persists as to whether the use of social networking sites (SNSs) encourages or discourages political discussion with people holding different opinions. Drawing on a national survey, this study focuses on Facebook and explores the predictors of cross-cutting discussion on this platform. The results reveal that political interest is positively associated with cross-cutting discussion and this relationship is mediated by the frequency of news consumption on Facebook, suggesting that Facebook use has the potential of exposing the politically attentive to dissonant views. Furthermore, the level of heterogeneity of a person’s strong-tie network is found to accentuate the mediating effect of Facebook news consumption. Implications are discussed for the impacts of Facebook use on deliberative democracy.

scholarly journals Brevity is the Soul of Twitter: The Constraint Affordance and Political Discussion

2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kokil Jaidka ◽  
Alvin Zhou ◽  
Yphtach Lelkes
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Series Design ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Technological Affordances

Abstract Many hoped that social networking sites would allow for the open exchange of information and a revival of the public sphere. Unfortunately, conversations on social media are often toxic and not conducive to healthy political discussions. Twitter, the most widely used social network for political discussions, doubled the limit of characters in a tweet in November 2017, which provided an opportunity to study the effect of technological affordances on political discussions using a discontinuous time series design. Using supervised and unsupervised natural language processing methods, we analyzed 358,242 tweet replies to U.S. politicians from January 2017 to March 2018. We show that doubling the permissible length of a tweet led to less uncivil, more polite, and more constructive discussions online. However, the declining trend in the empathy and respectfulness of these tweets raises concerns about the implications of the changing norms for the quality of political deliberation.

scholarly journals Developing Reliable Measures of Privacy Management within Social Networking Sites

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Dwyer ◽  
Starr Roxanne Hiltz ◽  
Marshall Scott Poole ◽  
Julia Gussner ◽  
Felicitas Hennig ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Privacy Management
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document