Pathways to environmental activism in four countries: social media, environmental concern, and political efficacy

In 2018-9, millions of youth participated in climate-related marches across the globe. This activism reflects youth’s distinctive form of political participation: cause-oriented, expressive, and networked. However, the pathway between environmental concern and environmental activism is complicated in some contexts and for some citizens. This article uses survey data from four countries (Canada, France, the United Kingdom, the United States) gathered in autumn 2019. We focus on the environmental activism of youth and young adults (aged 18–33 years, n = 1574). We find the role of social media is consistent and strong for all environmental activities in all countries; the role of political efficacy depends on activity and country but has a positive role in environmental activism; and environmental concern is a positive and significant correlate of boycotting and signing petitions but a weak predictor of participating in environmental marches. The relationship between environmental concern and environmental marches is distinctive in the United Kingdom. Overall, we find that concern about a social cause does not automatically translate into increased activism related to that cause. Moreover, online social networks, political efficacy, and political context are critical to understanding this mobilization process

Enlightening Confusion: How Contradictory Findings Help Mitigate Problematic Trends in Digital Democracies

This thematic issue includes ten articles that address previous contradictions in research on two main trends in digital democracies: news avoidance and political polarization. Looking at these contradictions from different angles, all contributions suggest one aspect in particular that could be important for future research to investigate more specifically possible countermeasures to harmful trends: the individualized, self-reflective way in which media users nowadays engage with political content. The increasingly value-based individualization of media use may be a hopeful starting point for reversing harmful trends to some degree by addressing individual media users as a community with a common base of civic values, rather than addressing them in their limited social group identities

Following Politicians on Social Media: Effects for Political Information, Peer Communication, and Youth Engagement

Young citizens increasingly turn to social media platforms for political information. These platforms enable direct communication between politicians and citizens, circumventing the influence of traditional news outlets. We still know little about the consequences of direct contact with politicians on such platforms for citizens’ political participation. Here, we argue that the interplay of different actors in the political news diet of citizens should be investigated from a networked communication perspective. Relying on a cross-sectional survey of young Danes (15–25 years old, n = 567), we investigate the relationship between following politicians on social media and: (a) the composition of young citizens’ political media diet; and (b) their civic messaging and campaign participation. Following political actors on social media relates to increased campaign engagement and can be a catalyst for young people’s exposure to campaign news, but their friends and followers function as the main node of their political online networks. We document a process of the de-mediation of politics on social media: Established news media lose influence as primary information sources for young citizens. We discuss these results in the context of users’ active curation and passive selection of their political social media diet

Chatting about the unaccepted: Self-disclosure of unaccepted news exposure behaviour to a chatbot

Conversational technologies such as chatbots have shown to be promising in eliciting self-disclosure in several contexts. Implementing such a technology that fosters self-disclosure can help to assess sensitive topics such as behaviours that are perceived as unaccepted by others, i.e. the exposure to unaccepted (alternative) news sources. This study tests whether a conversational (chatbot) format, compared to a traditional web-based survey, can enhance self-disclosure in the political news context by implementing a two-week longitudinal, experimental research design (n = 193). Results show that users disclose unaccepted news exposure significantly more often to a chatbot, compared to a traditional web-based survey, providing evidence for a chatbots’ ability to foster the disclosure of sensitive behaviours. Unlike our hypotheses, our study also shows that social presence, intimacy, and enjoyment cannot explain self-disclosure in this context, and that self-disclosure generally decreases over time

Information processing on smartphones in public versus private

People increasingly turn to news on mobile devices, often while out and about, attending to daily tasks. Yet, we know little about whether attention to and learning from information on a mobile differs by the setting of use. This study builds on Multiple Resource Theory (Wickens, 1984) and the Resource Competition Framework (Oulasvirta et al., 2005) to compare visual attention to a dynamic newsfeed, varying only the setting: private or public. We use mobile eye-tracking to evaluate the effects of setting on attention and assess correspondent learning differences after exposure to the feed, which allows us to uncover a relationship between attention and learning. Findings indicate higher visual attention to mobile newsfeed posts in public, relative to a private setting. Moreover, scrolling through news on a smartphone in public attenuates some knowledge gain but is beneficial for other learning outcomes

Datafication Markers: Curation and User Network Effects on Mobilization and Polarization During Elections

Social media platforms are crucial sources of political information during election campaigns, with datafication processes underlying the algorithmic curation of newsfeeds. Recognizing the role of individuals in shaping datafication processes and leveraging the metaphor of news attraction, we study the impact of user curation and networks on mobilization and polarization. In a two-wave online panel survey (n = 943) conducted during the 2021 German federal elections, we investigate the influence of self-reported user decisions, such as following politicians, curating their newsfeed, and being part of politically interested networks, on changes in five democratic key variables: vote choice certainty, campaign participation, turnout, issue reinforcement, and affective polarization. Our findings indicate a mobilizing rather than polarizing effect of algorithmic election news exposure and highlight the relevance of users’ political networks on algorithmic platforms

Was die Wissenschaft im Rahmen des Datenzugangs nach Art. 40 DSA braucht: 20 Punkte zu Infrastrukturen, Beteiligung, Transparenz und Finanzierung

Artikel 40 des Digital Services Act (DSA) schafft erstmals eine klare Regelung, die der Wissenschaft Unabhängigkeit von den einzelnen Plattformen und eine verbesserte Datenqualität gewährt und so sicherstellt, dass gesellschaftlich relevante Aspekte der Digitalisierung angemessen, konsistent und unabhängig untersucht werden können. Er ermöglicht, schneller und passgenau auf neue Fragestellungen und Entwicklungen evidenzbasiert zu reagieren und so zu einer fairen, digitalen Öffentlichkeit beizutragen, die sowohl gesellschaftliche Risiken als auch ihre Chancen in den Blick nimmt. Dieses Policy Paper zielt darauf, den erwarteten Delegated Act der EU-Kommission als auch das Gesetzgebungsverfahren zum deutschen Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz zu informieren und Notwendigkeiten aus Sicht von Plattformforschenden zu formulieren. Diese Sichtweise ist von größter Bedeutung, da von der Expertise wissenschaftlicher Akteure die Erforschung der systemischen Risiken abhängt

What the Scientific Community Needs from Data Access under Art. 40 DSA: 20 Points on Infrastructures, Participation, Transparency, and Funding

Article 40 of the Digital Services Act (DSA) creates for the first time a clear regulation that grants science independence from individual platforms and improved data quality, thus ensuring that socially relevant aspects of digitization can be investigated appropriately, consistently, and independently. It makes it possible to respond more quickly and accurately to new issues and developments in an evidence-based manner, thus contributing to a fair, digital public sphere that considers societal risks and opportunities. This policy paper aims to inform the expected Delegated Act of the EU Commission as well as the legislative process for the German Digital Services Act (Digitale Dienste Ge-setz) and to formulate necessities from the perspective of platform researchers. This perspective is of utmost importance, as research on systemic risks depends on the expertise of scientific actors

Headlines, Pictures, Likes: Attention to Social Media Newsfeed Post Elements on Smartphones and in Public

Scrolling through a social media newsfeed has become almost ubiquitous. Yet, it remains unknown what specific post elements people pay attention to and whether this varies depending on how they access social media newsfeeds. In an eye-tracking experiment among university students (N = 201), we compare user attention to specific post elements like source, title, or picture, in a dynamic Facebook newsfeed by device (desktop vs. mobile) and smartphone usage environment (private vs. public). Significant attentional differences occur at the level of the newsfeed post elements. Users pay less attention to visual information on the mobile newsfeed and more attention to textual post elements in a public setting