Public opinion, media and activism: the differentiating role of media use and perceptions of public opinion on political behaviour

ABSTRACT

To what extent do perceptions of public opinion effect individual support and political participation in political action? To what extent might media use moderate the role of public opinion in predicting political participation in the digital age? This study investigates these questions by analysing unique data from an experiment and a representative survey designed and conducted at the height of the summer 2011 protests in Israel. This study offers a new analytical model for studying activism by independently and simultaneously examining the direct and indirect effects of perceptions of majority support, individual support and media use on political behaviour. The experimental results suggest that perceptions of public opinion and media use did affect participation in the 2011 social movement. Specifically, increased perception of majority support for the movement led to increased rates of participation. Moreover, media use was inconsequential among those respondents who perceived that a majority of the public supported the protest. Digital media had a moderate effect on the association between perceptions and support for the protest movement, but there was no such effect with respect to mainstream media use. The findings provide new empirical insight into the effects of perceptions of public opinion and media use on political behaviour. In doing so, they help to explain the development of mass protest movements in the digital age and especially the potential effect of perceptions and media use in promoting the evolution of social movements as well as involvement in collective action in the digital age.

KEYWORDS:

• Media use
• perceptions of public opinion
• social movements
• public opinion
• activism
• political participation

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their supportive and constructive feedback, as well as the Shaine Center and the Levi Eshkol Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for the generous support in pursuing this research. The author, however, takes full responsibility for the content of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. All of the survey questions used in this study are presented in Table A3 in the Online Appendix.

2. There were four additional questions regarding the level of participation in this movement (e.g., online, signing a petition, participation in a protest or living in one of the tent camps). It is worth noting that including these additional questions would not have significantly changed the results of any of the models.

3. Although a vast majority of those who joined the protest movement’s Facebook page were supporters of this movement, some opponents of the movement also joined the page and used it as a platform to express their dissenting opinions. However, among the general population, we found only a small percentage of opponents to this movement (about 13%).

4. For an elaboration of the interaction effect, see Figure A1 in the Online Appendix.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Shaine Center and the Levi Eshkol Institute at the Hebrew University.

Notes on contributors

Yossi David

Yossi David is an Israel professor in communication science in the Department of Communication at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. His primary scholarly interests centre on what drives public opinion and social behaviour, exploring the interactions between media (both technologies and discourses), attitudes, emotions, and behaviour. His current work comparatively tracks the uses and effects of stereotypes and activism in shaping and constructing public opinion and social behaviour in political conflict and crises.