Project Details
Projekt
Self- and feedback effects in social media: How do political expressions affect their senders?
Subject Area
Communication Sciences
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 549891805
The project theoretically conceptualizes and empirically investigates how users’ own political expressions in social media and the associated elaboration affect the users themselves (self-effects) and what role expected and received feedback from other users play in this (feedback-effects). Social media give users agency. They can contribute own content and thereby not only seek to influence others, but also develop their personal standpoint on specific issues and find their position as a citizen. The study of self- and feedback-effects is therefore highly relevant for understanding processes of political attitude formation, self-positioning, and self-mobilization. The project complements existing research on self- and feedback-effects in three essential ways: 1) It integrates previously separate strands of research by investigating self- and feedback-effects on the democracy-relevant outcome variables (a) senders' political self-concept, (b) senders’ attitudes towards political issues, and (c) senders' subsequent participation in online interactions. 2) The project looks not only at short-, but also at mid- and longer-term self- and feedback-effects of political expressions in social media. 3) The project broadens the perspective by asking how self- and feedback-effects interact. Empirically, the project makes two key innovations: 1) It combines an experience sampling study with experimental studies. Thus, political expressions on different social media platforms, received feedback and self- and feedback-effects are measured with high external validity. At the same time, self- and feedback-effects are tested with high internal validity and causality can be established. 2) A longitudinal approach is used to acknowledge that social media usage for political expression is not a singular act in everyday life but occurs repeatedly. This enables us to analyze cumulative self- and feedback-effects and test the stability and long-term nature of the effects.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
