Paper presented at the V Latin American Congress on Public Opinion, Bogotá, Colombia, September, 2012.

1. Protesting in the
age of social media
Information, opinion expression and activism in online networks
S e b a s t i á n Va l e n z u e l a , P h D
Facultad de Comunicaciones UC

2. Two correlated trends
POLITICAL-TECHNOLOGICAL

3. Chile, Aug. 2011
Tunisia, Dec. 2010
Madrid, May 2011 Egypt, Jan. 2011

4. Facebook users around the world
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/02/01/FB-regioncomp2_610x363.png

5. Correlation is not necessarily
causation. Yet,…
CAUSES AND EFFECTS

6. ViralMS

8. Existing research
Studies based on an individual-level approach
tend to find a positive relationship between
frequency of social media use and protest
behavior, in line with existing research on the
digital media-citizen participation link.
(Gil de Zúñiga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012; Park, Kee, & Valenzuela, 2009; Rojas & Puig-i-Abril, 2009; Valenzuela,
Park & Kee, 2009; Zhang, Johnson, Seltzer, & Bichard, 2010) .

9. Possible mechanisms
• Access to a large number of contacts helps
social movements reach critical mass (Lovejoy & Saxton,
2012).
• Personal and group identity construction
through reinforcement of group norms (Dalton, Sickle,
& Weldon, 2009; Papacharissi, 2010) .
• Build trusting relationships among members
(Gilbert & Karahalios, 2009).
• Interest in collective issues by gaining insight
into the circumstances of others (Bennett & Segerberg,
2011).

10. Possible mechanisms (cont´d)
• Information: social media as news sources or
information hubs (Gil de Zúñiga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012).
• Political expression: social media as spaces for
expressing political opinions (Pingree, 2007).
• Activism: social media as venues for joining
causes and opportunities for mobilization
(Yamamoto, 2006).

11. Hypotheses
• H1. Frequency of social media use will be
positively related to protest behavior.
• H2. Using social media for news consumption,
opinion expression and activism mediates the
relationship between frequency of social
media use and protest behavior.

12. Method
• Data: 3rd round of the “Jóvenes y Participación”
survey by Periodismo UDP-Feedback S.A.
• Cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of
adults living in Chile’s three main urban areas.
• Sample: multistage area probability sample stratified
by geographical region.
• Mode: face-to-face interviews.
• Sample size: 1,737 (data weighted due to youth
oversample).
• Fieldwork: Aug. 19 – Sept. 6 2011

13. Variables
• Protest : public demonstrations, political
forums/debates, petitioning, meeting authorities,
letters to the media.
• Social media: Overall use of Facebook, Twitter,
Google+ and YouTube (α = .70), hard news, opinion
expression (α = .83), activism (α = .79).
• Control variables:
– Political and economic grievances
– Human values
– Material and psychological resources
– Online and offline hard news
– Interpersonal political discussion

15. Results for H1:
What are the effects of frequency of social media use
on the likelihood of engaging in protest behavior?
IMPACT

18. Results for H2:
What explains the relationship between frequency of
social media use and protest behavior?
MEDIATORS

21. Hypotheses
• Supported:
– H1. Frequency of social media use will be
positively related to protest behavior.
• Qualified support:
– H2. Using social media for news consumption,
opinion expression and activism mediates the
relationship between frequency of social media
use and protest behavior.

22. “Effects” of social media on
protest behavior are indirect and
contingent upon specific uses
INTERVENING VARIABLES

23. Directions for future research
• Replicate and test additional mechanisms.
• Examine others forms of participation.
• Triangulate survey data with:
– Content analysis of social media
– Social network analysis
– Longitudinal, panel surveys
• Cross-national comparative work
• DEVELOP THEORY!

24. THANK YOU!
This presentation can be downloaded at
http:// www.slideshare.com/savalenz
Research work and papers are available at
http://uc-cl.academia.edu/Valenzuela