Screw the majority?: Examining partisans’ outspokenness on social networking sites

ABSTRACT

This study investigates why partisan individuals use social networking sites (SNSs) to speak out for the issue of legalizing same-sex marriage in Taiwan. As expected, the partisan respondents’ strong issue involvement exerted both the direct and indirect effects on their online outspokenness. However, the indirect effects offset the direct effects. On the one hand, strong involvement motivated the partisans to be outspoken online; on the other hand, the partisans’ issue involvement led them to believe that the media swayed others to side with the opposite camp. The perceived media influence led the partisans to withdraw from expressing opinion on SNSs. Their offline participation was affected accordingly.

KEYWORDS:

• SNSs
• online outspokenness
• hostile media perception
• issue involvement
• same-sex marriage

Data Availability

The dataset for this study is available upon request.

Notes

1. The response categories include 1 (18-19 years old), 2 (20 to 29 years old), 3 (30 to 39 years old) to 6 (60 years old and above).

2. Respondents were asked to report the highest education they received. The response categories include 1 (graduate or some years of elementary schools), 2 (graduate or some years of high schools), 3 (graduate or some years of polytechnic colleges), 4 (graduate or some years of universities) 5 (graduate or some years of graduate schools).

3. The response scale for income ranged from 1=”less than $28,000” to 9=”98,001 or above.”

4. There are three reasons for us to use path analyses rather than structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses. First, the issue involvement variables function much effectively as components of composite factors. Next, the high dependencies among indicators among online and offline participation indicators decreased the measurement model fit in SEM. Finally, the high reliability in most of the multi-item index variables allos us to assume little error of measurement (Gunther, Bolt, Borzekowski, Liebhart, & Dillard, 2006).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the City University of Hong Kong under Grant [#9618010].

Notes on contributors

Stella C. Chia

Stella C. Chia (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin at Madison) is an associate professor in the Dept. of Media and Communication at the City University of Hong Kong.

Caixie Tu

Caixie Tu is a Ph.D. in the Dept. of Media and Communication at the City University of Hong Kong.