I’m the One: Social Media, Social Identity, and Elections

Jason Anthony Cain

doi:10.30935/ojcmt/9142

I’m the One: Social Media, Social Identity, and Elections

Jason Anthony Cain ¹ ^*

More Detail

Full Text (PDF)

Abstract

This study surveyed voters to investigate why they shared political information on social media during the 2016 election. A strong social identity informed by political alignment was found to predict both polarization and more sharing, while feeling politically misaligned was found to decrease information sharing, supporting a spiral of silence phenomenon. Those with higher scores on a scale of social identity were more likely to feel sharing information to be an influential activity.

Keywords

social identity social media political communication

License

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/9142

Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, Volume 10, Issue 4, Article No: e202025

Published Online: 04 Nov 2020

Article Views: 445

Article Downloads: 134

Open Access References How to Cite This Article Share

Baker, D. (1989). Language testing: A critical survey and practical guide. Arnold.
Baron, E. (2016). This writer ranked American history’s dirtiest elections. Here’s what he says about 2016. Time Magazine. Retrieved from https://time.com/4554784/dirtiest-elections-american-history-2016/
Casler, K., Bickel, L., & Hackett, E. (2013). Separate but equal? A comparison of participants and data gathered via Amazon’s MTurk, social media, and face-to-face behavioral testing. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(6), 2156-2160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.05.009
Chaffee, S. H., & Metzger, M. J. (2001). The end of mass communication?. Mass communication & society, 4(4), 365-379. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327825MCS0404_3
Clifford, S., Jewell, R. M., & Waggoner, P. D. (2015). Are samples drawn from Mechanical Turk valid for research on political ideology?. Research & Politics, 2(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168015622072
Collins, E. (2016). Poll: Clinton, Trump most unfavorable candidates ever. USA Today, 31. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/08/31/poll-clinton-trump-most-unfavorable-candidates-ever/89644296/
Cummins, J. (2016). This Is the Dirtiest Presidential Race Since’72. Politico Magazine, 17.
Enten, H. (2016). Americans’ distaste for both Trump and Clinton is record-breaking. Five Thirty Eight. Retrieved from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-both-trump-and-clinton-is-record-breaking/
Gottfried, J., & Shearer, E. (2016). News Use Across Social Medial Platforms 2016. Pew Research Center.
Greene, S. (1999). Understanding party identification: A social identity approach. Political Psychology, 20(2), 393-403. https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00150
Harris, M. (2014). Amazon’s Mechanical Turk workers protest:’I am a human being, not an algorithm.’. The Guardian, 3. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/03/amazon-mechanical-turk-workers-protest-jeff-bezos
Hayat, T., & Samuel-Azran, T. (2017). “You too, Second Screeners?” Second Screeners’ Echo Chambers During the 2016 US Elections Primaries. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 61(2), 291-308. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2017.1309417
Ho, S. S., & McLeod, D. M. (2008). Social-psychological influences on opinion expression in face-to-face and computer-mediated communication. Communication Research, 35(2), 190-207. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650207313159
Holland, S. (2016). Violence again convulses 2016 election campaign, testing Trump, Clinton. Reuters. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-police-politics/violence-again-convulses-2016-election-campaign-testing-trump-clinton-idUSKCN0ZO2LJ
Huff, C., & Tingley, D. (2015). “Who are these people?” Evaluating the demographic characteristics and political preferences of MTurk survey respondents. Research & Politics, 2(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168015604648
Lazarsfeld Paul, F., Berelson, B., & Gaudet, H. (1944). The People’s choice. New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce.
Lin, M. C., Haridakis, P. M., & Hanson, G. (2016). The role of political identity and media selection on perceptions of hostile media bias during the 2012 presidential campaign. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 60(3), 425-447. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2016.1203316
Lupu, N. (2015). Party polarization and mass partisanship: A comparative perspective. Political Behavior, 37(2), 331-356. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-014-9279-z
Mael, F., & Ashforth, B. E. (1992). Alumni and their alma mater: A partial test of the reformulated model of organizational identification. Journal of organizational Behavior, 13(2), 103-123. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030130202
Mason, W., & Suri, S. (2012). Conducting behavioral research on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Behavior research methods, 44(1), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-011-0124-6
McDevitt, M., Kiousis, S., & Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2003). Spiral of moderation: Opinion expression in computer-mediated discussion. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 15(4), 454-470. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1093/ijpor/15.4.454
Mehrabian, A. (1996). Relations among political attitudes, personality, and psychopathology assessed with new measures of libertarianism and conservatism. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 18(4), 469-491. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324834basp1804_7
Metzger, M. J. (2009). The study of media effects in the era of Internet communication. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 1–31.
Noelle‐Neumann, E. (1974). The spiral of silence a theory of public opinion. Journal of communication, 24(2), 43-51. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1974.tb00367.x
Oppenheimer, D. M., Meyvis, T., & Davidenko, N. (2009). Instructional manipulation checks: Detecting satisficing to increase statistical power. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 867-872. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2009.03.009
Ponder, J. D., & Haridakis, P. (2015). Selectively social politics: The differing roles of media Use on political discussion. Mass Communication and Society, 18(3), 281-302. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2014.940977
Rhodes, J. (2016). Violence has long been a feature of American elections. TheConvesation.com. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/violence-has-long-been-a-feature-of-american-elections-67688
Riker, W. H. (1982). Liberalism against populism (Vol. 34). San Francisco: WH Freeman.
Rost, K., Stahel, L., & Frey, B. S. (2016). Digital social norm enforcement: Online firestorms in social media. PLoS one, 11(6), e0155923. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0155923
Sanders, S. (2016). Did social media ruin election 2016?. National Public Radio.
Sherif, M. (1988). The robbers cave experiment: Intergroup conflict and cooperation.[Orig. pub. as Intergroup conflict and group relations]. Wesleyan University Press.
Tajfel, H. (1982). Human groups and social categories. 1981. Taijfel and Turner,” The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior, 7-24. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.4324/9780203505984-16
Tajfel, H., Turner, J. C., Austin, W. G., & Worchel, S. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. Organizational identity: A reader, 56-65.
Townshend, P. (1971). Won’t Get Fooled Again [Recorded by The Who]. On Who’s Next, London: Track.
Wanta, W., & Dimitrova, D. (2000). Chatrooms and the spiral of silence: An examination of online discussions during the final 1996 US presidential debate. International Communication Association, Acapulco, Mexico.
Weimann, G., Weiss-Blatt, N., Mengistu, G., Tregerman, M. M., & Oren, R. (2014). Reevaluating “The end of mass communication?”. Mass Communication and Society, 17(6), 803-829. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2013.851700
Williamson, V. (2016). Can Crowdsourcing Be Ethical?. Brookings Institution, 3.
Woong Yun, G., & Park, S. Y. (2011). Selective posting: Willingness to post a message online. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 16(2), 201-227. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2010.01533.x

I’m the One: Social Media, Social Identity, and Elections

More Detail

Abstract

Keywords

License

References

References

APA 6th edition

AMA 10th edition

Chicago

Harvard

MLA

Vancouver