Political participation on Facebook during Brexit: Does user engagement on media pages stimulate engagement with campaigns?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Political participation on Facebook during Brexit: Does user engagement on media pages stimulate engagement with campaigns?

AU - Bossetta, Michael

AU - Dutceac Segesten, Anamaria

AU - Trenz, Hans-Jörg

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - This study investigates, over an 18-month period surrounding the 2016 Brexit referendum, the commenting activity of nearly 2 million Facebook users engaging with political news from British media or with the posts of referendum campaigns. We ask whether citizens’ engagement with political news on Facebook motivates their participation with political campaign posts, and we examine whether users commenting on campaign pages trend towards ideologically reinforcing media. Overall, we find comparatively low levels of commenting activity on the official referendum campaigns vis-à-vis the media, and the majority of users (70%) commented only once. Looking at the subset of users commenting on both page types (“cross-posters”), we identify a general spillover effect from media to campaign pages, suggesting a positive correlation between political interest and online participation on Facebook. Reverse spillover occurs immediately around and after the vote, with Remain cross-posters active on the Guardian while Leave cross-posters’ media engagement registers as more diffuse.

AB - This study investigates, over an 18-month period surrounding the 2016 Brexit referendum, the commenting activity of nearly 2 million Facebook users engaging with political news from British media or with the posts of referendum campaigns. We ask whether citizens’ engagement with political news on Facebook motivates their participation with political campaign posts, and we examine whether users commenting on campaign pages trend towards ideologically reinforcing media. Overall, we find comparatively low levels of commenting activity on the official referendum campaigns vis-à-vis the media, and the majority of users (70%) commented only once. Looking at the subset of users commenting on both page types (“cross-posters”), we identify a general spillover effect from media to campaign pages, suggesting a positive correlation between political interest and online participation on Facebook. Reverse spillover occurs immediately around and after the vote, with Remain cross-posters active on the Guardian while Leave cross-posters’ media engagement registers as more diffuse.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - big data

KW - Facebook comments

KW - polarization

KW - political campaigning

KW - political communication

KW - public pages

KW - referendum and social media

U2 - 10.1075/jlp.17009.dut

DO - 10.1075/jlp.17009.dut

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1569-2159

VL - 17

SP - 173

EP - 194

JO - Journal of Language and Politics

JF - Journal of Language and Politics

IS - 2

ER -