Professional Documents
Culture Documents
net/publication/283459583
CITATIONS READS
17 422
4 authors, including:
Jesus Arroyave
Universidad del Norte (Colombia)
53 PUBLICATIONS 271 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
All content following this page was uploaded by Carlos Arcila Calderón on 03 November 2015.
DOI: 10.4018/IJEP.2015100102
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
16 International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015 17
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
18 International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015
called Somos Más -We Are More- (Mena, 2015, February 10) in response to the
alleged orchestrated hordes of critics in cyberspace.
With all of these elements we aim to determine how social networks influence
voting intentions in Ecuador, with emphasis on the analysis of their use to search for
information and continue or start discussions in the public sphere. The results can
be exceptionally useful by introducing new elements in a field -political participa-
tion and social-networks- which has broad implications for the Andean republic.
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015 19
behavior and may affect turnout behavior” (p. 47) . Also, being subscribed to a
newspaper may be a good predictor of voting intention. On their part, Gentzkow
et al., (2011) found a statistically significant correlation between people’s voting
behavior and their subscription to the local newspaper.
More recent studies have considered the use of internet and its influence on
the political context. For example, McClurg (2003) found a significant relation-
ship between the voters’ intention and an increased frequency of political delib-
eration in social networks. Similarly, Zhang et al. (2010) examined social media
and political participation and found a significant positive linkage between social
media and civic participation, as well as a positive significant linkage between
civic and political participation and interpersonal discussion. In other words, the
greater the use of social media, the greater the civic participation and the greater
the civic and political participation, the more widely these issues will be discussed
in social networks.
However, not all findings regarding political participation and the use of so-
cial media are positive. In this way, studies carried out by Cappella et al. (2002)
and Price and Cappella (2002), based on the analysis of discussions touching the
elections in 2000, found that participation in online discussions could not only
raise awareness of the opposing points of view, but also lead to the polarization of
views on political issues. On the other hand, Panagopoulos, Georgieva, Slotnick,
Gulati and Williams (2009) found, through a multivariate regression study based
on updating some political parties’ pages on Facebook, that this social environ-
ment did not have an impact on the 2006 elections in terms of percentage of the
final votes.
In the same vein, in “Politics on social media”, a study by the Pew Research
Center, a strong linkage between the use of social networks and the intention to
engage politically was not found. In this way, one in four users (25%) of social
networking sites expressed having participated more actively in political issues
after discussing a subject or reading a post on the Web site, 16% reported having
changed their perspective on a political issue after discussing or reading a post
and 9% said that they became less interested in a political issue after participating
on a Web site. Although some level of participation in social media is observed
according to this study, the results are not very strong. Thus, 84% of users of
social networking sites said they posted little or no content related to political
issues in their most recent update, comment or link; only 6% said that most or all
of their posts were related to politics and 10% said they had posted some content
related to politics.
While the influence of social networks in the voters’ intention remains the
subject of debate, this issue is of vital importance if we keep in mind that more and
more citizens use these social networks for political purposes. For example, 69%
of US citizens reported using social media in 2012, compared with 37% in 2008.
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
20 International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015
22% of registered voters shared their intention to vote for a certain presidential
candidate in social media and 35% encouraged others to vote in elections through
social networks (Raine, Smith, Schlozman, Brady & Verba, 2012).
3. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE
The uses and gratifications theory emerges as a suitable framework for understand-
ing the importance of the increasing use of social media in politics, specifically,
the decision to vote. This theory has its origins in the work by researcher Herta
Herzog in the United States in the 1940’s. Herzog (1944) analyzed why house-
wives listened to the radio, particularly soap operas, during the day. Her findings
emphasized the notion of an active audience seeking to meet certain inner needs
in the media. Thus, housewives listened to these romantic fictional series because
they provided them with three types of gratifications: listening to other peoples’
problems released them emotionally, listening to the stories helped them develop
wishful thinking and keep their minds off everyday problems and finally, listening
to the stories could give them ideas on how to act if they faced similar situations.
As the first precedent of the theory, this approach allowed to establish certain
gratifications and how they were associated with the consumption of media. As
stated by Baran & Davis (1995), “In contrast with the typical effect research be-
ing done in Lazarsfeld’s shop, Herzog didn’t try to measure the influence that
soap listening has on women. She was satisfied with assessing their reasons and
experience -their uses and gratifications” (p. 212).
However, Katz, Blumer and Gurevitch (1974) articulated the theory in a clear
way. According to them, the audience is active and uses the media in order to
meet certain needs. The main idea is to link the audience’s needs for gratifica-
tion with their choice of specific content (West & Turner, 2005). These needs for
gratification have been classified into five categories: Cognitive, concerning the
acquisition of information; Affective, regarding the experience of emotional or
aesthetic events; Personal Integrative, associated to the enhancement of credibility,
trust or status; Social Integrative, aiming to strengthen connections with family
or friends; and Tension release, aiming to evade reality or have fun. Therefore,
in the context of social networks and voter decision making, when we use social
media to learn about our peers’ opinion on candidates or check on Facebook or
Twitter for gaining insight into their government plans, is a clear example of us-
ing the media to meet a specific need.
Different studies are based on the uses and gratifications theory in order to
establish the linkage between the media and political participation. For example,
Papacharissi and Rubin (2000) found that the main reason for using the Internet
was to find information related to politics. In a study on the use of the Internet
and its perceived effects on political life, Tian (2006) found that the more that
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015 21
people use the Internet for political reasons to express their ideas and actively
participate, the more they perceive its effects on political life. Meanwhile Park et
al. (2009), found that the more young people use the Internet to search for infor-
mation, the more they participate in civic activities. Also, studies by Kenski and
Stroud (2006) and Jennings and Zeitner (2003) report that people who use the
Web are more linked to political processes and engaged in other political activi-
ties, such as voting.
4. HYPOTHESES
H1: Using social networks for political and electoral information positively influ-
ences the decision to vote.
H2: Using social networks for political and electoral information positively in-
fluences the decision to vote through the search for information and the need
for political deliberation:
H2.1: Using social networks for political and electoral information positively
influences the search for information and need for political deliberation;
H2.2: The search for information and need for political deliberation positively
influences the decision to vote.
H3: The influence of using social networks for political and electoral information
on the search for information and need for political deliberation is moderated
by age.
H4: Using social networks for political and electoral information positively in-
fluences, though moderated by age, the search for information and need for
political deliberation, which in turn positively influences the decision to vote.
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
22 International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015
5. METHOD
5.1. Sample and Procedure
3,535 Ecuadorians aged over 16 years (legal age for voting in this country) took
part in an exploratory survey by The National Electoral Council [CNE in Span-
ish] in the first half of 2013 (CNE, 2014). According to the voter registration list,
11,675,441 people were registered that year (CNE, 2014: 30). The questionnaires
were administered in person by a previously trained team; the sample was chosen
randomly among attendees of national events organized by the CNE and citizens
participating in electoral events during the presidential elections in February 2014.
It is a non-probability sampling, which means that results cannot be extrapolated
to the total population; however, due to the large sampling size (n = 3,535) it is
possible to draw inferences about the processes and hypotheses under study.
According to the exploratory results, 48.5% of respondents were mostly young
females (9.1% <18; 18.7% 18-23; 25.2% 24-30; 21.8% 31-40; 13.8% 41-50; 8.4%
51-65, 0.8%> 66). About half of respondents have undergraduate degrees (48.9%)
and graduate degrees (5.3%) compared to those who have achieved primary
(10.8%) and secondary education (33.6%). In 2008, ECLAC (2013, p. 63) states
that there was a 38.9% “gross enrollment rate in third-level education”, which is
higher than the average for Latin America and the Caribbean (22.8%). As Santos
(2012, p. 6) describes, approximately only 3.7% of the Ecuadorian employed
population have undergraduate degrees; therefore respondents were mostly active
students because roughly seven in ten individuals were thirty years old or less.
Most of the respondents had an average income level (64.7%), with a minority
of low (29.1%) or high income (3.8%); it should be noted that, according to of-
ficial figures, 97.9% of the employed population in Ecuador was unhappy about
having “low income” (Santos, 2012, p. 6). Also, between 2011 and 2012, 32.5%
of Ecuadorians earned the minimum wage or twice its value, while 21.7% earned
less than the minimum wage (INEC, 2012); La Hora, 2013, May 4). These two
sampling characteristics (university and average income) show a clear difference
regarding the Ecuadorian population, because the general population has lower
educational and -income levels than the sample.
5.2. Measurements
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015 23
1. Did you use social networks for information before voting in 2013? (0 = no,
1 = yes)
2. Do you think social networks are useful to make a decision to vote? (0 = no,
1 = yes)
3. Has the information from social networks changed or possibly changed your
vote? (0 = no, 1 = yes)
The second IV, search for information and need for political deliberation, was
also built with an index (0-1) which included the mean of the following indicators:
Component
1 2
Do you do some research before voting? -.029 .669
Have you received information on electoral candidates and their government plans? .054 .609
Are you interested in partisan politics? .099 .657
Are you interested in joining discussions about the candidates’ government plans? .146 .581
Did you use social networks for information before voting in 2013? .664 .248
Do you think social networks are useful to make a decision to vote? .843 .055
Has the information from social networks changed or possibly changed your vote? .810 -.032
Note: Loads> 0.4 are shown in bold.
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
24 International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015
ance, while the search for information and need for political deliberation (factor
2) obtained an Eigen value of 1.39 and accounted for 19.83% of the variance.
We used Cronbach’s Alpha test, which measures the correlation between the
indicators of the same construct, in order to determine the internal consistency
reliability of each of these constructs. The first factor obtained α0.670 and the
second one α0.508. Although both variables did not obtain the ideal minimum
values of 0.70 (Cronbach, 1951; Hayes, 2005), they are very close to the minimum
required of 0.60 for exploratory research (Hair et al., 2000; Robinson, Shaver and
Wrightsman 1991).
5.3. Analysis
6. RESULTS
Descriptive results (Table 2) show that the vast majority of respondents (85.2%)
has exercised their right to vote, which indicates the sample’s active political
participation through voting. Respondents showed an average level of use of so-
cial networks for electoral information (M = 0.45, SD = 0.36). This is the result
of 3 indicators that aim to investigate the citizens’ use of social media to find
information related to the elections. As shown in Table 2, 45.4% of citizens said
they had used social networks for information before voting in 2013; 50.5% said
social networks are “useful” for getting information before voting, and 38.8%
said the information received through social networks has changed or possibly
changed their vote.
Data also show an average level in the search for information and need for
political discussion of Ecuadorians (M = 0.56, SD = 0.31). This index consisted
of four items on the instrument, from which we can state that 66.1% of respon-
dents always do some research before voting, 53.8% have received information on
candidates and their government plans, 33.7% are interested in partisan politics
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015 25
and 59.5% are interested in debating the content of the candidates’ government
plans. Overall, these indicators show that respondents expressed some interest in
political issues.
In order to test the hypotheses of the study, we carried out a moderated me-
diation model based on regression OLS (Figure 2). Results show that, when all
the variables included in the model are taken into account, the effect of using
social networks for political and electoral information in the decision to vote is
not significant (B = 0.12; p = 0.56, CI = -0.28 to 0.51), i.e. there is no direct ef-
fect, so we cannot empirically support H1. However, this relationship does occur
owing to an indirect effect through the search for information and the need for
political deliberation (significant for the 5 levels of the moderator). This means
that an increased use of social networks for political information leads to a greater
search for information in other media and a greater need for political deliberation,
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
26 International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015
which in turn increases the likelihood that the person will decide to vote. This
mediational relationship empirically supports H2. In this sense, H2.1 and H2.2
are tested; they suggest that using social networks for political and electoral in-
formation positively influences the search for information and need for political
deliberation (B= 0.25; p <0.001; CI = 0.16 to 0.35) and the search for information
and need for political deliberation positively influence the decision to vote (B =
0.96; p <0.001; CI = 0.46 to 1.45).
We also find that age moderates the relationship found in H2.1. Specifically,
we find that the effect of using social networks for political and electoral informa-
tion on the search for information and need for political deliberation is negatively
moderated by age (B = -0.03; p <0.05; CI = -0.05 to -0.00). The interaction of these
variables mean that the older that people are, the less the effect of a variable on
the other, which empirically supports H3. In other words, we find a greater effect
of using social networks on the level of search for political information among
younger voters. In sum, we find that there is a conditional indirect effect in the
proposed model (Figure 2), in which the linkage between using social networks
and the decision to vote is not given directly, but through the search for political
information and this effect is greater in younger voters, which confirms H4.
The conditional indirect effect (Table 3) was calculated for different age levels
(percentiles 10, 25, 50, 75 and 90).
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015 27
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
28 International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015
on the other, they pose the effects of technologies through more cognitive and
cultural variables. In practical terms, our data can contribute to better planning of
campaigns aimed to promote electoral participation, based on the understanding
of the mechanisms through which the influence of social networks - sometimes
overrated- operate.
The results of this study are not intended to be conclusive of the reality in
Ecuador, since the sample was non-probabilistic and the sectors of higher educa-
tion and income levels are overrepresented. Additionally, the particular context
(traditional political instability and emerging digital literacy) of Ecuador can lead
to different results when compared with those of Western developed countries. In
addition, further progress is needed in the development of more reliable constructs
for the measurement of the variables in this study. Future research may aim to cor-
roborate the indirect effects (the use of social networks on political participation)
in other countries and election periods and introduce other mediating variables
in the proposed model.
REFERENCES
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015 29
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
30 International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015 31
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
32 International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015 33
Robinson, J. P., & Davis, D. K. (1990). Television news and the informed public:
An information-processing approach. Journal of Communication, 40(3), 106–119.
doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1990.tb02273.x
Robinson, J. P., & Levy, M. R. (1996). News media use and the informed
public: A 1990s update. Journal of Communication, 46(2), 129–135.
doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1996.tb01478.x
Sánchez, F. (2008). Democracia no lograda o democracia malograda?: un análisis
del sistema político del Ecuador: 1979-2002. Quito: Flacso.
Santos, P. (2012). El empleo indígena en el Ecuador, una mirada a su situación y
estado de ánimo laboral. Análisis, 3(August), 5-7.
Schuetz, J. (2009). Argumentation Theory. In S. Littlejohn & K. Foss, (Eds). En-
cyclopedia of Communication Theory (Vol. 1, pp. 40-45). Thousand Oaks, CA:
SAGE Publications, Inc. doi:10.4135/9781412959384.n109
Shah, D. V., Cho, J., Eveland, W. P. Jr, & Kwak, N. (2005). Information expression
in a digital age: Modeling internet effects on civic participation. Communication
Research, 32(5), 531–565. doi:10.1177/0093650205279209
Tian, Y. (2006). Political use and the perceived effects the internet: A case
study of the 2004 election. Communication Research Reports, 23(2), 129–137.
doi:10.1080/08824090600669103
Tibocha, A. M., & Jaramillo, M. (2008). La Revolución Democrática de Rafael
Correa. Análisis Político (Bogotá), 64, 22–39.
El Universo. (2012, January 11). Juez ordena la prisión contra bloguero acusado de
ofender a exfiscal. Retrieved from http://www.eluniverso.com/2012/01/11/1/1355/
juez-ordena-prision-contra-bloguero-acusado-ofender-exfiscal.html
El Universo (2015, February 19). @CrudoEcuador anuncia: “Hasta aquí llegó todo”.
Retrieved from http://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2015/02/19/nota/4569441/
crudo-ecuador-anuncia-hasta-aqui-llego-todo
Universo, E. (2011, 4 de diciembre). Leyes no se refieren a delitos que se cometan
en redes sociales. Retrieved from: http://www.eluniverso.com/2011/12/04/1/1355/
leyes-refieren-delitos-cometan-redes-sociales.html
Weaver, D., & Drew, D. (2001). Voter learning and interest in the 2000 presidential
election: Did the media matter? Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly,
78(4), 787–798. doi:10.1177/107769900107800411
West, R., & Turner, L. (2010). Introducing communication theory. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
34 International Journal of E-Politics, 6(4), 15-34, October-December 2015
Willnat, L., Wong, W. J., Tamam, E., & Aw, A. (2013). Online media and politi-
cal participation: The case of Malaysia. Mass Communication & Society, 16(4),
557–585. doi:10.1080/15205436.2012.734891
Zhang, W., & Seltzer, T. (2010). Another piece of the puzzle: Advancing social
capital theory by examining the effect of political party relationship quality on
political and civic participation. International Journal of Strategic Communica-
tion, 4(3), 155–170. doi:10.1080/15531180903415954
ENDNOTES
1
It is no coincidence that the initials of this movement as the same as Ecua-
dorian president’s, says Hector Cespedes (cit. By Rivera, 2014, p. 121), a
feature of the excessive presidential self-promotion denounced by authors
such as De la Torre (2013).
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.