When Social Media Get Political: How Perceptions of Open-Mindedness Influence Political Expression on Facebook

Abstract

The use of social media for developing and maintaining relationships can offer a gateway for users to open up and express their political views. Building on previous literature on the “spillover effect” in which relational use of social media motivates political expression, this study examines the circumstances under which the “spillover” effect is more likely to occur. To do so, we measured respondents’ (a) dialogic openness and (b) perception of other users’ political open-mindedness to examine how the two perceptions condition the spillover process on social media. Analyzing original panel survey data of Facebook users in the United States, we found that relational use of social media was positively associated with political expression on Facebook over time. Furthermore, there was suggestive evidence that this relationship was more likely to exist among individuals who perceive (a) themselves as dialogically open and (b) the platform as closed-minded and that the two perceptions may interact to condition the spillover effect. Possible explanations for how these self- and other-perceptions jointly shape the spillover process are discussed.

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