A social safety net? Rejection sensitivity and political opinion sharing among young people in social media
Bäck, Emma LU ; Bäck, Hanna LU
; Fredén, Annika
LU
and Gustafsson, Nils
LU
(2019)
In New Media & Society
21(2).
- Abstract
- One reason why people avoid using social media to express their opinions is to avert social sanctions as proposed by the spiral of silence theory. We here elaborate on individual-level sensitivity to social rejection in relation to voicing political opinions on social media sites. Given the uncertainty about sharing political views in social media, and the fact that social acceptance, or rejection, can be easily communicated through, for instance, likes, or a lack of likes, we argue that rejection sensitive individuals are less likely to share political information in social media. Combining an analysis of unique survey data on psychological characteristics and online political activity with focus group interviews with Swedish youth... (More)
- One reason why people avoid using social media to express their opinions is to avert social sanctions as proposed by the spiral of silence theory. We here elaborate on individual-level sensitivity to social rejection in relation to voicing political opinions on social media sites. Given the uncertainty about sharing political views in social media, and the fact that social acceptance, or rejection, can be easily communicated through, for instance, likes, or a lack of likes, we argue that rejection sensitive individuals are less likely to share political information in social media. Combining an analysis of unique survey data on psychological characteristics and online political activity with focus group interviews with Swedish youth supports our argument, showing that rejection sensitive individuals are less inclined to engage politically in social media. The results extend on previous research by establishing the role of rejection sensitivity in political engagement in social media. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/913ede38-72d9-4270-90fa-1cea16f6617f
- author
- Bäck, Emma
LU
; Bäck, Hanna
LU
; Fredén, Annika
LU
and Gustafsson, Nils
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2019-02-01
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- social media, political participation, political opinion, political psychology, rejection sensitivity
- in
- New Media & Society
- volume
- 21
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 19 pages
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85059478775
- ISSN
- 1461-4448
- DOI
- 10.1177/1461444818795487
- project
- Political participation among young people – from party democrats to social media activists?
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 913ede38-72d9-4270-90fa-1cea16f6617f
- date added to LUP
- 2018-09-06 09:30:29
- date last changed
- 2024-01-29 20:07:40
@article{913ede38-72d9-4270-90fa-1cea16f6617f,
abstract = {{One reason why people avoid using social media to express their opinions is to avert social sanctions as proposed by the spiral of silence theory. We here elaborate on individual-level sensitivity to social rejection in relation to voicing political opinions on social media sites. Given the uncertainty about sharing political views in social media, and the fact that social acceptance, or rejection, can be easily communicated through, for instance, likes, or a lack of likes, we argue that rejection sensitive individuals are less likely to share political information in social media. Combining an analysis of unique survey data on psychological characteristics and online political activity with focus group interviews with Swedish youth supports our argument, showing that rejection sensitive individuals are less inclined to engage politically in social media. The results extend on previous research by establishing the role of rejection sensitivity in political engagement in social media.}},
author = {{Bäck, Emma and Bäck, Hanna and Fredén, Annika and Gustafsson, Nils}},
issn = {{1461-4448}},
keywords = {{social media; political participation; political opinion; political psychology; rejection sensitivity}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{02}},
number = {{2}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{New Media & Society}},
title = {{A social safety net? Rejection sensitivity and political opinion sharing among young people in social media}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/50696628/Ba_ck_et_al_2018_NMS_AV.pdf}},
doi = {{10.1177/1461444818795487}},
volume = {{21}},
year = {{2019}},
}