3. Research Questions and Hypotheses
More students from the West, more students from rural areas, and more students who identify as members of racial and ethnic minorities are the main features that colleges and universities in the West portray. This is caused by elements including geographic location, social environment, and cultural heritage. Dear students, this is the fundamental difference between college students in Western China and those in Eastern China. These characteristics limit Western Chinese college students’ ability to participate in politics to some extent.
Political communication has long centered on the study of how social media affects people’s political participation. According to the study conducted thus far, there are three main schools of thought regarding the internal relationship between social media and political participation: “optimist”, “pessimist”, and “situational determinism”. The “optimists” argue that social media usage encourages institutional and noninstitutional public participation in politics and plays an important role in doing so. The “pessimists” are dubious about “the beneficial impact of social media on political engagement”. Pessimists point out that social media and other network applications either have no discernible impact or even harm users’ political engagement. According to “situational determinism”, the influence of social media on users’ political engagement is multifaceted and subject to change as a result of adjustments to other factors.
Various academics have varying views on social media use and politics. Online social network use accounted for 5.8% of young people’s likelihood of voting, according to
Kim and Geidner (
2008). According to
Valenzuela et al. (
2009), Facebook use intensity positively predicted civic engagement, whereas Facebook group use intensity increased both civic and political participation. According to
Baumgartner and Morris (
2010), using social networking sites (SNS) was associated with three online political behaviors: posting political statements on blogs, signing online petitions, and sending political emails or links. The use of social networking sites (SNS) and blogs was recently found to be one of the strongest predictors of online political activity in
Kim and Chen’s (
2012) analysis of the 2008 Pew survey data.
Gainous et al. (
2013) examined the 2008 Pew survey data and came to the same conclusion that online social networking may encourage online political involvement. Furthermore, according to multiple national studies (Allstate/National Journal
Heartland Monitor Poll XIII 2012;
Rainie et al. 2012), the majority of social media users were politically and civically active individuals. Additionally, studies conducted outside of the US discovered that social networking usage predicted traditional active political participation (e.g.,
Bakker and De Vreese 2011). We may learn that social media use is related to civic engagement and political participation from the most recent literature on social media and politics. Based on that, the following research hypotheses are made:
H1. The use of social media by university students at Western universities has a beneficial impact on their online political activity.
Numerous studies have shown that political efficacy significantly and directly increases citizens’ political participation. Political efficacy is typically viewed as one of the psychological aspects that influence political engagement the most. Political engagement is more enthusiastic when political efficacy is higher (especially when internal political efficacy is higher); when political efficacy is lower, political engagement is less motivated.
Social media users will be more motivated to debate politics on SNS, follow political figures on Twitter, and tweet or retweet about a political issue than other users if they feel they have political expertise and can affect the political process. Previous research demonstrated that political self-efficacy predicted the usage of conventional media for political objectives, such as call-in political television shows and talk radio (
Newhagen 1994;
Hollander 1996). Although social media currently lacks a wealth of empirical evidence, a few studies have found a link between political self-efficacy and blogging (
Kaye 2005) and SNS use (
Kim and Geidner 2008).
According to research, informed and self-assured people have a tendency to be politically engaged offline. Therefore, they should be more inclined than others to participate in political campaigns and other political activities online. In fact, a few recent studies (
Jung et al. 2011;
Gil de Zúñiga et al. 2012) found a favorable correlation between political self-efficacy and online political participation. As a result, we surmise that:
H2. Political efficacy has a positive effect on the online political participation of university students in Western universities.
Political efficacy is a term used to describe how much a person thinks they can affect the political system. Political efficacy and a number of participation behaviors have a positive correlation, according to decades of research and measurements on the topic. However, due to their lack of formal learning opportunities in school and university and their apparent incapacity to engage in politics and public affairs, young adults’ “political experiences are typically left to happenstance and the influence of individual backgrounds” (p. 554) because the media offers a symbolic setting that enables young people to “…process and transform transient experiences into cognitive models that serve as guides for judgment and action” (p. 267). The relationship between Internet use and political efficacy has been previously explained in both Chinese and American contexts. SNS are especially well suited to support experiential learning and encourage reinforcement for individuals who are politically effective because of their media-rich and interactive characteristics.
According to the justification given above, people who already have high levels of political efficacy will have a stronger association between using the Internet and social media and participating in activities. It is also feasible, particularly in the context of youth, that the association will be stronger for people who have lower levels of political efficacy. This is due to the fact that young adults with higher levels of political efficacy often have more civic resources, such as learning and participation opportunities supplied by their families or organizational affiliations, that are independent of social media use. However, those with relatively little resources are required to use social media to engage in politics and public affairs. Young individuals with lower levels of political efficacy can make up for the lack of political and civic learning opportunities accessible in their daily lives by using social media. Therefore, we suggested a different research design:
H3. The beneficial effects of social media use on university students’ online political participation in Western China are strengthened by political efficacy.
4. Research Method
This research uses questionnaires to explore the possible relationship between the use of social media, political efficacy, and political participation of university students in Western China. The subjects of the research are university students between the ages of 18–40 in Western China. In total, 320 copies of the questionnaire were distributed online through the “investigation group” (
http://www.diaochapai.com, accessed on 16 March 2022), and 242 copies of field visits to offline universities were issued. A total of 564 questionnaires were issued, and 530 valid questionnaires were recovered, with an effective response rate of 93.97%. The title of the questionnaire is “Research on the Impact of University Students’ Social Media Use on Online Political Participation”. The online snowball method was used for questionnaire distribution. The questionnaire was distributed through social media sites such as WeChat groups, QQ groups, and Weibo to university students in Western China who had different educational backgrounds, nationalities, majors, political identities, and family economic statuses. The specific method was as follows: First, randomly select 30 students from different universities with different education backgrounds, majors, and genders in Western China through social media as the first group of survey subjects, and then invite them to use their social media to invite their friends and classmates from universities in Western China to fill out the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed from 10 June 2019 to 20 June 2019, and 320 people filled out the questionnaire. After removing invalid questionnaires such as those where the answer time was too short and the same options were chosen for all questions, 302 valid questionnaires were returned online, and the effective response rate was 94.38%. Offline random sampling was used to distribute field questionnaires at Guangxi University, Nanning Normal University, Yunnan University, Guizhou University, Guangxi Normal University, and other universities that were located in Western China. A total of 244 questionnaires were distributed offline, and 228 valid questionnaires were recovered. The effective recovery rate was 93.44%.
In this study, the in-depth interviews and surveys complement one another in their use. The results of the questionnaire analysis were used to draw the conclusions of the pertinent hypotheses, and the in-depth interviews further confirmed the validity and reliability of the data analysis based on those findings.
SPSS23.0 and Stata13.0 were used to analyze the questionnaire data. (1) SPSS23.0 data processing software was used to test and analyze the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. Additionally, we use it to perform descriptive analysis and correlation analysis on the pertinent questionnaire variables. (2) We used Stata13.0 data processing software to analyze the correlation between the main variables and grasp whether there was a correlation between the variables and the degree of correlation. We simultaneously carried out multiple regression linear analysis on the control, independent, and dependent variables. Additionally, we performed White’s test to determine whether the moderating variable was heteroscedastic before making a change. At last, some contents of the questionnaire were supplemented in the form of in-depth interviews. The in-depth interviews were conducted by recruiting interview volunteers in the universities. A total of 10 university students in Western China participated in the in-depth interviews: 5 male university students and 5 female university students. The educational backgrounds ranged from an undergraduate to master’s to doctoral degree. The interview was conducted in a face-to-face semi-structured interview mode, and the interview time was controlled within 50 min.
4.1. Dependent Variable
The dependent variable of this research is online political participation, that is, political participation through social media. The online political participation scale refers to the research of Zuniga and Ozman and uses 11 questions to measure online political participation. Respondents were asked to indicate the frequency of their participation in these activities using a Likert five-level scale (1 = never, 2 = occasionally, 3 = less, 4 = often, 5 = frequently). By accumulating the scores of these 11 questions, we obtained the value of the online political participation of university students in Western China.
From the frequency of participation, we found that the higher frequency of online political participation activities of university students in Western China was mainly concentrated in the following ways: browsing current political news or political hot events on social media or websites; visiting governments websites at all levels or following their official social media accounts; visiting the website of public administration departments (communities, schools, companies, etc.) or following their official social media accounts; and participating in online survey activities. On the other hand, the relatively low frequency of online political participation of university students in Western China included protesting against a decision or behavior of the government or public administration department through the Internet; contacting the government department or the leader of a certain unit through a private message on the Internet; and participating in online signature petition activities (such as candle lighting, etc.) or online rights protection.
Using the pertinent information and a thorough examination of the in-depth interviews, We discovered that university students in Western China participate in gathering political information on a somewhat regular basis through viewing the news on television, reading the news in newspapers, and browsing current political hot events online. Social media has facilitated online political participation for university students in Western China.
However, some interviewees stated that they would not actively search for current affairs news. Among the 10 interviewees, 4 people said that they mostly receive news hotspots automatically pushed by social media sites such as WeChat and QQ and said “I mainly click on news feeds casually, holding a mental attitude of taking a look at it” (P3). The news pushed on social media will not be searched and understood in depth, unless you encounter news related to your own interests. Through interviews, it was found that “visiting the website of public administration departments (communities, schools, companies, etc.) or following their official social media accounts” and “social current political news or political hot events on social media or websites” are highly active online political participation behaviors of university students in Western China. Six of the ten interviewees actively looked for news across multiple channels.
We have discovered that university students in Western China participate in political action on a rather infrequent basis. For example, “protesting against a decision or behavior of the government or public administration department through the Internet” or “contacting the government department or the leader of a certain institute through a private message on the Internet”. Respondents regarded the above behaviors as high-risk behaviors, so they adopted a more conservative attitude. The interviewee (P8) said, “Even if I make comments on relevant government policies, do officials have time to read it? Can it be solved if they saw it?” The interviewee (P1) who reported the problem to the principal through the principal’s webmail did not feel that he had achieved the desired effect by writing to the principal. He believed that the reply was not necessarily the principal personally replying, and the reply content was also very official.
The interview also found that the frequency of forwarding and online communication is not high, that is to say, statements such as “forward or publish articles or posts about social current political news or political hot events;”, “discussing current political topics with netizens or classmates through the Internet”, etc. received low scores in questionnaire. One interviewee (P5) said “The Internet is a place where people are mixed, and there are all kinds of people. If some words are spoken, they will be besieged by some netizens. Some questions become more and more confusing. It’s better not to talk about it and save yourself from the trouble”. Another interviewee (P6) said “Even if you make a comment, no one will notice it, let alone promote social progress”. This shows that the online political participation of university students in Western China is mainly focused on the participation in browsing and commentary and is not very enthusiastic about action-style political participation.
Regarding the causes of the above phenomenon, on the one hand, due to the emergence of social media, the frequency of pushing currently hot political information has increased. Even if it is passively received, it will also increase the number of times university students view and browse such information. For currently hot political news of the day, university students in Western China can browse through WeChat Moments, Weibo topics, and Qzone multiple times; on the other hand, some university students in Western China believe that action-style political participation is riskier and more difficult, so they will adopt a more cautious attitude and will not take action easily.
4.3. Controlled Variables
This study segmented the controlled variables into modules of demographic variables, prepolitical variables, and social network scale variables to minimize the design error (10 variables in total). The six variables in the demographic variable module were age, gender, ethnicity, major, household income, and academic qualification. Open-ended questions were used to directly measure age (M = 23.51 SD = 3.20) and gender (M = 0.47 SD = 0.50), with 1 denoting a male and 0 denoting a female. For Han nationality, the ethnic variable was 1, while for minority, it was 0. A value of 1 stood for the humanities and social sciences in the primary variable, and 0 for the natural sciences and other fields. The interviewees’ average monthly income (1 = below 2000, 2 = 2000–4000, 3 = 4000–8000, 4 = 8000–15,000, and 5 = over 15,000) (M = 3.25 SD = 1.27) was used to measure the economic income variable. Regarding the academic qualification variable, 1 corresponded to undergraduate students and 2 to graduate students and above (M = 1.46 SD = 0.50). The prepolitical variable module was made up of political identification, political interest, and political orientation. The CCP members and the Communist Youth League members were represented by 1, and the masses and democratic parties were represented by 0 (M = 0.89 SD = 0.31). Political identity was measured using multiple-choice questions, with the options being the masses, the Communist Youth League members, the CCP members, and the CCP. A five-level Likert scale was used to gauge political interest. In most cases, we asked the respondent “Are you interested in hot social current events” (1 = not interested at all, 2 = not interested, 3 = neutral, 4 = interested, 5 = very interested) and “Your degree of agreement with Politics is very interesting” (1 = resolutely disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, 5 = completely agree), and then we added the scores of the two items to determine the value of political interest, whereby political interest increases and decreases inversely with the score. The Likert five-level scale was used to gauge the interviewees’ political orientations and their level of agreement with the following viewpoints (1 = strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = neutral, 4 = disagree, and 5 = vehemently disagree): (1) the CCP and government should control everything that happens in the nation; (2) they should choose the ideology or notion that will be promoted across society; and (3) diverse viewpoints will cause social unrest. The value of political orientation (M = 9.84 SD = 2.23) is the total of these three items’ values. More open mindedness is demonstrated by higher scores and vice versa. When asked “How many friends are there in your most popular social media accounts”, the respondent’s response was utilized to calculate the social network scale variable module (M = 3.46 SD = 1.05). Less than 50 people was represented by 1, between 50 and 100 by 2, between 100 and 200 by 3, between 200 and 500 by 4, and beyond 500 by 5. The size of the social network increased as this item’s score increased.
6. Conclusions
The following conclusions are taken from our study, which looked at and evaluated the effect of social media use on students’ online political activity using university students in Western China as its research subjects:
First, Western Chinese university students who utilize social media are more likely to participate in online political discourse. The longer Chinese university students use social media, the more likely they are to obtain the most recent political news. There are numerous and instantaneous social media updates regarding hotspots in current events. The resonance effect on the same screen will enhance the perceptions of Western Chinese university students and provide them with access to a wide range of political data. Students in universities in Western China now have broader perspectives on politics thanks to the benefits of political literacy. Additionally, Western Chinese university students can engage in politics more effectively and practically through social media. On social media, students can share and comment on trending current events topics whenever and from wherever they are. Additionally, they can disseminate news about current events among groups connected on social media. This can spark further discussions with close relatives, friends, or online users. In some cases, online discussions also influence offline conversations and behaviors.
The more frequently someone utilizes social media, the more actively they engage in politics online, according to what was found with university students in Western China. First of all, university students have a tendency to be more outgoing, adaptable, and willing to try new things. On social media, university students can discuss recent current events hotspots and offer their perspectives on these events. They can also comment on matters to the heads of relevant departments via emails or private messaging. Due to the growth of social media, which provides the benefits of instant satisfaction, interaction, and simplicity, university students now have new opportunities and platforms to participate in online politics. Second, university students may gain likes or comments from Internet users if they post original opinions on social media or share politically relevant breaking news. Online political participation, positivity, and zeal among university students are increased by one-click sharing, likes, and other social media features. Not the least among other things, social media gives college students the chance to learn a variety of varied information. Additionally, it increases their chance of being exposed to political information, which can kindle and foster an interest in politics. In this scenario, there will unavoidably be an increase in online political engagement.
Second, as a result of their greater political efficacy, university students in Western China will become more politically engaged online. This shows that the more effective they are politically, the more actively Western Chinese university students engage in politics online. When college students feel increasingly satisfied with the political climate and believe they can have a greater influence on the process, their involvement, passion, and motivation for online political activity will increase. The results indicate that this effect is extremely considerable, illuminating the significance of political efficacy for online political participation among university students. On the other hand, university students will have greater direct access to political information as political efficacy increases. They will have a better understanding of political structures and guiding ideologies as a result, which will motivate them to participate in political activities online.
Third, political efficacy can enhance the beneficial function that social media use can perform in encouraging online political involvement. Accordingly, the greater the favorable effect of Western Chinese university students’ usage of social media on online political participation, the more effective they will be politically. On the one hand, the more effective a university student is politically, the better the environment is for fostering a stronger sense of political identity and increasing their satisfaction with the political environment, which in turn increases their confidence and willingness to engage in online political activity through social media. On the other hand, if a person’s political effectiveness rises, they are more likely to actively share and discuss current political information through social media or join pertinent interest groups, which raises their level of online political participation.
Fourth, the degree to which university students in Western China engage in politics online is influenced by factors that can be controlled, such as gender, major, political interest, and social network size. Male college students engage in politics online to a greater level than female students. University students majoring in humanities and social sciences participate in politics to a greater extent than students majoring in natural sciences and other subjects. Additionally, political involvement online is increased among university students in Western China who are more interested in politics and among those who have larger social networks.
The impact that social media use has on college students’ online political participation cannot be understated. Due to the rapid growth of social media, Internet users are talking more and more about social and public events. In order to express themselves and forward, comment on, and like the news stories that interest them or that they agree with, more and more university student organizations are turning to social media. They also freely participate in conversations about politics and public policy. A critical period of social transition is currently occurring in China. Therefore, it is important to research how western Chinese college students utilize social media to engage in online politics.
There is still potential for improvement in the measurement of various concepts during the questionnaire development procedure in this study. For instance, when measuring political efficacy, we ignored the differences between introverted and extroverted efficacy and lumped them together into one category. When analyzing the impact of Weibo, WeChat, and QQ use, we did not conduct a horizontal comparative analysis of the three platforms’ effects on political engagement, which could have impacted the sample heterogeneity. Future research can solve these flaws and restrictions and continue the in-depth investigation.