News Diets, Social Media Use and Non-Institutional Participation in Three Communication Ecologies:

Comparing Germany, Italy and the UK

Lorenzo Mosca and Mario Quaranta

Problem: The role played by the media in facilitating political participation has been extensively
discussed. However, research has mostly focused on conventional participation, while non-
institutional forms have less frequently been put in relation with both traditional and digital media.
Moreover, most of the existing studies addressing the relationship between media use and
unconventional participation are based on single countries.

Goal of the article: In the course of a three-year research project comparing social media and
political participation across the European Union, we collected data on representative samples of
internet users from Germany, Italy and the UK.

Conclusion: Our findings show that news diets and social media use matter in the three countries,
but that substantial differences are hard to find across them.

Our results show that engagement in non-institutional political action is associated with news diets
and social media use.

This article shows that the association between news diets, social media and non-institutional forms
of participation does not change depending on the countries.

Hypotheses:

H1: Distinct news diets and different social media platforms may influence non-institutional
participation in specific ways that reflect varying contextual characteristics.

H2: Social movements and protesters use online platforms extensively to inform and mobilize
other citizen’s by-passing the gatekeeping function of traditional media.

Research: Comparing representative samples of internet users in Germany, Italy and the UK from an
original survey conducted right after the 2014 European elections.

In as far as social media use is concerned, we show that non-institutional participation is differently
affected by distinct online platforms.

As we have seen, digital diets are more likely to facilitate safer and inexpensive forms of
individualized collective action such as boycotts, while more risky and demanding forms of
participation are made easier by omnivore diets.