The relationship between social media use and youth’s political participation has been extensively studied. However, explanations for youth’s online collective political activism have been less explored. Previous studies have used the concept of internal political efficacy to examine the relationship between social media and political participation. However, this concept only explains individua...

Though political theorists have emphasized the importance of political discussion in non-political spaces, past study of online political discussion has focused on primarily political websites. Using a random sample from Blogger.com, we find that 25% of all political posts are from blogs that post about politics less than 20% of the time, because the vast majority of blogs post about politics s...

Humans are a coalitional, parochial species. Yet, extreme actions of solidarity are sometimes taken for distant or unrelated groups. What motivates people to become solidary with groups to which they do not belong originally? Here, we demonstrate that such distant solidarity can occur when the perceived treatment of an out-group clashes with one's political beliefs (e.g., for Leftists, oppressi...

The impact of segregation on Black political efficacy is theoretically ambiguous. On one hand, increased contact among Blacks in more segregated areas may mean that Blacks are better able to coordinate political behavior. On the other hand, lesser contact with non-Blacks may mean that Blacks have less political influence over voters of other races. As for non-Blacks, inter-group conflict theory...

The active participation of citizens is the lifeblood any functioning democracy. But what drives people’s willingness to participate in political life? A key driver their self-perception ability understand processes and influence change through action. These attitudes also determine level trust government, making it a cornerstone research work on trust. In context increasing concerns regarding ...

Existing research on the effect of social media use on political behavior has yielded mixed results to date, demonstrating the importance of research examining the effects of varying types of social media communication on political behavior. The experiment reported in this study provides valuable insights into the role of social media in elections. A longitudinal experiment was conducted to ass...