Social Media Use and Protest Behavior in Latin America: Deepening or Bridging Gaps in Participation?

• In Event: Social Influence in Social Media

Abstract

Extant evidence shows that, at the individual level, social media use and protest behavior are positively associated. But who reaps the participatory potential of Twitter, Facebook and other similar services? Is it people who are already inclined to protest or, rather, those who would otherwise remain demobilized? We tackle the role played by social media use on gaps in protest participation by analyzing survey data from 17 countries (N = 27,744) in Latin America—a region with deeply ingrained political and socioeconomic inequalities that, nevertheless, has witnessed a reemergence of protest movements. Results confirm that using social media for political purposes significantly increases the chances of protesting, even after controlling for several common predictors. More importantly, the findings suggest that social media may reduce gaps in protest behavior associated to individuals’ resources, psychological engagement with politics, and social recruitment networks. While these results are in line with optimistic accounts of the Internet and citizenship, they are not a panacea: socioeconomic gaps in protest remain unaltered and, moreover, the reduction of other traditional inequalities is rather weak.

Authors

• Sebastian Valenzuela, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

• Nicolas Manuel Somma, Pontificia U Católica de Chile

• Andres Scherman, U Diego Portales

• Arturo Arriagada, Universidad Diego Portales