Why Do People Share Political Information on Social Media?

Abstract

This study investigates factors predicting political information sharing on social media in the election context. Specifically, the current study examines how users’ six motivations for political information sharing and exposure to political disagreement on social media predict their political information sharing behaviors. Analyses of national survey data collected before the 2018 U.S. midterm election suggest that criticism, informing, and socialization motivations, but not expression, awareness, and self-promotion motivations, positively predict political information sharing on social media. Individuals are more likely to share political information when they are exposed to information that is disagreeable. This relationship is stronger among individuals with higher epistemic political efficacy and lower political knowledge.

Keywords:

• Political information sharing
• political information sharing motivations
• counter-attitudinal information
• epistemic political efficacy
• political knowledge

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1 Among the sample of social media users, those who used social media in the past 14 days yet did not share political information on social media were given the lowest value, 1 (“not at all”).

2 We also tested alternative models in which RQ1 and the hypotheses were examined in two separate regression analyses while controlling for the same set of demographic, political, news and social media variables. The significant results remained the same.