Social Network Politics: Communication and Voter Turnout from User Gratification Perspective

Abstract

This study delves into assessing user satisfaction regarding political actors' communication on social network sites (SNS) through the lenses of the Uses and Gratifications Theory and the Two-Step Flow Model. We further scrutinize the extent to which users engage in political communication and their preferred modes of participation on SNS. Additionally, we compare user engagement on SNS with voter turnout. A questionnaire was administered to a random sample comprising 135 respondents to acquire this data. Our findings reveal the absence of statistically significant differences in user satisfaction levels with political actors' communication on SNS. Moreover, our analysis indicates a preference among SNS users for following the posts of political actors over engaging with other users or initiating direct communication with political actors. At last, we found that user engagement in political communication on SNS is lower than actual voter turnout among the participants of this study.

DOI: 10.5671/ca.48.1.4