1. Introduction
In political communication, the influential role of modern communication technology in developing democratic strength, the formation of political attitudes and political participation have become matters of great concern for scholars (
Galandini and Fieldhouse 2019;
Széll 2018). The development of internet structure, and the introduction of social media, have further sparked scholarly interest in the study of political behaviours on social media platforms (
Lipschultz 2015). Modern philosophers and sociologists emphasize on the moral demand of active, responsible, and informed citizenship in contemporary democratic politics. According to
Grechyna (
2020) the increasing tendency of political disengagement among citizens is accentuated as political stagnation in the pool of the democratic system. In democratic deliberations, a participatory public has long been regarded as a critical component of politics and the strength of the political system. A well-informed and politically active electorate, in a democratic system, is the most important constraint on the negligence and malpractices of the elected governments. This notion expressed by social scientists has confirmed that political participation is at the centre of a democratic political formula. Democracy will lack credibility and guiding power if the public is not involved in the political process (
Guven 2020).
Meanwhile, concerns regarding the political involvement of youth have sparked researchers’ interest, resulting in a surge of studies from a metatheoretical and cross-disciplinary perspective (
Mustapha and Omar 2020). Therefore, exploring the decisive factors that can bring distanced citizens back to participatory politics has turned into a cornerstone in present day political communication research (
Kim and Hoewe 2020). A substantial number of studies have established a significant strong association between social media use and engagement in political activities (see
Halpern et al. 2017;
Yamamoto et al. 2020). Similar perceptions about the democratic power of a politically active public exist among scholars of less developed democracies such as Pakistan (
Mangi et al. 2019), where a considerable segment of youth is engaged in political activities through social media (
Ahmad and Sheikh 2013).
However, instead of the increasing trend of new digital horizons, particularly social media, the problem of political disengagement has surfaced again in Pakistan. Despite the rise in social media use in Pakistan, voter turnout declined in the most recent general elections, held in 2018 (
Election Commission of Pakistan 2018). This brought major concerns about the democratic future of a country that is already struggling to regain democratic strength (
Ida et al. 2020). Therefore, in this study, we crystalized and catalogued new links affecting political participation in Pakistan within the OSOR communication mediation model.
5. Discussion
We developed a social media communication mediation model using the OSOR model and previous literature. We specifically examined the impact of political interest among young voters on their social media use, and how political efficacy, political expressiveness, and partisanship, as mediators, transfer the positive impact of social media on online and offline political participation. Our findings revealed that the participants with political interests are more frequent users of social media in Pakistan. Consequently, in Pakistan, the higher the level of antecedent orientation of political interest, the higher the social media use. This study challenged the general perception of scholars that political interest is an outcome of social media use, and found political interest as a predictor of social media use. This finding coincides with the study of
Lecheler and de Vreese (
2017). It also approves
Tian (
2011)’s recommendation by successfully treating the psychological disposition, such as political interest, as an antecedent orientation in communication mediation models that affect media use patterns.
Our results clearly establish that pursuing social media for political information eventually encourages citizens to make a contribution in the ongoing political conversations on these platforms or start a new discussion to express their viewpoint. The available political information on social media expedites the process of analytical reasoning. The development of relevant reasons encourages social media users to express themselves politically on social media sites. Evidence from
Bode et al. (
2014) and
Artime (
2016)’s research also manifests that social media users express themselves by commenting on political posts, writing blogs, posts about elections and political leaders, criticizing policies of rulers, interacting with the political accounts, and frequent sharing of political content such as photos, videos, and audios. Thus, our results clearly explained that young voters in Pakistan who use social media are expressive in sharing and conveying their political observations. This expressive behavior further led them to actively contribute to online and offline political activities.
As expected, our results showed that consistent interaction with political content develops a sense of efficacy among young voters who feel that they are informed and competent enough to understand the political issue. This competence led them to indulge in political activities on social media forums or similar activities in the offline environment. Although political participation is not substantial to determine society as a truly democratic society, many additional political and psychological variables need to be studied in Pakistan. However, this situation is hopeful for democratic strength in the country (
Batool et al. 2020).
Moeller et al. (
2014) also identified political efficacy as a personality trait that influenced citizens’ participation in political activities. Voting behaviour is the most effective and result oriented form of political participation, and an outcome of the political process is explored as a significant outcome of political efficacy.
Our study demonstrated that, in a modern democracy, the segregation of political platforms into online and offline contexts did not change the historic positive association between political participation and political efficacy. Political efficacy has a strong association with the online political participation of citizens. It has been determined, in American culture, that an increase in political efficacy boosts the level of online political participation (
Mazzurco 2019). Our research also found that political efficacy has a substantial effect on young voters’ engagement in online political activities in Pakistan.
Reichert (
2016), in a study, aimed to develop a consensus on the impact of the informational use of social media on political participation, and proposed political efficacy as a mechanism that converts social media use for information into conventional political activities. Contrary to this, our findings negate the outcome of
Reichert’s (
2016) research. Our research proved that political efficacy among young voters has no link with conventional political activities in an offline environment. This insignificant relationship shows that political efficacy is not politically consequential in determining offline political actions, in an unstable democratic environment such as Pakistan.
Findings from past literature identified partisanship as a key behavior to predict the participation of citizens in political activities, and in determining the democratic strength of the society (
Bartels 2000). Scholars (see
Giglietto et al. 2019;
Shahzad and Omar 2021) demonstrated that people with partisan orientation are motivated to participate in political activities on social media for the purpose of political support of one’s political party, and that this participation later shapes offline political behaviors. Consistent with this perspective, we also found that the partisan strength of young voters positively influenced their participation in online and offline political activities. Consequently, the greater the degree of partisan identity, the more the sense of consciousness will be towards maintaining the positive status of one’s political party. This consciousness towards partisan identity enhances the engagement of young voters in online and offline political activities in Pakistan. Although the influence of partisan strength on different political behaviors has been studied in the past, its mediating role in the communication mediation model as an outcome orientation and in the context of Pakistan was novel in the literature; this demonstrates the contribution of our study.
Our research also contributes to the advancement in the theoretical testing of the communication mediation approach, by incorporating
Cho et al. (
2009)’s recommendation to use a combination of outcome orientations. Enlisting political efficacy, political expression, and partisanship as three outcome orientations and justifying their mediating role is also a significant contribution of our research. The adoption of the segmentation approach to test mediation effect is another unique step that differentiate this study from the past literature. Normally, previous literature rarely discusses the method for development of mediating relationship while testing mediation path in communication mediation models. They usually follow the established links of communication mediation process. We made a unique contribution, specifically in the communication mediation literature, by utilizing the segmentation method of testing the mediation effect in the OSOR model.
There is a perception that young, educated people, especially female, are not interested in politics in Pakistan. Multiple reasons are presented for this deactivation in politics. In contrast, the findings of this study negated all of these. Most of the participants in this research has graduated from universities; more than 47% were female; and their political interests guided them to political participation via social media use. Therefore, we suggest a value-adding step in policy making to encourage social media and political forums, for citizens to express as much as they can. This will eliminate the perception of political uncertainty from youth and, consequently, will motivate them to take part in political activities. However, unfortunately, policy making bodies in the government of Pakistan are working in the opposite direction. In light of this discussion, this study suggests that the current government in Pakistan reconsider the decision to promulgate the Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority Ordinance 2021, which is especially designed to curb freedom of expression on social media platforms. This ordinance is already rejected by the journalist representative bodies and is largely discussed as draconian law among media practitioners (
Hussain 2021). If the ordinance is promulgated, it will demotivate the youth to express their opinions, which will ultimately result in decline in participation.
We also suggest that media bodies should employ some self-regulations before sharing news. After the emergence of social media, it has become especially easy and affordable to launch a YouTube channel. There is a trend among vloggers in Pakistan of sharing baseless, sensational news and conspiracy theories. Here, the role of journalist unions and media bodies is very important, to at least convince journalists who have YouTube channels to avoid and discourage such practice; in this way, people can rely on social media content, and at the time of elections or other political activities, they might be easily convinced to participate in real-life politics.
6. Limitations and Recommendations
Our study has some limitations. Firstly, we faced hurdles in data collection because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, we aimed to collect data by utilizing a multistage cluster sampling technique that required door-to-door physical access. The movement was not possible due health risks and the strict lock down in Pakistan. To overcome this hurdle, the multistage sampling technique was used with the incorporation of snowball sampling. Secondly, at the time that data collection started, heavy monsoon rains flooded the Karachi city. Additionally, there was a heavy power breakdown, and electricity was available only for a few hours, and sometimes every couple of days. It also affected people’s internet access. Due to all of these calamities, it took several extra months to collect data from Karachi, compared with Toba Tek Singh. Thirdly, our study is cross sectional; the findings could differ if data were to be collected in a longitudinal research design. The aforementioned limitations could be objects of improvement in future research.
Research on the role of social media for political participation is, relatively, not a new trend; however, still there is a lot of scope for the future researchers to further investigate the concept of social media use for political participation. Most of the published space is occupied by established democracies. Therefore, we recommend diverting focus onto less-established democracies and further concentrating on the comparison between developed and developing democracies, according to the democracy index (
Economist 2020). This will enhance the scope of the communication mediation approach in the specific category of democracy. In a theoretical context, this study recommends incorporating partisanship as an antecedent orientation, and testing its role as a moderator of social media use (i.e., stimuli as proposed by
McLeod et al. (
2009)), as well as testing its direct influence on response by combining social identity theory (SIT) with a communication mediation model. Future scholars might use these suggestions to provide more robust theoretical and practical outcomes.
7. Conclusions
This research contributes to political communication and the social media domain by modeling the political participation of young voters in Pakistan through social media communication effects. The study explores social media use and underlying behavioral characteristics that influence people’s involvement in political activities. Knowledge about the process of interest-oriented social media use in political participation was advanced by applying the OSOR model. The path model connected the variables of political interest, social media use, political efficacy, political expression, partisanship, online political participation, and offline political participation. The theorized path model, containing mediation paths, was tested for measurement and structural model using SmartPLS 3.3.3. Most of the relationships in the path model were found to be significant, which provides support for the model.
Overall, the findings depict a supportive view of social media’s positive effect on the political participation of young voters in Pakistan. Our study suggests that the influential political role of social media platforms in developing democracies, such as Pakistan, is similar to the developed and mature democracy of the United Kingdom as explained by
Brändle et al. (
2022). In our model, though all of the effects of social media on political participation were indirect, these indirect effects proved that social media use is as effective indirectly as it is directly in enhancing participation in political activities. The findings can be useful in fixing the problem of decline in political participation among youth. The implications of this study are also fruitful for the countries where there is a weak democracy, or where democracy is still trying to gain strength.