Social influence and political mobilization
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Social media can influence political behavior through social networks. Researchers sent social or informational messages to over 60 million Facebook users before the 2010 US elections. Those who received social messages were more likely to click "I Voted" or seek polling places. Examining voting records found those who received social messages were slightly more likely to vote. Effects increased with stronger social ties - close friends had a greater influence than distant acquaintances. The study provides evidence that online political mobilization through social networks can translate into real-world voting behavior changes.
Social influence and political mobilization
- 1. Social influence & Political mobilization Research Letter Daniyar Mukhanov & Sijo Emmanuel
- 2. Introduction Can political behaviour spread through an online social network? 61 million Facebook users during 2010 US congressional elections Effect of social transmission Most methods are ineffective (1% to 10%) However, 0.01% makes difference
- 3. Main Results - A randomized theory - People older than 18 - On November 2, 2010. US congressional selection
- 4. Three groups of users - Social message 60,055,176 (99%) - Informational 611,096 (1%) - No message 611,044 (1%)
- 5. Message
- 6. Cannot compare the treatment groups with the control groups No option to click ‘I Voted’ button or polling place link Social message vs Informational message Users who received the social message were 2.08% more likely click on ‘I Voted’ button 0.26% more likely to click polling-place information link Information seeking and political self-expression doesn’t guarantee that a particular user will actually vote Experiment and direct effects Experiment Results: Analysis of direct effects
- 7. Measured the effect of experimental treatment on validated voting Examination of public voting records Users who received social message were 0.39% more likely to vote than user who did not receive any message Similarly 0.39% difference in voting between those who received social and informational message Seeing faces of friends significantly contributed to overall effect of the message on real-world voting These results show that online political mobilization can have a direct effect on political self-expression. Experiment Results: Analysis of direct effects
- 8. Sample had an average of 149 Facebook friends Many of these relationships constitute ‘weak-ties’ Mobilisation can spread online more effectively through ‘strong ties’ Close friends stronger behavioural effect on each other than acquaintances Counted the number of interactions between each pair of friends Categorized them by decile, ranking from lowest - highest % interactions Interaction and Close real-world relationship Experiment Results: Analysis of indirect effects
- 9. Observe per-friend treatment increases as tie-strength increases Observed treatment effects fall outside the null distribution for expressed votes Significantly different from chance outcomes As interaction increases, the observed per-friend effect on friends treatment on a user's expressed voting also increases Horizontal grey bars represent null distribution derived from simulations of identical networks Incidence and topology of the behaviour and treatment are the same Assignments of the treatment are randomly assigned Expressed voting Experiment Results: Analysis of indirect effects
- 10. Observe treatment effect is near zero for weak ties Treatment effect spikes upwards and falls outside the null distribution for the two top deciles Strong ties are crucial for the spread of real-world voting behaviour Treatment effect for polling-place search gradually increases Several of the effects falling outside the 95% confidence interval of null distribution Validated voting Polling-place search Experiment Results: Analysis of indirect effects
- 11. Experiment Results The sample had 60,491,898 (98%) users with at least 1 close friend Average user having about 10 close friends Results suggest users were about 0.011% more likely to engage in an act of political self-expression By clicking ‘I Voted’ button than they would have been had their friend seen no message Each close friend who received a social message was on average 0.099% more likely to express voting Ordinary facebook friends may affect online expressive behaviour but do not affect private or real-world political behaviours In contrast, close friends have influenced all three In many cases it was not possible to change target’s behaviour Users may have already voted by absentee ballot before election day They may have logged into Facebook too late to vote or influence other users voting behaviour All effects measured are intent-to-treat effects rather than treatment-on-treated effects
- 12. Does close friends matter?
- 13. Social transmission - Friends: 886 000 expressed votes - Close friends: +559 000 expressed votes - Close friends of close friends +1 000 000 expressed votes
- 14. Close friends - 282 000 validated votes - 74 000 polling place researches
- 15. Some important notes US midterm elections turnout increases from 36.3% (2002) to 37.2% (2006) to 37.8% (2010) Facebook social message increased turnout by 60 000 direct and 280 000 indirect votes
- 16. Results - Online political mobilization works. - Social mobilization is significantly effective than informational mobilization alone. - Close friends have about four times more influence. - Online social networks influence offline behaviors.