Are social network sites reducing inequality in political participation?
Gustafsson, Nils LU
(2014)
In Reports in Strategic Communication
- Abstract
- Political participation research has consistently shown that age and education among other factors, to a large extent determine who the activists are. The rise of social media services such as Facebook has however prompted hopes that new and more flexible forms of participation might lead to reduced inequality in political participation. This paper uses unique data on the political uses of social network sites in Sweden in order to study whether the participation through Facebook and other social media services reduces inequality, concentrating on three typical and widespread forms of participation: signing petitions, writing debate articles, and doing work in political organisations. The answer is that they do not: resource factors such... (More)
- Political participation research has consistently shown that age and education among other factors, to a large extent determine who the activists are. The rise of social media services such as Facebook has however prompted hopes that new and more flexible forms of participation might lead to reduced inequality in political participation. This paper uses unique data on the political uses of social network sites in Sweden in order to study whether the participation through Facebook and other social media services reduces inequality, concentrating on three typical and widespread forms of participation: signing petitions, writing debate articles, and doing work in political organisations. The answer is that they do not: resource factors such as education are even more important in explaining participation through social media than through other channels. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/4611540
- author
- Gustafsson, Nils
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2014
- type
- Book/Report
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- social network sites, political participation
- in
- Reports in Strategic Communication
- pages
- 37 pages
- report number
- Vol. 1, No. 2
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- c39ac674-c91b-41e1-80b1-dc7f638ab50f (old id 4611540)
- alternative location
- https://journals.lub.lu.se/rsc/issue/view/1575
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-04 10:16:13
- date last changed
- 2021-04-28 11:03:32
@techreport{c39ac674-c91b-41e1-80b1-dc7f638ab50f,
abstract = {{Political participation research has consistently shown that age and education among other factors, to a large extent determine who the activists are. The rise of social media services such as Facebook has however prompted hopes that new and more flexible forms of participation might lead to reduced inequality in political participation. This paper uses unique data on the political uses of social network sites in Sweden in order to study whether the participation through Facebook and other social media services reduces inequality, concentrating on three typical and widespread forms of participation: signing petitions, writing debate articles, and doing work in political organisations. The answer is that they do not: resource factors such as education are even more important in explaining participation through social media than through other channels.}},
author = {{Gustafsson, Nils}},
keywords = {{social network sites; political participation}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{Vol. 1, No. 2}},
series = {{Reports in Strategic Communication}},
title = {{Are social network sites reducing inequality in political participation?}},
url = {{https://journals.lub.lu.se/rsc/issue/view/1575}},
year = {{2014}},
}