Is it still a man’s world? Social media news use and gender inequality in online political engagement

ABSTRACT

Social media platforms have created new opportunities for political engagement. This has brought about a rich body of literature on the relationship between the two. However, the impact of social media on redressing or augmenting gender inequality in engagement remains underexplored. This cross-national comparative study investigates the role of social media news use in influencing gender inequality in online political engagement across three Sub-Saharan African nations: Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. An analysis of survey data suggests that there exists a gender divide in online political engagement in the three countries. Furthermore, the informational use of social media increases the likelihood of online political engagement. Still, social media news use exacerbates gender-driven engagement inequality. Finally, education reinforces the role of social media in engagement inequality such that the gender divide in online political engagement is found to be most significant among the higher than lower educated groups. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Political engagement
• social media
• gender
• education
• political inequality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Saifuddin Ahmed is an Assistant Professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University. His research interests lie in new and emerging media, political communication, social media and politics, public opinion, and media representation of minorities. He is particularly interested in the transformative role of new media in political engagement in technologically emerging societies.

Dani Madrid-Morales is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston. His research interest reside at the nexus of media studies, international politics and popular culture, encompassing topics such as international communication, global media, Japanese visual culture and media representations. Geographically, he focuses on mediated communication in East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which is at the centre of most of his current research.