How does Facebook news use lead to actions in South Korea? The role of Facebook discussion network heterogeneity, political interest, and conflict avoidance in predicting political participation

Highlights

• This study investigates how Facebook news use promotes political participation.

• Facebook news use influences the participation via discussion network heterogeneity.

• This indirect effect is moderated by political interest and conflict avoidance.

Abstract

Employing survey data collected in South Korea (N = 470), this study investigated whether and how Facebook users’ news use promotes their offline political participation. Results showed that Facebook news use indirectly influenced political participation through discussion network heterogeneity. This indirect relationship was conditional on Facebook users’ political interest and conflict avoidance. For people who are highly interested in politics but less conflict avoidant, the frequency of Facebook news use is more likely to boost political discussions with heterogeneous others, which contributes to facilitating their participation in offline political activities. The implications of these results were discussed.

Introduction

As social networking sites (SNSs) have become a key platform for news use, scholarly attention has given to explore the role of SNS news use in the deliberative or participatory democracy. Prior research has demonstrated that news use on SNSs plays a vital role in linking general SNS use with exposure to political disagreement (Barnidge, 2015) and discussion network heterogeneity (Choi and Lee, 2015, Lee et al., 2014). Even though exposure to diverse views on social networks has been considered as a central part of deliberative processes (Wojcieszak and Mutz, 2009), some studies have suggested that users’ perceptions of political disagreement on SNSs can adversely influence their engagement in political activities (Kim, 2016, Lu et al., 2016). However, given that offline network heterogeneity is shown to lead to actual political engagement (e.g., Kwak et al., 2005, Song and Eveland, 2015), SNS discussion network heterogeneity may positively affect political outcomes.

In fact, Kim and Chen (2015) indicate that the frequent use of news content on SNSs expands users' levels of discussion network heterogeneity, which encourages their involvement in civic activities. Civic engagement is conceptually different from political participation (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2012, Kim and Chen, 2015). Civic engagement involves activities designed to address or solve issues in a community or neighborhoods (Zukin et al., 2006). Political participation refers to behaviors aimed at exerting influence on government actions or policies (Verba et al., 1995). Activities for civic engagement (e.g., “participating in activities for charity,” “caring for local issues and neighbors”) do not require people to express their fixed position (Kim and Chen, 2015). Conversely, activities for political participation including “voting and attending political rallies” ask people to voice their fixed position (Lee, 2012). That is, civic engagement is related to non-position taking activities, whereas political participation is related to position-taking activities (Kim and Chen, 2015). SNS discussion network heterogeneity was found to foster users’ engagement in non-position taking civic activities (Kim and Chen, 2015). However, as Kim and Chen (2015) mentioned as a limitation of their study, we cannot generalize this finding to political participation that usually requires taking a position. The current study adds to the literature by exploring the association between Facebook users' discussion network heterogeneity and their offline political behaviors. In addition, the researcher tests whether Facebook discussion network heterogeneity mediates an impact of Facebook news use on users’ actual engagement in political activities.

More importantly, this study investigates whether and how this mediating effect varies depending on individual differences in political interest and conflict avoidance. Prior research has shown that SNS users’ political interest and conflict avoidance influence their engagement in political discussions on online networks (e.g., Choi and Lee, 2015, Vraga et al., 2015). Therefore, this study predicts that the indirect effect of Facebook use for news on political participation via Facebook discussion network heterogeneity will be moderated by Facebook users’ political interest and conflict avoidance. This proposed moderated mediation model (See Fig. 1) is tested in the context of South Korea. As of July 2016, six out of 10 Internet users in South Korea (65.2%) are reported to use SNSs and their average use time per week was 63 min (Internet Usage Survey, 2016). Mainstream media in South Korea is known to be ideologically polarized (Kim and Hyun, 2017). Empirical studies have shown that the use of SNSs in South Korea reflects such ideological divisions (e.g., Hahn et al., 2015).