Accidental exposure to politics on social media as online participation equalizer in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom
Accidental exposure to politics on social media as online participation equalizer in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom
复制标题
德国、意大利和英国在社交媒体上意外接触政治作为在线参与均衡器
作者：
A. Valeriani;Cristian Vaccari
我们从比较的角度评估了偶然接触到社交媒体上的政治信息是否以及如何有助于公民的在线政治参与。基于2014年欧洲议会选举后对德国、意大利和英国互联网用户的三项在线调查，我们发现，在这三个国家，意外接触社交媒体上的政治信息与在线参与都是正相关的，特别是在总体参与水平较低的德国。我们还发现，对政治的兴趣缓和了这种关系，因此，在对政治不感兴趣的人中，这种相关性比在对政治感兴趣的人中更强。这些发现表明，在社交媒体上无意中接触到政治内容，可能会缩小对政治兴趣高和低的公民在网络参与方面的差距，有可能扩大表达自己声音的范围。
We assess whether and how accidental exposure to political information on social media contributes to citizens’ online political participation in comparative perspective. Based on three online surveys of samples representative of German, Italian, and British Internet users in the aftermath of the 2014 European Parliament elections, we find that accidental exposure to political information on social media is positively and significantly correlated with online participation in all three countries, particularly so in Germany where overall levels of participation were lower. We also find that interest in politics moderates this relationship so that the correlation is stronger among the less interested than among the highly interested. These findings suggest that inadvertent encounters with political content on social media are likely to reduce the gap in online engagement between citizens with high and low interest in politics, potentially broadening the range of voices that make themselves heard.