An
Analysis of the Effects of Facebook on Political Activity Among Weber State
University Students
Weber
State University
Spring, 2009
Abstract
A
study of Weber State University students was conducted to analyze the effects
of Facebook on political activity. This was done by conducting a 15-question
survey of 304 students. Political
activity was measured both online and off and this data was put through
statistical cross-tabulation analysis.
We found a statistically significant causation between membership in
politically-oriented Facebook groups and participation in low-effort political
activity such as petitions. A weaker
relationship was found with more effort-intensive activities such as attending
meetings and protests. It is our
conclusion that Facebook facilitates political activity geared toward
grassroots and local action but remains passive in regards to high-effort
national activity and voter mobilization.
Introduction to the Problem
According to the Pew Research
Center, in 2008 55% of the voting-age population of the United States used the
internet to obtain political news and participate in political discussion and
organization – an 11-fold increase over the 1996 elections. Ten percent of the
voting population did so through a social networking website such as Facebook,
Myspace, or Twitter. The highest percentage of these was among the youth
demographic of 18-24 years old.[i] These young voters voted for the eventual
winning candidate, Barack Obama, by the overwhelming margin of 66%. [ii]
At the same time, social networks
burst onto the national stage. Youtube
co-sponsored debates, all major candidates had some sort of presence on
Facebook, and the so-called “blogosphere” became a buzzword among the media and
candidates. The election’s victor,
President Obama, eventually garnered a still-growing 6,238,565 supporters on
Facebook.[iii] All of this pointed to a massive shift of
political attention to the Internet. It
has become apparent that all future elections and political initiatives will
have a major online presence, especially on social networking sites.
However, despite the hyperbole of
the media and the financial attentions of the major candidates, there is very
little data at this time to show the true influence of the online social
networks. It will be vital to all future
campaigns, initiatives, grassroots organizations, and interest groups that a
greater understanding of these sites be achieved. It must be determined if Facebook and its ilk
are passive tools for the communication of political messages or true tools
that spur political engagement. If they are active tools, they are less
dependent upon campaign machines. This
could mean a new era for grassroots politics, independent candidates, and other
forms of political engagement that often suffer from a lack of existing
political networks. Forming political
groups on Facebook and using them to disseminate information and organize
events is free of overhead costs – allowing even minor municipal issues their
own webpage.
Theory and Process
To determine whether social networks
in general and Facebook in particular are passive or active tools for political
engagement, we conducted a survey of 304 college students at Weber State
University in Ogden, Utah. We asked 15
questions about their political activity in 2008 – online and off – to look for
statistically significant causation between membership in Facebook political
groups and real-world political activity in the form of petitions, meetings,
and voting. The data from these surveys
was then analyzed using bi-variate and multi-variate cross-tabulation. The full
process will be detailed below.
Propositions
We found evidence that Facebook is, among the population
surveyed, a reasonably active tool for political engagement. Though we failed
to find variance in our independent variable, which was intended to be activity
in online groups, we found that simply being a member of a political group led
people to participate in political activity.
For example, we found that a little more than half (55.5%) of the people
that attended some sort of meeting organized via Facebook did not participate
in any other sort of political meeting. The numbers were even stronger for
petitions organized through Facebook.
These people appear to be drawn to Facebook instigated
political events for some reason – possibly due to the unique peer-pressure
qualities of an online social network.
The likelihood of participation seems to go down in proportion to the
level of effort required, but we currently lack the data to confirm this
hypothesis.
Previous
Research
Following
Howard[iv]
and Williams,[v] an
online social network can be defined as a large population of online
individuals, groups, and subgroups, all of which have various social
connections among them. Because
interconnections between websites that facilitate social networks are limited,
each site should be treated as an individual social network. It may be a
helpful analogy to think of each social network site as a “galaxy” of users and
groups, with only limited interaction with other social network “galaxies.”
Gueorgieva
(2007) laid down a foundation for understanding the various ways that the rise
of social networking has influenced politics, campaigns, and political
activity, focusing mainly on the 2006 elections.[vi]
Gueorgieva, of American University, attempted to evaluate the impact that
online programs like Youtube and Myspace have on politics and political
activity, using extensive data and sources to defend the argument that social
networking has deeply affected the nature of elections.[vii]
This
research laid out the demographics of people using these social networks, and
their ages. As social networking has become more mainstream, it has begun to
appeal across generations. The researchers, pulling from a vast array of
different sources to guarantee accuracy, state that more than half of the
people using these social networking devices are thirty five and older.[viii]
From there, Gueorgieva measured an array of elements and provided a multitude
of examples and instances in which social networking affected some aspect of
elections. For instance, about 31% of Americans were online during the 2006
campaign season gathering information and exchanging views via email.[ix]
This equates to over sixty million people, which is a considerable portion of
the US electorate.
These
findings irrefutably show that social networking programs have added new
perspectives and implications in regards to the 2006 elections. Though it may be too early to collect
empirical data on the impact of social networks in the 2008 elections, it is
likely to be greater even than the 2006 elections.
But
while everyone seems to acknowledge that something is happening with online
social networks and politics, nobody seems entirely sure what it is. Clearly politicians and their campaigns spend
a great deal of time and money attempting to interface with online communities. Youtube, Myspace, and Facebook are inundated
with political messages and groups. But
little research has yet been done on whether this online political activity
translates into real-world political action, and how.
Our
research has attempted to fill this gap.
The data collected in our study, detailed below, shows that the
much-lauded online political activity does indeed translate to real-word
political activity, but it is not at this time a major influence in national
elections.
In
order to analyze the political effects of online social networking, a brief
analysis of the literature regarding politics and social networks in general is
required. Such a study was conducted by Kenichi Ikeda and Sean E. Richey
(2005).[x]
The research conducted deals exceptionally and substantially well with the
question of whether or not formal social networking (such as, one might infer,
participation in political groups on Facebook) translates directly into
political action (i.e., voting). Ikeda and Richey build directly upon the work
of Robert D. Putnam, (Bowling Alone,
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000) who conducted empirical research
establishing a connection between social capital and democracy. Ikeda and
Richey, too, emphasize empiricism in testing the influence of social networks
on political participation in Japan.[xi] Although the study was contained in the area
of Japanese social networking and its influence on political activism, the
results of said study can be conceptualized into a broader sphere. In the words
of the authors, the study’s results “show a strong positive relationship
between social networking [both formal and informal] … and political
participation”.[xii]
Ikeda
and his colleagues collected data from 1,618 face-to-face surveys conducted in
the Japanese Election and Democracy Study 2000. The conclusions the researchers
draw, “[…] social networking does increase participation,”[xiii]
jive with the statistical evidence presented.
The researchers make a deliberate attempt to not overstate the
preciseness of their measurements; in fact, both researchers seem to agree that
more precise empirical research need to be done in the area of social
networking and political participation.[xiv]
Ikeda
and his colleagues empirically proved that offline social networks increase
political participation, but other scholars have attempted to grasp the
connection between political activity on online social networks and real-world
political action.
Hollander
and Longo (2008), in “Student Political Engagement and the Renewal of
Democracy” posed an interesting answer to the question.[xv]
Hollander and her colleague wanted to know how social networking technology,
specifically Facebook, lends its effects to college student’s political
activity and their likelihood to vote.[xvi]
The study attempts to explain why we haven’t seen college students engaging in
voting and other political activities in the past by suggesting that students
are involved in a different type of engagement – one fueled by a more public
and community based attitude.[xvii]
Hollander
and Longo also claim that, because of the millennial generation’s distaste for
the politics of old, they instead reach out on a civic level rather than
participating through a ballot.[xviii]
The article also suggests that this generation of students is the most tolerant
the nation has ever had and is very focused on community service. As a result,
Facebook became a core element for mobilizing students due to its public nature
and outreaching ability. During the 2008 Obama campaign, supporters were
encouraged to use technology like Facebook to fuel fundraising and to start
more grassroots-level involvement. The Obama campaign’s community-oriented
politics and adoption of Facebook and other online social networks appealed to
college students and therefore won their vote (Hollander).[xix]
Though
Hollander and Longo asked the right questions, they did not reach a satisfying
answer. Their study failed to explain why college students have chosen to be a
part of politics the way they have. This is in part due to methodology. The
study did not incorporate any statistics regarding how many students use
Facebook as a starting point for civic projects or other political activity.
Hollander and Longo did provide some relevant information as to why student
haven’t turned up to vote in the past but failed to fully explain the role of
social networks in changing this in 2008.
We have sought to avoid this error in our study by focusing solely on
Facebook and college students.
In an attempt to measure the actual results of all this
political investment in social networks, Williams and Gulati (2007) performed
an empirical study on the effects of Facebook on voter turnout in the 2006
midterm elections.[xx]
This research concluded that Facebook is the best place to look for online
political activity. While Myspace,
Youtube, and blogs were used, they paled in comparison to the use of Facebook
in political campaigns.[xxi] For example, while only 12% of Senate
candidates updated their Myspace profiles, 32% updated their Facebook profiles.[xxii]
Facebook also actively courted political candidates, creating a special section
called Election Pulse that created and collected profiles for all Congressional
and Gubernatorial candidates, to be turned over to the respected candidate’s
staff.[xxiii]
Candidates were more likely to use Facebook as a campaigning tool in close
races and in districts with large populations of college educated voters.[xxiv]
The researchers also found that, by comparing final vote
percentages to Facebook profile activity, candidates that actively engage users
on Facebook increased voter turnout by 0.011 % per 1% increase in number of
Facebook supporters – although as more supporters are added, the return
diminishes. This reached a peak of 3% more voters for candidates that doubled
their Facebook supporter base.[xxv]
However, Williams and Gulati expressed doubts about the
accuracy of these numbers, noting that Facebook activity could simply be
reflecting greater public enthusiasm for a candidate. They stressed that more research, over more
election periods, was needed to truly determine causation.[xxvi]
One huge problem is that 14% of Facebook users are under 18, meaning that a
large number of supporters could be ineligible to vote. Additionally, Facebook users are allowed to
support as many candidates as they desire – as many as 46% supported more than
one candidate, and 10% supported more than four.[xxvii]
This study suggests that voter turnout may not be the
best way to register the effects of Facebook on political activity. Because voting is not initiated by Facebook
users, it is difficult to show that online supporters would not have voted
anyway. It is also difficult to say how
many supporters ended up voting, or how many were even eligible. Our data backs this up. Very few survey respondents reported any
influence on their voting activity by Facebook. A better measure of political
activity is a statistical analysis of Facebook originating or organized
political activities on local and national levels.
Though
all of these past studies have provided a valuable window into the phenomena of
social networks and politics, they fail to show an empirical link between
online political activity via Facebook and real world political action. To put
it another way, is Facebook being used to initiate political activity, or is it
simply another medium for the dissemination of campaign messages? To analyze
this potential link, and thus determine Facebook’s worth beyond elaborate
campaign advertising, it was necessary to conduct a statistical survey of
college-age Facebook users and their political activities beyond voter
turnout.
Data and
Hypotheses
To determine how participation in online political
groups on Facebook influences real-world political activity, we conducted a 15
question non-experimental survey. Weber State students were selected as our
unit of analysis for two reasons. First,
the most obvious reason was that of convenience (due to our study’s severely
limited budget and tight deadline). More
importantly, however, is that college students are the prime demographic for
Facebook as well as for eager politicians and grassroots organizers.[xxviii] This makes
college students the ideal study subject for interpreting the effects of
Facebook on political activity. To obtain the data we needed to prove
causality, 304 surveys were distributed to Weber State University students in
each of the seven primary colleges in proportion to college size.
General studies students were omitted from this
survey for several reasons. Basing our
survey distribution on official Weber State University data on college size which
showed general studies to be 24% of the student population, our initial plans
were to gather an additional 96 surveys from these students. However, they soon
proved difficult to track down, with only a handful of students reporting
themselves in this field out of 400 surveys distributed. Even general classes
that commonly attract freshmen provided only a few general studies
students. We attribute this to a fault
in our survey terminology – we asked students to name their “field of study,”
while the official data from WSU is most probably based upon declared
majors. This discrepancy has led, we
believe, to many students that are officially undeclared stating their intended
field of study. To compensate for this
error, we have omitted all general studies surveys and will instead focus on
the seven primary colleges.
Each member of our team approached students at
various times of the day and asked them to fill out our survey. Additionally we contacted the instructors of
college-specific classes by random and requested a few minutes to come in,
explain our survey, and obtain voluntary participation. The survey was restricted to Weber State
University students attending spring semester 2009 classes on the main Weber
County campus. Our sample size of 304 was
sufficient to obtain data from the diverse populations of WSU students,
including nontraditional and international students. As our focus was on students alone, faculty
and staff were excluded from this survey, unless they were also students. We did not remunerate students for survey
participation. Because of the brief
nature of the survey – it took only minute or two to complete – we obtained
responses without offering incentive.
|
Table
I |
|
||
|
Distribution
of Surveys |
|||
|
College |
Percentage of Student Body |
Number of Surveys |
|
|
Applied
Science & Technology |
13% |
52 |
|
|
Arts &
Humanities |
7% |
28 |
|
|
Business &
Economics |
12% |
48 |
|
|
Education |
11% |
44 |
|
|
Health
Professions |
19% |
76 |
|
|
Science |
6% |
32 |
|
|
Social &
Behavioral Sciences |
8% |
32 |
|
|
General
Studies (Not Surveyed) |
24% |
- |
|
|
Total |
100% |
304 |
|
Source: Student
Characteristics: Fall 2008-09. Weber State University website. http://weber.edu/IR/stdchar.html (Accessed 03/04/2009)
To obtain a fair sample of Weber State University
students, we distributed our surveys to individual students and classes in each
college in proportion to the percentage of the student body enrolled therein. Classes from each college were chosen partially
at random and partially based upon the availability of researchers at
particular times of the day, then the instructor was contacted and a few
minutes were requested for the distribution of our survey. Because of varying class size and the inevitable
incomplete returns, it was necessary to distribute more surveys than were
required from each college. In these
cases, the appropriate numbers of surveys from each college were drawn at
random from the total number completed in that college and discarded.
Data and
Variables
Our survey was broken into three
distinct sections for clarity and ease.
Though many of our questions were answerable with a simple “yes” or
“no,” yielding simple dichotomous data, others utilized a likert scale,
yielding ordinal data. Instead of asking
questions that are open ended, we asked respondents to choose the closest
answer to their opinion. For example,
when asking to what degree Facebook groups influenced a respondent’s likelihood
to vote, the answers offered were “not at all,” “slightly,” “moderately,” and
“strongly.” By avoiding open-ended answers we were able to collect data that is
accurate, consistent, and easily quantifiable.
The first set of questions is demographic in
nature. We gathered this information
because we wanted to determine if Facebook increases political activity
unevenly across age groups, economic classes, and sex. We also required the data to run possible
alternative variables. Here we asked the
respondent to identify their field of study.
As previously stated, our wording on this question caused us to abandon
general studies students as a category.
Asking this question was, however, vital to our survey distribution due
to the wide variety of students in classroom visited. Had we not asked the students to verify their
college, our survey data would have been skewed in unpredictable ways based
upon the chance makeup in each class visited.
Classes in the Applied Science & Technology building, for instance,
often yielded students from Arts & Humanities and Science.
The second set of questions is concerned directly
with Facebook activity. Questions 7 and
8 asked if a respondent uses Facebook and how much time they spend on it. This is to determine if someone who is
extremely active on Facebook is more likely to be politically active either
online or off. After establishing these
basic usage questions, the survey goes on to ask about online political
activity on Facebook (questions 8 and 9).
Because of the broad nature of online political
activity – ranging from informal discussions to donations, it was necessary to
find a specific facet of political activity to measure. For the purposes of this study we decided to
focus on politically-oriented Facebook groups.
A Facebook group is simply a pseudo-webpage created on Facebook to offer
a forum for people to meet, discuss, and disseminate information or as an
avenue to declare oneself a “fan” of a particular person or item.[xxix] Facebook groups organized along political lines
number in the thousands.[xxx]
As a follow up, we asked how frequently the
respondent visits a political group’s Facebook page (question 9). Here we attempted to reveal how active the
respondent is in the political groups on Facebook. Because groups may just as
easily act as mailing lists as they do discussion groups, we did not ask if the
user is an active contributor – just if he or she visits regularly. We expected that the more active someone is
on a Facebook political group – that is, the more often they visit it – the
more likely they would be to translate their interest into real-world political
action. Of course, because we found very
little actual political activity among students on campus, Facebook or no, this
proposition remains for another study to conclusively prove or disprove.
The third set of questions on our survey seeks to
measure real-world political activity. To recognize political activity, a
difficult to define concept, we looked at three main types of political action:
events, such as protests, rallies, or meetings (questions 10 and 11); petitions
(questions 12 and 13); and voting (questions 14 and 15). For questions 10, 12, and 15 we specifically
asked about Facebook groups’ role in organizing political events. By using a likert Scale on question 15 we
aimed to assess how Facebook influenced voting turn-out, if at all, among
survey respondents without resorting to an open-ended question.
Questions 11 and 13 are included as a control. By asking if people have engaged in political
activity that was not organized through Facebook, we controlled for the
possible independent variable of civic virtue.
In other words, we wanted to know if Facebook’s political groups help
instigate political activity or if it simply provides another avenue for politically
active people. We wanted to see if most
of the people that have been signing petitions and attending meetings organized
through Facebook are also signing petitions and attending meetings organized in
other ways. If this is the case, it may
be that Facebook is being used as a tool for organization, and it is not having
a special impact on political activity in and of itself.