WP6. ​Social Media and Political Trust: Democracy Backing or Democracy Destabilization

The aim of this WP is to explore the links between the use of social media and attitudes towards representative democracy and to examine the impact of social media participation on political trust, including implications for transparency, inclusiveness, responsiveness. To this end, WP6 will: (1) investigate various aspects of citizens’ political participation through social media and (2) examine its implications for political trust factors, including perception of transparency, inclusiveness and responsiveness of political institutions and actors. The conducted analysis will also contribute to identifying the strategies to use social media analysis as a tool to address the demands and needs of citizens expressed via non-electoral forms of political participation as a mean to enhance active engagement and inclusion and thus booster responsive decision-making and governance in Europe.

The general assumption in the call is that there are significant changes in the electoral behaviour of citizens that contribute to representative democracy deterioration; our assumption is that some of these changes are associated with the important position social media acquired in non-electoral political participation. Non-electoral political participation refers to activities like searching for political information and exchanging the information and opinions on politics in interpersonal activities (e.g. sharing of viral content & viral discussions). Citizens´ political participation is advantageous for both citizens and political institutions of the country while it provides a sense of empowerment and inclusion to citizens and allows political institutions to act responsively. With the advancement of digital tools, new arena for (nonelectoral) civic participation has been established, and social media is one sort of digital channels that create opportunities for transparency, communication and engagement. Political institutions and actors can capitalize on the collaborative power of social media and utilize transparency and engagement to enhance political trust. On the other hand, digital disinformation, fake news and freedom of expression in “post-truth” politics may serve as hindrances to strengthening political trust via social media. The political employment of the social media to fuel anti-establishment and anti-politics rhetoric endangers popular perceptions of political system/democracy by claiming political institutions and media to be rigged and unresponsive. 

WP Leader: Prof. Aneta Vilagi, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Task 6.1. Understanding political engagement and participation via social media.

Digital platforms and media are supposed to open new avenues to political engagement and democratic participation. Along the other tools, they provide opportunities for searching and exchanging the information and interpersonal activities (e.g. viral discussions) on politics. Such new forms of political participation might contribute to empowerment of citizens allowing easy access to otherwise tedious and costly activities of political engagement (like writing letters to one´s representative or participating in party´s meetings). Is there a comprehension and appreciation for such activities? Are they perceived as a tool for political engagement? How could they contribute to political trust? Are they perceived as tools improving transparency and inclusiveness in political arena? What might serve as effective tool for easy access (digital) political engagement? Could they be deemed as contributing to or harming the model of representative democracy? Findings from task 6.1 will be presented in framework research paper on social media participation and political attitudes towards democracy (D6.1).

Task 6.2. Social media influencing political attitudes: the intermediary role of trust.

A quasi-natural experiment in social sciences (Dunning 2012) in each of the project countries will be used for this task. The core of experiment will consist of observing participants´ social media engagement (mainly shares and comments). Subsequently, we would contact the same people and ask them to participate in a brief self-administered survey on political attitudes and trust towards political institutions. The experiment will examine the link between political participation via social media (which the citizens would have done voluntarily, before they knew they were studied) and political attitudes of the participants towards democracy and intermediate role of political trust. The additional step is content analysis of citizens’ comments, which will allow us to link the quantitatively studied relationships between participation level and trust on the one hand, with the nature and content of participation on the other hand. Methodological workshop of consortium partners will precede the implementation to ensure methodological consistency and external validity. Findings from the experiment will be summarized the analytical report (D 6.2).

Task 6.3. Electronic database on political participation through social media.

An electronic database on political participation in social media (D 6.3) will be publicly available (open source) as a deliverable in this project. The project team will review available secondary survey data (ESS, Eurobarometer, EVS, WVS etc.) to identify the unique and overlapping variables to establish a harmonized merged online quantitative database. It will be structured to include indicators available at European and national levels. It will be used for analysis in the project deliverables as well as will be made publicly accessible for academics, students, policymakers, NGOs, and citizens. The database will be made available via the project website.

Task 6.4. Influence of social media on political trust.

Recent crises (migration, pandemic, war) might serve as a potential for already present electoral volatility and contribute to increase in radicalization of voter attitudes and greater polarization of societies. A population is especially vulnerable to such shift if citizens feel alienated from the governmental decisions. If perception of trustworthiness shifted towards radical parties, it could present a challenge for democratic values and representative democracy as such. Digital media might serve as an opportunity for active engagement and inclusion of citizens in political discussions contributing to a sense of empowerment and inclusiveness, lowering a sense of political alienation. The question remains if participants in such digital discussions consider the activity as political participation and if such activity/activities provide them satisfactory experience to embellish their political attitudes with the trust in representative democracy. What kind of social media activities are linked with support for anti-democratic attitudes and radical political parties and what is the role social media plays in building or reinforcing political trust towards such actors? Contrary, which activities in social media could be affiliated with higher support for democratic values and which political trust factors (inclusiveness, transparency, responsiveness etc.) are perceived to be reinforced by possibilities social media established. To address these issues, findings from the quasi-natural experiment with be complemented with the secondary data analysis and will be summarized in a report on “Empowered by social media? Influence of social media on political trust” (D6.3) specifically addressing (1) whether social media, under specific circumstances, can serve as platforms to increase political trust and pro-democratic attitudes; (2) the causal mechanism by which social media contribute to political radicalization; and (3) the potentially mediating role of perceived transparency and accountability (political trust factors) in the defined relationships.