Social Media and Democracy: Fostering Political Deliberation and Participation

Abstract

A democracy extends beyond partisan politics. The current study examines how a social media video about the environment can spark political deliberation and participation. Drawing from normative democratic theory, an experimental design was employed to test the effect of the video in engaging citizens in the political process and fostering interpersonal conversations, both online and face-to-face. At the core of these normative democratic outcomes is information efficacy, as individuals are moved to discuss the issue and act to protect the environment from the threat of single-use plastics. The results reveal that social media have the potential to have a positive democratic influence.

Keywords:

• Deliberative Democracy
• Environmental Protection
• Information Efficacy
• Political Participation
• Political Uses of Social Media

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. With a sample of 131 participants (65 per group), a one-way ANOVA (statistical power = .81) is able to detect medium [Effect size (ES) = .25)] and large effects (ES = .40), but not small effects (ES = .10). A partial correlation analysis, however, is only able to detect large effects (ES = .35), not small (ES = .02) or medium effects (ES = .15). See Cohen (1992).