Journal of Information Technology & Politics

ISSN: 1933-1681 (Print) 1933-169X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/witp20

Facebooking It to the Polls: A Study in Online

Social Networking and Political Behavior

Leticia Bode

To cite this article: Leticia Bode (2012) Facebooking It to the Polls: A Study in Online Social
Networking and Political Behavior, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 9:4, 352-369,
DOI: 10.1080/19331681.2012.709045

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 Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 9:352–369, 2012
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1933-1681 print/1933-169X online
DOI: 10.1080/19331681.2012.709045

Facebooking It to the Polls: A Study in Online Social

Networking and Political Behavior
Leticia Bode
Downloaded by [Biblioteca Universidad Complutense de Madrid] at 06:26 25 April 2016

ABSTRACT. As Internet use continues to become integrated into the daily lives of average
Americans, it becomes necessary to understand the implications of each aspect of that use. As the
majority of adults now take advantage of social network sites, understanding how they make use of
those sites and what that means for American politics is increasingly important. This study considers
one such social network site, Facebook, and how engaging in specific behaviors that provide personal-
ized information, create community engagement, and generate social capital within that realm impacted
users’ decision to participate politically in the presidential primary of 2008. It concludes that certain
Facebook behaviors can be translated into participatory political behaviors, both online and offline.
Moreover, it is not whether or how often one uses Facebook, but rather the specific set of activities one
engages in during such time that drives the relationship between Facebook use and various types of
political participation.

KEYWORDS. 2008 election, Facebook, political participation, social media, social network

“The Internet may serve a similar function
as offline interpersonal networks but on a
much larger scale.”
—Hwang, Schmierbach, Paek, Gil de
Zuniga, & Shah (2006, p. 467)
The membership of Facebook is skyrocket-
ing in parallel with its popularity. In 2012, the
site registered an amazing 845 million users,
a number which is growing at the astounding
rate of 30,000 per day, in countries all over the
world (Helvie-Mason, 2011; Protalinski, 2012).
The numbers among undergraduates are noth-
ing short of overwhelming—85% of college
students have a Facebook profile. A majority
of users (52%) log in to the site on a daily
basis, and 56% update statuses at least weekly
(Fox, 2011). All this activity makes Facebook
the second most-trafficked Web site in the world
(“Facebook.com site info,” 2012).
As a result of this activity, scholars are begin-
ning to consider what good or evil may come
of Facebook use. There is a growing body
of research, for example, focusing on privacy
and self-presentation on Facebook. Authors are
beginning to delve into the impact of low-
ered privacy expectations online, the likelihood
of users to release or post private informa-

Leticia Bode is an assistant professor in the Communication, Culture, and Technology department at
Georgetown University. She received her PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison
in 2012. Her research and teaching interests include political communication, political behavior, gender and
politics, and constitutional law, with a focus on technology and politics. Her current primary research project
examines the implications of exposure to political information available via social media.
Address correspondence to: Leticia Bode, Communication, Culture, and Technology, Georgetown
University, 3520 Prospect St., NW, Suite 311, Washington, DC 20057 (E-mail: leticiabode@gmail.com).

352
 Bode
tion on Facebook, and the potential implica-
tions of such displays (boyd & Hargittai, 2010;
Dwyer, Hiltz, & Passerini, 2007; Gross &
Acquisti, 2005). Additionally, researchers have
begun to look into how users present them-
selves in an online setting, and whether and
how they may share their identities with others
(Stutzman, 2006).
Other research, more pertinent to this study,
has begun to examine the Facebook network,
both as a social tool and as a research venue
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in and of itself (Lewis, Kaufman, Gonzalez,
Wimmer, & Christakis, 2008). Similar lines
of research are considering how the Facebook
network may benefit its users by connecting and
communicating with others (Donath & Boyd,
2004; Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 2008), or
harm them by creating a virtual echo chamber
(Sunstein, 2007). Perhaps most important to this
study are a number of works that have demon-
strated a positive relationship between online
social network use and social capital (Ellison,
Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; Valenzuela, Park, &
Kee, 2009).
While some have begun to ponder potential
outcomes related to Facebook use, few have
yet considered the major political implications
of such use. In fact, the major reported uses
and gratifications related to Facebook—social
connection, shared identities, content, social
investigation, social network surfing, and sta-
tus updating—are clearly apolitical (Joinson,
2008). Moreover, most studies that have sought
to examine the political side of Facebook have
concentrated on a top-down approach, examin-
ing the use of Facebook by politicians seeking
office, as well as the aggregate potential of
their Facebook content to serve as an indica-
tor for electoral enthusiasm (Williams & Gulati,
2008a, 2008b). Recent work has determined that
Facebook use that is explicitly political (sup-
porting a candidate, creating a political event,
etc.) predicts political behaviors and political
engagement among young people, but that kind
of behavior is limited to a small sector of the
population (Bode, Vraga, Borah, & Shah, forth-
coming). We also have begun to learn how
people create their online networks with respect
to their political ideologies (Gaines & Mondak,
353
2009), and the relationship between some types
of social network use and civic engagement
(Pasek, more, & Romer, 2009). It remains to be
seen, however, how the average, everyday use
of Facebook affects the political behavior of its
many users.
Due to the extreme popularity and growing
everyday use of Facebook within the adult pop-
ulation of the United States, it is paramount that
we begin to understand how members are using
Facebook, and what effects these uses have on
the rest of their lives, and particularly their polit-
ical lives. Moreover, given that the majority of
early Facebook adopters were newly suffraged
citizens (in that most of them were undergrad-
uates and had limited experience voting and
participating politically), an emphasis should be
placed on discerning what effects Facebook use
may have on young people’s habits of political
participation. Because Facebook is replicating
offline networks online, it is my belief that it
will function similarly in its relationship to
political participation as offline networks do.
By providing personal information from trusted
others, creating community norms, and gen-
erating social capital, I believe the committed
use of Facebook will increase the likelihood of
political participation among its users.
This study takes a first look at how a spe-
cific population—college undergraduates—are
using Facebook, and how that use translates
into important offline behavior, including vari-
ous measures of political participation and elec-
toral turnout. For the purposes of this study,
political participation will be congruent with the
definition proposed by Verba, Schlozman, and
Brady (1995): “activity that has the intent or
effect of influencing government action—either
directly by affecting the making or implementa-
tion of public policy or indirectly by influencing
the selection of people who make those poli-
cies” (p. 40). I propose that Facebook and other
social networking sites function much in the
same way as traditional, face-to-face social net-
works do, in that they tend to facilitate the
transfer of information and norms, promote inti-
macy and trust, and generate social capital,
thus resulting in positive effects on political
participation.
 354 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF
FACEBOOK
Traditional Social Networks
To understand social networking sites as vir-
tual social networks, it is first necessary to
understand how membership and participation
in face-to-face social networks influences other
behaviors. The importance of social networks
has long been emphasized as a major factor in
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predicting political participation. It is somewhat
intuitive that the people with whom we sur-
round ourselves have an impact on how we feel
about things and whether or not we are moved
to act on those feelings. Various studies over
the years have attempted to measure and under-
stand exactly how that impact is realized. The
general concept, elaborated by Scott McClurg
(2003), is that social interaction produces con-
versation, which in turn facilitates the exchange
of information. This exchange of information
has the potential to affect political preferences as
well as one’s tendency to participate politically
(McClurg, 2003; see also Kenny, 1992).
As early as 1954, Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and
McPhee took note of the fact that, “People
mostly discuss politics with other people like
themselves—‘like’ in such characters as social
position, age, occupation, and attitude” (p. 102).
This tendency to associate with similar others
has been emphasized throughout the scholarship
on interpersonal networks (see, for instance,
Mutz & Martin, 2001). However, two points
run counter to this tendency towards homophily.
First, simply interacting with others “exposes
people to a different set of politically-relevant
information and stimuli than they possess indi-
vidually” (McClurg, 2003, p. 450; see also
Mutz, 2002a, 2002b). Additionally, “The avail-
ability of alternative information sources and
particular political biases is variable across envi-
ronments, and hence the same informational
preferences produce different consequences in
different settings” (Huckfeldt, Beck, Dalton, &
Levine, 1995, p. 1049). Moreover, that variabil-
ity in availability and bias has been shown to
exert both direct and indirect effects on polit-
ical participation (Scheufele, Hardy, Brossard,
Wiasmel-Manor, & Nisbet, 2006). Thus it is
important to understand the effects of new and
different settings, including virtual social net-
works, on political participation and behavior.
Interpersonal networks were first conceptu-
alized as a geographic or spatial phenomenon,
but research on this idea of spatial constraint
has been mixed. Originally, it was determined
that neighborhood networks did, in fact, influ-
ence political attitudes (Weatherford, 1982).
However, later research concluded “. . . the
neighborhood appears to be of minor importance
as a political environment, [whereas] social rela-
tions among particular neighbors result in an
interpersonal context that has an impact on
political behavior” (Eulau & Rothenberg, 1986,
p. 152). Thus it is the human interaction itself,
not the propinquity of those interactions, that
seems to affect political behavior.
If geography plays no role in social network
effects, then what does? While answers to this
question are surely inchoate, I will focus briefly
on two that are of particular importance to this
study. First, the level of intimacy shared by
those in the network affects the degree of influ-
ence exerted. As one study explains, “Intimacy
becomes a precondition for influence. In other
words, I am more likely to trust your opinion
and the information it conveys if I hold you
in high personal esteem, both as a friend and
as a knowledgeable informant” (Huckfeldt et
al., 1995, p. 1027; see also Huckfeldt, 2001).
This concept of “intimacy” is also captured by
Klofstad (2005), who emphasizes the influence
of peers on “individual civic behavior” (p. 49).
Finally it is important to recognize certain dif-
ferences when social networks are formalized
in some sort of institutional setting. First, it is
not the mere association with a formal social
network that seems to affect political participa-
tion, but rather certain skills that are gained by
affiliation with that network. “What matters for
participation is what happens in the institution—
the acquisition of civic skills” (Verba et al.,
1995, p. 340). These civic skills include job
skills, church skills, and (most important to this
study as they are the most likely to be generated
in formal online social networks) organization
skills. Organization skills have a consistent and
positive effect on political participation, even
after controlling for major predictors such as
 Bode
political interest and attention (Verba et al.,
1995). Additionally, the ability of nonpoliti-
cal activities to predict political participation
depends on the degree of voluntarism of the
nonpolitical activities. For instance, “Evidence
demonstrates that those civic skills performed in
more voluntary NPOs [nonprofit organizations]
exert a much greater effect on a person’s level
of political participation than do those skills per-
formed in the less voluntary setting of the work-
place” (Ayala, 2000, p. 109). Thus voluntary
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participation in formal social networks—much
like that in online social network sites such as
Facebook—is necessary to generate effects on
various political behaviors.
Social Capital
Social capital, described as “features of social
life—networks, norms, and trust—that enable
participants to act together more effectively to
pursue shared objectives,” is positively corre-
lated with the formation of interpersonal net-
works, as well as with civic engagement and
political participation (Putnam, 1995, pp. 664–
665). It is thought that “ . . . informal interac-
tion also contributed importantly to social cap-
ital formation by fostering negotiating skill, the
sharing of opinions, and companionship, and by
creating networks of mutual obligation” (Green
& Brock, 2005, p. 1).
Indeed, as La Due Lake and Huckfeldt (1998)
point out,
Politically relevant social capital (that
is, social capital that facilitates political
engagement) is generated in personal net-
works ... it is a by-product of the social
interactions with a citizen’s discussants,
and ... increasing levels of politically rel-
evant social capital enhance the likelihood
that a citizen will be engaged in politics.
(p. 567)
Again it is important to emphasize that the
generation of social capital is an “unintended
consequence” of normal interactions in interper-
sonal networks—networks that may be formal
or informal (Kwak, Shah, & Holbert, 2004, pp.
648–649). Moreover, social capital generation
355
is not necessarily a positive development for
democracy, as it may be generated by or lead
to the development of anti-democratic organi-
zations and networks (Putnam, 1993; Putzel,
1997).
Recently the possibility of online generation
of social capital has been proposed and tested,
in a variety of manners and settings. Shah,
Kwak, and Holbert (2001) found that overall
Internet use is a positive, though weak, pre-
dictor of civic engagement. More specifically,
information exchange has a strong, consistent,
and positive effect on civic engagement (Shah
et al., 2001). A different conception of social
capital developed specifically in relation to the
Internet, “alloy social capital,” is generated by a
combination of communication online and face-
to-face interactions, and may be stronger than
social capital created by either context alone
(Sander, 2005). This suggests that Calhoun was
right when he suggested that, above all, the
Web facilitates “the maintenance of dispersed
face-to-face networks” (Calhoun, 1998, p. 383).
Moreover, scholars now believe that social
network sites like Facebook do successfully
generate social capital. Ellison et al. (2007) con-
ducted extensive survey research and concluded
that Facebook helps create bonding and bridg-
ing social capital, as well as a new form of
social capital, which they deem “high school
social capital”—a very loose connection with
acquaintances of the past that helps to keep
old networks intact and build a weaker form of
social capital (Ellison et al., 2007). Valenzuela et
al. (2009) similarly found that Facebook use pre-
dicted certain indicators of social capital. These
important contributions further bolster the like-
lihood of finding a link between certain types
of Facebook use and various forms of political
participation. This study builds on this work in
two main ways. First, it offers a more complete
model, in which potentially confounding vari-
ables are controlled. It is possible, for instance,
that those who use or engage on Facebook are
simply more social to start with, or already
better connected to their community. By con-
trolling for these potential confounds, we gain
a clearer picture of what behavior is due to
actual Facebook use rather than other behav-
iors or attributes related to that use. Second, and
 356 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
more importantly, it takes the current literature
that confirms social capital generation on social
networking sites and extends it to see whether
that use further predicts political behaviors we
have traditionally associated with the existence
of social capital (Brehm & Rahn, 1997; La Due
Lake & Huckfeldt, 1998). Whereas Ellison et
al. (2007) and Valenzuela et al. (2009) verify
that Facebook use generates social capital, this
study asks whether that mechanism (and oth-
ers) further result in increasing the likelihood of
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political participation.
Possibilities for Online Social Networks
and Facebook
While it is clear that both face-to-face inter-
personal networks and online social networks
such as Facebook can generate social capital, it
remains to be seen whether or not online social
network sites, and Facebook specifically, have
the potential to transform that social capital into
positive political outcomes. There are several
reasons, however, to believe that membership
in and use of Facebook have the possibility to
promote political participation of various forms.
First, while many would dismiss Facebook
as a useless way for college students to pass
the time, it is important to remember that many
areas of life that are not explicitly political may
have significant and potentially strong effects on
political behavior. Peter Dahlgren (2005) refers
to these areas as the “prepolitical or parapoliti-
cal domain,” where “politics is not explicit but
always remains a potential” (p. 153). Verba et
al. (1995) are actively aware of this domain,
imploring scholars to be ever mindful of the
“embeddedness of political activity in the non-
political institutions of civil society” (p. 40).
This embeddedness is clear in certain areas of
scholarship as well, including Matthew Baum’s
work on the political effects of television’s “soft
news” (Baum, 2003; Baum & Jamison, 2006).
Even when people are not actively seeking pol-
itics or political information, they can easily be
influenced by it.
Moreover, political scientists have also sug-
gested that “ . . . if politics is understood as con-
cerning the people, then those everyday prac-
tices through which and in which people live
their ordinary lives call for particular study”
(Norton, 2004, p. 11). As Internet access and use
skyrocket, they become inserted into our ordi-
nary lives as well: “Habits appear to be taking
hold on the Internet as well, making the Web less
of a novel exploratory activity and more of a rou-
tine instrumental activity” (Muhlberger, 2005a,
p. 167; see also Anderson & Tracey, 2001).
Equally important, many studies have shown
the possibility for certain online activities to
result in positive effects on political behav-
ior. These investigations are quite varied and
span the spectrum of various online behaviors
and offline effects, but generally have yet to
include social networking sites in their field
of study. First, various types of online com-
munication have been shown to fulfill many
needs and have positive effects on civic par-
ticipation. For instance, online information-
seeking “works through” both interpersonal
political discussion and interactive civic mes-
saging to increase civic participation (Shah,
Cho, Eveland, & Kwak, 2005). Additionally,
Flanigan and Metzger (2001) demonstrated that
mediated interpersonal communication fulfills
significantly more needs than do the mass
media. Mediated online communication in a
network of one’s choosing, as is the case for
Facebook, should therefore fulfill similar needs,
produce engagement within that space, and spur
political participation.
Another realm of the Internet that has demon-
strated the potential to create benefits for users is
the so-called blogosphere. Blogs have the ability
to create positive net benefits for their visitors
in two main ways. First, blogs seem to create
a sense of community among their users—they
“ . . . seem to allow us to get, in effect, closer
to others who inhabit the same ‘cultural unit,’
occupy the same interpretive/speech commu-
nity, or have similar affiliations and affections as
ourselves” (MacDougall, 2005, p. 595). Clearly
Facebook, which connects people who are in
the same “cultural unit,” also has the poten-
tial to build such a community. Additionally,
blogs have the capacity to “bring the issue
home” (Rogers, 2005). That is, they can make
a broad public issue important and relevant to
the average citizen by clarifying exactly how
it relates to one’s daily life. Again, Facebook
 Bode
has the potential to do this as well, as friends
and classmates may discuss issues as they per-
tain to the personal and the everyday. Greater
personalization of information may spur partici-
pation at the margins.
Facebook also might be able to lower the
costs of online information in a specific way.
Although the Internet itself lowers the cost of
finding information in general, “ . . . as the
amount of information, particularly faulty infor-
mation, proliferates on the Internet, the attention
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costs of identifying useful and trustworthy infor-
mation grow, as does the expertise needed to
evaluate it” (Muhlberger, 2005a, p. 167).1
Social network sites, and Facebook specifi-
cally, allow for a natural filter for information.
Remembering that intimacy promotes trust, and
trust is needed for one to believe that informa-
tion is reliable, Facebook combines these two
elements (intimacy/trust and information) to
effectively reduce the cost of obtaining valuable
and trustworthy information online (Huckfeldt
et al., 1995). Moreover, the “Newsfeed” func-
tion of Facebook provides constant updates of
one’s friends’ activities, which further reduces
the cost of information. Having said that, some
research indicates that information flow is con-
strained in online environments by pre-existing
social networks and boundaries, suggesting that
information may not be as readily shared in
these venues as we might have expected (Cho
& Lee, 2008). However, greater access to infor-
mation potentially lowers the cost of political
participation, thus making it a more likely action
(Riker & Ordeshook, 1968).
Finally, there are clear positive correlations
between various online activities and voting
behavior. Klotz (2005) has concluded that the
“Web sphere” in general has a tendency to pro-
mote voter mobilization. Tolbert and McNeal
(2003) find the effect of mere access to the
Internet to be quite substantial on voting turnout:
“Internet access increased the probability of vot-
ing by [about] 7% in the 1996 presidential elec-
tion and the 1998 midterm election and 12.5% in
the 2000 presidential election” (p. 183). Seeking
information online also seems to correlate pos-
itively with turning out to the polls, especially
for new voters. In 2004, 44% of new voters
reported finding political and election-related
357
information on the Internet (Caputo & Trichter,
2005, p. 4–5). Facebook also has structures
that allow users to share political and election-
related information, again lowering the cost of
obtaining such material.
The potential of Facebook to have positive
effects on political participation is not a given,
however, and this literature review would be
incomplete without making note of certain pos-
sible limitations on its ability to have such
effects. Most importantly, “ . . . having access
to the wealth of political information and com-
munication available through the Internet is not
by itself connected with participation” (Bimber,
2001, p. 61). The simple act of lowering the cost
of information is not responsible for increas-
ing political participation. Information must be
coupled with interest to result in positive par-
ticipation effects. Additionally, online talk has
not been shown to result in opinion change
(Muhlberger, 2005b). However, since the scope
of this study is limited to measures of partici-
pation, rather than opinion, this does not pose a
direct problem for this particular work.
By examining to what extent and under what
circumstances the use of Facebook can spur
political participation, this study contributes a
new and important piece to the question of why
people participate in the electoral process and in
politics in general. More specifically, it updates
the literature on social networks to include
newer manifestations of networks facilitated by
innovation in communication technology.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND
HYPOTHESES
The specific purpose of this study is to deter-
mine whether and how certain behaviors on
Facebook predict various measures of political
participation, including voting, online political
participation, and offline political participation.
In order to examine this research question
in more depth, it is useful to first generate
some testable hypotheses. Broadly, I expect that
behavior on Facebook that represents engage-
ment with a community will increase the
likelihood of all types of political participa-
tion. Engagement in a social network increases
 358 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
the likelihood of transmission of information
and norms from trusted and intimate others,
and facilitates the generation of social capital,
known to be associated with political participa-
tion. Thus if users are intensely engaging with
their Facebook communities, we would expect
use to resemble offline social networks and spur
political participation.
Specifically, this has several testable impli-
cations. The behaviors most likely to encour-
age political participation include intensity of
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Facebook use, which is a measure reflect-
ing to what extent a user is engaging with
the Facebook community. Because engagement
should increase social capital and information
flows (Muhlberger, 2005a; Shah et al., 2001),
I hypothesize that as this measure increases,
political behaviors will also increase (H1).
Beyond mere engagement with the Facebook
community, one might imagine that the degree
to which one feels close to that community
might also encourage the creation of social cap-
ital and facilitate the transmission of trusted
information and participatory norms, thus con-
tributing to increased political outcomes, includ-
ing voting, online, and offline political behavior
(H2). This is supported by works in the lit-
erature that suggest that networks build trust
conducive to the transmission and acceptance of
information and norms (Huckfeldt et al., 1995;
Klofstadt, 2005).
A final measure of interest is one that asks
respondents what their primary motivation for
using Facebook might be. Answers include
meeting new friends, keeping in touch with peo-
ple I otherwise wouldn’t, interacting with my
current friends, playing games, gathering infor-
mation, and finding out about what’s going on
in my community. I expect that the motivations
of keeping in touch with people and interact-
ing with current friends would be most likely
to result in social capital creation, thus increas-
ing the likelihood of the same political outcomes
listed above (H3).
METHODS AND DATA
In order to begin to assess the nature of the
many relationships just discussed, a survey was
distributed to several hundred undergraduates in
political science classes at a large Midwestern
research university during the spring of 2008.2
This undergraduate population was specifically
chosen, as Facebook has reached near satura-
tion in the college population [89% of students
enrolled at a four-year university in 2008 were
Facebook users (Harvard University Institute of
Politics, 2012)]. Because of this, the impor-
tant thing becomes not whether a respondent
is using Facebook, but rather how he or she
is doing so. This population therefore allows
for the testing of various relationships between
specific Facebook behaviors and political out-
comes. Moreover, while this cohort is not rep-
resentative of the entire U.S. population, it is
likely to represent future directions of social
media use by the broader population, and is thus
particularly advantageous to consider.
Respondents were e-mailed by their respec-
tive professors and invited to participate in a
survey having to do with online social network-
ing practices. Most students were offered a small
amount of extra credit in return for their partic-
ipation in the online survey. Participation was
completely voluntary, and one e-mail reminder
was sent to the students prior to the end of
the survey period. These e-mail prompts yielded
542 separate responses.3 The sample was 90%
white, 58% female, 27% Republican, and had
an average age of about 20 years.
The survey consisted of 133 questions, rang-
ing in scope from behaviors online, to behaviors
on Facebook, to general inclinations offline,
as well as basic controls and demographics.
Respondents reported that the survey took about
20 minutes to complete. Attrition was not at
all an issue (not a single respondent failed to
complete the survey).
Variables of Interest
Before beginning the data analysis, a more
thorough description of the variables in play is
useful. Of greatest importance are those vari-
ables of substantive interest to this study—those
having to do with Facebook behaviors hypothe-
sized to be involved in spurring political partici-
pation.
 Bode 359

In order to measure intensity of Facebook TABLE 1. Descriptive Statistics

use, four separate variables were combined into
a scale. Measures reflecting how often a respon- Standard
dent checks his or her Facebook page, how Reliability Mean deviation

often he or she updates it, how many peo- Facebook intensity 0.495 3.52 1.12
ple the respondent has “friended” on Facebook, Facebook closeness 0.534 24.98 19.75
and how many groups he or she is a part of Time on Facebook 44.30 38.69
Motivation—new friends 0.01 0.09
were each divided into six categories reflect- Motivation—keep in touch 0.51 0.50
ing frequency or number. These measures reflect Motivation—interact 0.42 0.49
a respondent’s general Facebook use—greater Motivation—play games 0.01 0.08
scores on each suggest greater connection to Motivation—information 0.01 0.12
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Motivation—community 0.04 0.20

one’s Facebook community and greater devo- Political Facebook 1.97 0.94
tion to engaging in that community. These mea- Political interest 0.903 3.10 1.08
sures were then averaged to produce a scale of Political knowledge 0.75 0.24
Facebook use intensity (referred to as Facebook Political talk 0.740 3.44 0.90
News use 0.701 2.59 0.79
Intensity hereafter). This scale ranges from 0 Community ties 0.837 3.81 0.92
to 6, with a mean of 3.52 (S.D. = 1.12, Sociability 0.886 2.55 0.70
Chronbach’s α = 0.495). PID 4.77 2.26
The second set of hypotheses dealt with Gender 0.58 0.49
Online participation 0.765 1.60 0.55
a respondent’s feeling of closeness to his or Offline participation 0.722 1.68 0.52
her Facebook community. In order to opera- Voting 0.75 0.44
tionalize this concept, three measures asking
what proportion of Facebook friends a respon-
dent considers friends, very close friends, and Controls
family were combined and averaged (referred
to as Facebook Closeness; mean = 24.98, Having now established the operationalized
S.D. = 19.75, Chronbach’s α = 0.534). concepts of interest, a few control variables are
While this is not a perfect measure of close- necessary in order to rule out certain spurious
ness, it reflects whether respondents tend to relationships.
have a very intimate Facebook community, or First, it is conceivable that each of the above
tend to use it more as a tool for network- measures might be higher as a result of peo-
ing with acquaintances or even strangers. We ple spending more overall time on Facebook.
would expect that greater feelings of close- Perhaps it is not how you use Facebook at all,
ness would contribute to the generation of trust but rather whether you spend 10 minutes or two
and social capital, resulting in more political hours on the site each day. In order to control for
participation.4 this possibility, a variable, Time on Facebook,
Finally there is the primary motivation was included, which is a simple measure of
for using Facebook, from which respondents reported time spent on the Facebook Web site
could choose one of the following: Meet new in any day (reported in minutes, mean = 44.30,
friends, keep in touch with people I otherwise S.D. = 38.69).
wouldn’t, interact with my current friends, play Additionally, several variables measuring
games, gather information, or find out about respondents’ political inclinations in general
what’s going on in my community. Each of must be included, in order to ensure that the
these was coded as a dichotomous variable— relationships we are capturing are not just man-
either it was the respondent’s primary moti- ifestations of some generic tendency to be polit-
vation or it was not. Each of these vari- ical or to engage in political behaviors. In order
ables is labeled as FBMotivation followed by to account for this possibility, three separate
a brief description of what the motivation was variables were included to capture respondents’
(see Table 1 for descriptive statistics of each political interest, political knowledge, and habit
variable). of talking about politics with others.
 360 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
Political interest is ascertained using a scale
that combines three measures. Respondents
were asked to what extent they agreed or dis-
agreed (on a scale of 1 to 5) with each of the
following statements: “I closely follow politi-
cal issues,” “I am interested in political strat-
egy,” and “I consider politics to be among my
hobbies.” These three measures were averaged
into a scale ranging from 1 to 5 with a mean
of 3.10 called Political Interest (S.D. = 1.08,
Chronbach’s α = 0.903).
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Political knowledge was determined in a sim-
ilar way. Respondents were asked four mul-
tiple choice questions about modern politics.
For each question they answered correctly, they
received one point. These points were then
divided by four to produce a scale ranging from
0 to 1 with a mean of 0.75, called Political
Knowledge (S.D. = 0.24).5
The habit or comfort level of talking with oth-
ers about politics might also be predictive of
various political behaviors, and so some mea-
sure of this tendency should also be included
in the model. This variable is also the result
of a scale (ranging 1 to 6, with a mean of
3.44) that combined the respondents’ answers
to three questions asking about their comfort
talking about politics with friends and fam-
ily, and with strangers, as well as the fre-
quency with which they talk to friends and
family about politics (S.D. = 0.90, Chronbach’s
α = 0.74).
In addition, I chose to include a measure of
news use, in order to ensure that the relation-
ship I have hypothesized is not being distorted
by a simple tendency to keep up with cur-
rent events, some of which are certainly polit-
ical in nature. Thus, I created a News Use
scale, which is the average reported frequency
of use of seven different news sources (rang-
ing from “multiple times a day” to “virtually
never”), including local newspapers, national
newspapers, news Web sites, political blogs,
national evening news, local evening news, and
news/talk radio. This scale ranges from 1 to 6
(mean = 2.59, S.D. = 0.79, Chronbach’s α =
0.701).
Finally, two further possible spurious expla-
nations exist for why Facebook behavior
might come across as correlating with political
behaviors. First, engaging in Facebook might
just be a proxy for engaging in one’s community
in general. Such behavior would also produce
social capital, facilitate information flows, and
promote trust, though not necessarily through
the medium of Facebook, as is the interest of this
study. Because of this, I included a scale measur-
ing a respondent’s Community Ties, composed
of two measures with which respondents agreed
or disagreed: “I feel ‘at home’ in the community
I live in,” and “I feel connected to those who
live around me” (1–5 agree/disagree, for a scale
ranging from 1 to 5, mean = 3.81, S.D. = 0.92,
Chronbach’s α = 0.837).
In a similar vein, the variables of interest
in this study may, in fact, only be capturing
the respondents’ tendency to affiliate with other
people, or to be sociable. This tendency is cap-
tured in a scale composed of 15 items, reflecting
respondents’ Sociability (1 to 5, mean = 2.55,
S.D. = 0.70, Chronbach’s α = 0.886).6
Demographics
Finally, due to recorded differences in social
media use for each, I include a measure of
Gender (coded female = 1, 58.5% female)
and Party Identification, coded from 1 to 7,
Republican to Democrat (mean = 4.77, S.D.
= 2.26) (Lenhart, Madden, Smith, & Macgill,
2007).
Outcome Variables
The outcome variables of interest consist of
one’s reported voting in the 2008 presidential
primaries (for either party), political behavior
online, and political behavior offline. For the
voting measure, respondents were simply asked
whether or not they voted in the recent presiden-
tial primaries (75% reported doing so).
For the two political behavior measures,
respondents were asked how often they engaged
in a series of political behaviors online (used e-
mail to contact a politician; contributed money
online to a politician, social group, or cause;
forwarded a political e-mail or news story
to friends; signed an online petition; visited
the Web site of a political campaign or can-
didate; or posted comments or questions on
 Bode 361

political news stories or political blogs) and
offline [volunteered in the community; attended
a political meeting, rally, or speech; displayed
a campaign button, sticker, or sign; worked
for a political party or candidate (phonebank-
ing, blockwalking, etc.); contacted a politician
by phone or mail; donated money in per-
son to a politician, social group, or cause; or
signed a petition (on paper)]. For each ques-
tion, respondents could report frequencies rang-
ing from “never” to “more than once a week.”
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Voting in the 2008 Presidential Primaries
To predict a respondent’s tendency to report
voting in the 2008 presidential primaries (a
dichotomous measure), I used a logistic estima-
tion. All the variables described in detail above
were included in this model. As can be seen
in Table 2, two variables of interest deserve
particular attention. Both intensity of Facebook
use and time spent on Facebook have significant
effects on one’s likelihood of voting, but in

The online political behavior scale ranged from
1 to 5 with a mean of 1.6 (S.D. = 0.55,
Chronbach’s α = 0.765), whereas the offline
political behavior scale ranged from 1 to 5
with a mean of 1.7 (S.D. = 0.52, Chronbach’s
α = 0.722).7
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
I estimated three sets of models, reflecting
each of the outcome variables in which I am
interested. I then re-estimated each model with-
out the variables of interest to indicate the
increase in predictive power achieved by includ-
ing the variables reflecting various aspects of
Facebook use.
different directions. Intensity of Facebook use
is positively related to voting, whereas time
spent using Facebook is negatively related
(see Figure 1 for an illustration). This suggests
support for hypothesis H1, which posited that
intensity of Facebook use would encourage
transmission of information and electoral norms
across the network as well as the generation of
social capital, thus leading to desirable political
behaviors.
Moreover the disparate relationships demon-
strated indicate that it is truly intensity of
use, and not merely use or amount of use of
Facebook, that is having the effect. That is, in
order to be motivated to participate electorally,
engagement with one’s Facebook network is
required, above and beyond simply spending
time on the site in a more superficial manner.

TABLE 2. Logit Estimation of Voting in the 2008 Primaries

Estimate Standard error z value Significance

(Intercept) −4.01 1.52 −2.65 0.01∗∗∗

Facebook intensity 0.60 0.14 4.14 0.01∗∗∗
Facebook closeness 0.00 0.01 0.37 0.71
Time on Facebook −0.01 0.00 −2.68 0.01∗∗∗
FBMotivation—New Friends −3.78 1.81 −2.08 .04∗∗
FBMotivation—Keep in Touch −1.56 1.20 −1.30 0.19
FBMotivation—Interact −1.23 1.20 −1.02 0.31
FBMotivation—Play Games −2.93 1.73 −1.69 0.09
FBMotivation—Information −0.07 1.70 −0.04 0.97
FBMotivation—Community −1.56 1.32 −1.18 0.24
Political interest 0.31 0.15 2.04 0.04∗
Political knowledge 0.70 0.49 1.42 0.16
Community ties 0.32 0.12 2.59 0.01∗∗∗
Sociability −0.01 0.18 −0.04 0.97
Political talk 0.47 0.18 2.63 0.01∗∗∗
News use −0.01 0.17 −0.05 0.96
Gender −0.16 0.25 −0.64 0.52
PID 0.16 0.05 3.25 0.01∗∗∗
Signif. codes ∗∗∗ = 0.001 ∗∗ = 0.01 ∗ = 0.05
AIC = 525.95
 362 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
FIGURE 1. The effects of time spent on Facebook and intensity of Facebook use on respondent’s
likelihood of voting.
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Note also that the motivation of making new
friends as the primary motivation for using
Facebook has a negative effect on one’s like-
lihood of voting. I would suggest that this is
because if you are primarily using Facebook
to meet people, you are less actively engag-
ing within the Facebook community, which is
the action I have hypothesized does the bulk of
the work of motivating participation by trans-
ferring information and norms throughout the
network and creating social capital. This relates
to H3, which predicted that motivations related
to engagement would positively predict politi-
cal behavior. While we do not find clear support
for that hypothesis, we do see the reverse—that
motivations that detract from engaging with the
Facebook community have a negative impact on
the likelihood of participating electorally. The
closeness one feels to one’s Facebook commu-
nity does not seem to be a relevant motivator
for electoral participation, and thus H2 is not
supported.
It is also reassuring that various control vari-
ables we would expect to predict a respondent’s
likelihood of voting do, in fact, appear to be sig-
nificant and in the expected direction. Political
interest, community ties, and political talk all
increase the likelihood of turning out to vote.
To further isolate the impact of Facebook,
I re-estimated the same model, but without
any variables reflecting Facebook behavior. By
removing the variables of interest, we can then
see if we truly gain predictive power by includ-
ing the Facebook-oriented variables. As noted in
Table 1, the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)
for the first model was 525.95. Table 3, which
reflects the reduced model of voting turnout, has
an AIC of 553.47.8 This suggests that the model
including the Facebook variables does a better
job of estimating the true relationship than does
the model lacking them.
However, it is still possible that we are captur-
ing a spurious relationship, in that the measure
of intensity of Facebook use is acting as a proxy
for some other activity. Perhaps, it could be
argued, the more intense Facebook users are
being exposed to more politics on Facebook as
a result of their increased engagement, which
would then be responsible for their increased
likelihood of voting. In order to ascertain if this
was, in fact, occurring, I included an additional
variable in the original model. This variable
asked respondents how often a political story
showed up on their Newsfeed. (This is the user’s
home page that features stories of what their
Facebook friends have been doing on Facebook.
It can include news stories, notes, pictures, and
actions of their friends.) This measure, Political
Facebook Exposure, ranged from 1 to 6 (“vir-
tually never” to “multiple times a day”) with a
mean of 1.97 (S.D. = 0.94). The re-estimated
model can be seen in Table 4. The measure
 Bode 363

TABLE 3. Logit Estimation of Voting in the 2008 Primaries: Reduced Model

Estimate Standard error z value Significance

(Intercept) −3.31 0.89 −3.73 0.01∗∗∗

Political interest 0.28 0.14 1.98 0.05∗∗
Political knowledge 0.63 0.46 1.38 0.17
Community ties 0.33 0.12 2.83 0.01∗∗∗
Sociability −0.16 0.16 −0.98 0.33
Political talk 0.44 0.17 2.67 0.01∗∗∗
News use 0.05 0.16 0.35 0.73
Gender −0.11 0.23 −0.45 0.65
PID 0.17 0.05 3.60 0.01∗∗∗
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Signif. codes: ∗∗∗ = 0.001

AIC=553.47

TABLE 4. Logit Estimation of Voting in the 2008 Primaries: Expanded Model

Estimate Standard error z value Significance

(Intercept) −4.03 1.52 −2.64 0.01∗∗∗

Political Facebook exposure 0.18 0.12 1.51 0.13
Facebook intensity 0.59 0.15 4.03 0.01∗∗∗
Facebook closeness 0.00 0.01 0.41 0.68
Time on Facebook −0.01 0.00 −2.78 0.01∗∗∗
FBMotivation—New Friends −4.07 1.86 −2.18 0.03∗∗
FBMotivation—Keep in Touch −1.72 1.22 −1.41 0.16
FBMotivation—Interact −1.38 1.22 −1.13 0.26
FBMotivation—Play Games −3.03 1.75 −1.73 0.08
FBMotivation—Information −0.10 1.71 −0.06 0.95
FBMotivation—Community −1.79 1.34 −1.33 0.18
Political interest 0.29 0.15 1.94 0.05
Political knowledge 0.68 0.49 1.39 0.17
Community ties 0.35 0.12 2.79 0.01∗∗∗
Sociability −0.00 0.18 −0.01 0.99
Political talk 0.45 0.18 2.53 0.01∗∗∗
News Use −0.07 0.17 −0.38 0.70
Gender −0.14 0.25 −0.57 0.57
PID 0.16 0.05 3.29 0.01∗∗∗
Signif. codes: ∗∗∗ = 0.001 ∗∗ = 0.01 ∗ = 0.05
AIC: 525.5

does not appear significant, and adds nothing of
substance to the predictive power of the model
(AIC = 525.5). This reassures us that it is
truly engagement with the community, and not
merely exposure to politics, that is producing the
increased likelihood of voting.
Online Political Behavior
The second outcome variable of interest
reflects one’s political behavior online. Because
this variable was scaled from six others, the
index is roughly continuous. As a result of this,
ordinary least squares (OLS) is an appropriate
model to estimate. Table 5 reflects this OLS
estimation, with the same independent vari-
ables as were included in the model predicting
voting.
Intensity of Facebook use is still a signifi-
cant, positive predictor of the outcome variable
(again supporting H1), and having one’s pri-
mary motivation to use Facebook to be meet-
ing new people is still a negative predictor.
However, it is important to note that one’s
time spent on Facebook switches signs in this
model. This is not surprising, as more time
 364 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS

TABLE 5. OLS Estimation of Online Political Behavior

Estimate Standard error t value Pr(>t)

(Intercept) 0.38 0.24 1.59 0.11

Facebook intensity 0.05 0.03 2.18 0.03∗∗
Facebook closeness −0.01 0.00 −1.33 0.18
Time on Facebook 0.01 0.00 3.77 0.00∗∗∗
FBMotivation—New Friends −0.74 0.28 −2.61 0.01∗∗∗
FBMotivation—Keep in Touch −0.32 0.18 −1.73 0.09
FBMotivation—Interact −0.28 0.18 −1.53 0.13
FBMotivation—Play Games 0.41 0.31 1.32 0.19
FBMotivation—Information −0.15 0.24 −0.60 0.55
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FBMotivation—Community −0.14 0.20 −0.66 0.51

Political interest 0.07 0.03 2.77 0.01∗∗∗
Political knowledge −0.05 0.09 −0.58 0.56
Community ties −0.02 0.02 −0.76 0.44
Sociability 0.01 0.03 0.17 0.86
Political talk 0.11 0.03 3.49 0.01∗∗∗
News use 0.26 0.03 9.02 0.01∗∗∗
Gender −0.03 0.04 −0.63 0.53
PID 0.02 0.01 2.74 0.01∗∗∗
Significance codes: ∗∗∗ = 0.001 ∗∗ = 0.01 ∗ = 0.05
Adjusted R2 : 0.3943

TABLE 6. OLS Estimation of Online Political Behavior: Reduced Model

Estimate Standard error t value Pr(>t)

(Intercept) 0.26 0.16 1.66 0.10

Political interest 0.08 0.03 2.97 0.01∗∗∗
Political knowledge −0.11 0.09 −1.26 0.21
Community ties −0.01 0.02 −0.15 0.88
Sociability −0.01 0.03 −0.06 0.95
Political talk 0.11 0.03 3.54 0.01∗∗∗
News use 0.26 0.03 8.93 0.01∗∗∗
Gender 0.03 0.04 0.66 0.51
PID 0.03 0.01 3.31 0.01∗∗∗
Signif. codes: ∗∗∗ = 0.001 ∗∗ = 0.01 ∗ = 0.05
Adjusted R2 : 0.34

spent on Facebook means more time spent
online in general, thus giving more opportunity
and inclination to engage in political behav-
ior online, rather than offline (remembering that
those two outcome variables are not highly
correlated).
Apart from that, much of the model stays
very similar to the model estimating turnout, in
Table 2. This indicates that the important predic-
tors hold up across various behaviors related to
political participation.
Again, it is useful to estimate the model with-
out the Facebook variables to see what effect
they are having on the predictive power in
general. A reduced model reflecting this change
can be seen in Table 6. As indicated in the final
line of each of the tables, the reduced model has
a lower adjusted R2 value, indicating that it has
less predictive power than the full model includ-
ing the Facebook variables. The full model does
five percentage points better than the reduced
model, or 14% better overall.
 Bode 365

TABLE 7. OLS Estimation of Offline Political Behavior

Estimate Standard error t value Pr(>t)

(Intercept) 0.58 0.25 2.35 0.02∗∗

Facebook intensity 0.08 0.03 3.33 0.00∗∗∗
Facebook closeness −0.01 0.00 −0.89 0.37
Time on Facebook 0.01 0.00 1.49 0.14
FBMotivation—New Friends −0.46 0.29 −1.57 0.12
FBMotivation—Keep in Touch −0.05 0.19 −0.25 0.80
FBMotivation—Interact −0.06 0.19 −0.33 0.74
FBMotivation – Play Games 0.24 0.32 0.77 0.44
FBMotivation—Information 0.12 0.25 0.48 0.63
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FBMotivation—Community 0.05 0.21 0.22 0.83

Political interest 0.06 0.03 2.33 0.02∗∗
Political knowledge −0.07 0.09 −0.84 0.40
Community ties −0.03 0.02 −1.12 0.26
Sociability −0.05 0.03 −1.76 0.08
Political talk 0.06 0.03 2.08 0.04∗∗
News use 0.18 0.03 6.18 0.00∗∗∗
Gender 0.13 0.04 3.01 0.00∗∗∗
PID 0.03 0.01 3.77 0.00∗∗∗
Signif. codes: ∗∗∗ = 0.001 ∗∗ = 0.01 ∗ = 0.05
Adjusted R2 : 0.2705

Offline Political Behavior CONCLUSIONS

Of equal if not greater importance to one’s
online political behavior is the political behav-
ior engaged in offline. This is what some might
consider more traditional political behavior, but
of course it still plays an important role in mod-
ern politics and campaigning. Again, due to the
continuous nature of the offline political behav-
ior scale, an OLS regression is appropriate.
This estimation can be seen in Table 7.
The intensity of one’s Facebook use remains
strongly significant and positively related to
offline political behavior, above and beyond
other traditional predictors of political partici-
pation, further bolstering support for the first
hypothesis. It is, however, the only variable of
interest to retain significance in this model (both
the new friends motivation and the time spent on
Facebook lose significance).
While the model predicting offline politi-
cal behavior has less power than the estima-
tions modeling the other two outcome variables
(Adjusted R2 = 0.2705), it is still more than a
12% improvement over the same model, absent
the Facebook variables (see Table 8, adjusted R2
= 0.2422).
Overall, results suggest strong support for the
first hypothesis—that intensely engaging with
one’s Facebook community facilitates behav-
iors and activities that spur political participa-
tion of all kinds. This relationship is robust to
model specification, even including time spent
on Facebook in general and exposure to political
information in that venue. This is important in
that it shows that much of what we know about
how offline networks spur political participation
may still inform our understanding of similar
relationships in the online world. Moreover, it
shows that Facebook use can and sometimes
does have a positive impact on the political
participatory behaviors of its users.
Interestingly, there is no evidence to suggest
that feeling closer to one’s Facebook community
encourages political participation. It is possible
that intimacy is less important in the realm of
online social networks than it is in traditional
face-to-face social networks. On Facebook, peo-
ple generally share similar levels of informa-
tion with their entire network, which is not
true in offline social networks, and may change
the extent to which intimacy is important for
 366 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
TABLE 8. OLS Estimation of Offline Political Behavior: Reduced Model
Estimate
(Intercept) 0.78
Political interest 0.07
Political knowledge −0.10
Community ties −0.01
Sociability −0.07
Political talk 0.07
News use 0.18
Gender 0.17
PID 0.04
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Signif. codes: ∗∗∗ = 0.001
Adjusted R2 : 0.24
transmitting norms and information in this new
type of network. The null finding could also be
an artifact of the way it was measured. While
the proportion of close friends and family in
one’s Facebook network reflects the proportion
of the network to which one feels close, it does
not necessarily reflect how close one actually
feels to the community. Future research might
re-operationalize this variable with a more direct
measure of how close one feels to those in the
network and the network as a whole.
The third hypothesis predicted that motiva-
tions related to engagement with the Facebook
community would be most likely to spur politi-
cal participation. While there was no clear evi-
dence of this (neither keeping in touch with peo-
ple one otherwise wouldn’t nor interacting with
my current friends were significant predictors of
political participation), there is some evidence
that other motivations might decrease the likeli-
hood of political participation. Specifically, the
motivation to meet new people on Facebook was
negatively related to voting and online political
participation. This suggests that intimacy may
still play a role. Meeting new people does not
seem to result in the type of deep engagement
necessary to facilitate catalysts of political par-
ticipation. This also may be a reflection of those
who use Facebook primarily for business net-
working purposes, thus decreasing the intimacy
they feel and they level of engagement in which
they participate in their Facebook community.
As with any study, this one has its share
of limitations. As any undergraduate in an
Standard error t value Pr(>t)
0.16 4.89 0.01∗∗∗
0.03 2.62 0.01∗∗∗
0.09 −1.20 0.23
0.02 −0.41 0.68
0.03 −2.34 0.02∗
0.03 2.12 0.03∗
0.03 6.38 0.01∗∗∗
0.04 4.02 0.01∗∗∗
0.01 4.09 0.01∗∗∗
∗∗ 0.01 ∗ = 0.05
introductory statistics class will tell you, cor-
relation does not equal causation. We cannot
decisively determine the direction of causality
in any of these models—it is just as possible
that political behavior leads to more intense use
of Facebook as it is that Facebook use leads to
political behavior. However, the mechanism by
which political behavior might lead to intense
Facebook use is unclear, whereas the relation-
ship between Facebook network engagement
and political behavior is both intuitive and based
in decades of theory relating to offline social net-
works, making it the more plausible explanation
of the relationship we see.
Of course, survey data themselves are some-
what suspect, as we can never be certain whether
recollections are an accurate portrayal of the
reported behaviors (see for instance, Norton,
2004, p. 117). Additionally, these data capture
only one point in time, one social network site
(though by far the most used), and a single
university. Again, this sample was deliberately
chosen due to the level of Facebook use in the
undergraduate population, and is likely unbi-
ased for that population. However we cannot
generalize to all Facebook users due to the
nature of the sample. Because of this, future
research might include both longitudinal studies
using a sample outside the undergraduate popu-
lation, and track users before and after they join
Facebook, monitor their intensity of use over
time, and engage in qualitative research, con-
sisting of interviews or participant observation,
that might give a more well-rounded view of the
 Bode
relationship between Facebook use and political
behavior.
While this study is limited in some ways,
the general conclusion is important. Intensity
of Facebook engagement has clear, significant,
and robust effects on several types of political
participation, even above and beyond the normal
predictors. While more work certainly needs to
be pursued in this area, this study represents
an important first step in understanding how a
staple of online life may affect the political par-
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ticipation of young people today. Craig Calhoun
(1998) asserts, “A crucial challenge for demo-
cratic public life is finding ways to encourage
mutual engagement simultaneously across sig-
nificant differences of identity and interest, and
across considerable social and spatial distances”
(p. 391). Perhaps Facebook is a step in that
direction.
NOTES
1. It is possible, and even likely, that some of the
information obtained in the realm of social media is inac-
curate or biased information. However, the perception
of being better informed—rather than the value of an
increased arsenal of accurate information—is the likely
motivator for greater participation, the subject of this study.
Future work should consider the extent to which accuracy
of information plays a role in the realm of social media and
political participation.
2. Data and codebook will be made available via the
JITP Dataverse prior to publication. These were introduc-
tory classes, and as a result the vast majority of students are
not political science majors (only 8.3% reported political
science as one of their major areas of study. Thus I would
not expect this to bias results in any particular manner).
3. For Institutional Review Board purposes, we were
unable to keep track of precise response rates. However,
from those classes in which students were offered extra
credit, 436 responses were received from a potential 500
students, for a response rate of 87.2%.
4. Measures of what proportion of their friends
respondents considered to be acquaintances and strangers
were also asked in this section.
5. The four questions were as follows: “How many
members of Congress currently serve in the House of
Representatives?” “Who is next in line for the presi-
dency after the Vice President?” “How often are senators
elected?” and “Which political party has had the most
members in the U.S. Senate since the 2006 election?”
6. This measure is composed of a combination of the
Interaction Anxiousness Scale and the Revised Shyness
367
Scale (Cheek & Buss, 1981; Leary, 1983). For a complete
list of these items, please contact the author.
7. Despite this similarity of mean, the correlation
between the two variables is only 0.08, suggesting that
more of one does not indicate more of the other.
8. AIC is a measure of goodness of fit that both
rewards fit and penalizes the number of estimated parame-
ters, thus discouraging against model overfitting. A smaller
AIC reflects a better fit (Burnham & Anderson, 2002). It is
thus preferable to other criteria for model comparison that
do not account for overfitting.
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