SOCIAL MEDIA, CIVIC ENGAGEMENT, AND THE SLACKTIVISM HYPOTHESIS: LESSONS FROM MEXICO'S "EL BRONCO".

Does social media use have a positive or negative impact on civic engagement? The cynical “slacktivism hypothesis” holds that if citizens use social media for political conversation, those conversations will be fleeting and vapid. Most attempts to answer this question involve public opinion data fro...

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Published in:Journal of International Affairs Vol. 70; no. 1; pp. 55 - 74
Main Authors: Howard, Philip N., Savage, Saiph, Saviaga, Claudia Flores, Toxtli, Carlos, Monroy-Hemández, Andrés
Format: Article
Published: Journal of International Affairs Winter2016
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        atl: SOCIAL MEDIA, CIVIC ENGAGEMENT, AND THE SLACKTIVISM HYPOTHESIS: LESSONS FROM MEXICO'S "EL BRONCO".
      aug:
        au:
          Howard, Philip N.
          Savage, Saiph
          Saviaga, Claudia Flores
          Toxtli, Carlos
          Monroy-Hemández, Andrés
        affil:
          Professor of technology, international affairs, and public life at Oxford University
          Assistant professor at West Virginia University
          Adjunct faculty at the National Auto nomous University of Mexico
          PhD student in social computing and crowdsourcing at West Virginia University
          Research collaborator at the National Autonomous University of Mexico
          Technology advisor for the Mexican government
          PhD student at West Virginia University
          Researcher at Microsoft Research
      su:
        Social media & society
        Community involvement
        Political communication
        Sentiment analysis
        User-generated content
      sug:
        subj:
          Social media & society
          Community involvement
          Political communication
          Sentiment analysis
          User-generated content
      ab: Does social media use have a positive or negative impact on civic engagement? The cynical “slacktivism hypothesis” holds that if citizens use social media for political conversation, those conversations will be fleeting and vapid. Most attempts to answer this question involve public opinion data from the United States, so we offer an examination o f an important case from Mexico, where an independent candidate used social media to communicate with the public and eschewed traditional media outlets. He won the race for state governor, defeating candidates from traditional parties and triggering sustained public engagement well beyond election day. In our investigation, we analyze over 750,000posts, comments, and replies over three years o f conversations on the public Facebook page o f “El Bronco. ” We analyze how rhythms o f political communication between the candidate and users evolved over time and demonstrate that social media can be used to sustain a large quantity o f civic exchanges about public life well beyond a particular political event.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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