News internalizing affects political participation, but only indirectly via externalizing, write Jihyang Choia, of Ewha Womans University, Jae Kook Leeb, of Indiana University and Sungkyunkwan University, and Emily T. Metzgarc, of Indiana University. By analyzing the role of network heterogeneity and news sharing activities, the article explores how the use of social media is related to citizens’ political participation.

The study is based on an online survey data collected by a research group at Midwestern university in 2012.

Two sub-dimensions of news sharing were found: news externalizing (news posting) and news internalizing (news seeking). Both dimensions were found to predict political participation, but internalizing was found to affect participation only via externalizing.

The study also found that network heterogeneity has significant effects on participation. However, the association become weaker when news internalizing and externalizing are considered in the analysis models.

The article “Investigating effects of social media news sharing on the relationship between network heterogeneity and political participation” was published by Computers in Human Behavior. Find the study here.

Picture: Social Media apps by Jason Howie, licence: CC BY 2.0