Twitter and Facebook are not representative of the general population: Political attitudes and demographics of British social media users
A growing social science literature has used Twitter and Facebook to study political and social phenomena including for election forecasting and tracking political conversations. This research note uses a nationally representative probability sample of the British population to examine how Twitter a...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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SAGE Publishing
2017-07-01
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| Series: | Research & Politics |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168017720008 |
| _version_ | 1818623078655066112 |
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| author | Jonathan Mellon Christopher Prosser |
| author_facet | Jonathan Mellon Christopher Prosser |
| author_sort | Jonathan Mellon |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | A growing social science literature has used Twitter and Facebook to study political and social phenomena including for election forecasting and tracking political conversations. This research note uses a nationally representative probability sample of the British population to examine how Twitter and Facebook users differ from the general population in terms of demographics, political attitudes and political behaviour. We find that Twitter and Facebook users differ substantially from the general population on many politically relevant dimensions including vote choice, turnout, age, gender, and education. On average social media users are younger and better educated than non-users, and they are more liberal and pay more attention to politics. Despite paying more attention to politics, social media users are less likely to vote than non-users, but they are more likely to support the left leaning Labour Party when they do vote. However, we show that these apparent differences mostly arise due to the demographic composition of social media users. After controlling for age, gender, and education, no statistically significant differences arise between social media users and non-users on political attention, values or political behaviour. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-16T18:35:21Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-8dbd61f324ba4469b19e61666850458a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2053-1680 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-16T18:35:21Z |
| publishDate | 2017-07-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Research & Politics |
| spelling | doaj.art-8dbd61f324ba4469b19e61666850458a2022-12-21T22:21:10ZengSAGE PublishingResearch & Politics2053-16802017-07-01410.1177/2053168017720008Twitter and Facebook are not representative of the general population: Political attitudes and demographics of British social media usersJonathan Mellon0Christopher Prosser1British Election Study, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, UKBritish Election Study, University of Manchester, UKA growing social science literature has used Twitter and Facebook to study political and social phenomena including for election forecasting and tracking political conversations. This research note uses a nationally representative probability sample of the British population to examine how Twitter and Facebook users differ from the general population in terms of demographics, political attitudes and political behaviour. We find that Twitter and Facebook users differ substantially from the general population on many politically relevant dimensions including vote choice, turnout, age, gender, and education. On average social media users are younger and better educated than non-users, and they are more liberal and pay more attention to politics. Despite paying more attention to politics, social media users are less likely to vote than non-users, but they are more likely to support the left leaning Labour Party when they do vote. However, we show that these apparent differences mostly arise due to the demographic composition of social media users. After controlling for age, gender, and education, no statistically significant differences arise between social media users and non-users on political attention, values or political behaviour.https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168017720008 |
| spellingShingle | Jonathan Mellon Christopher Prosser Twitter and Facebook are not representative of the general population: Political attitudes and demographics of British social media users Research & Politics |
| title | Twitter and Facebook are not representative of the general population: Political attitudes and demographics of British social media users |
| title_full | Twitter and Facebook are not representative of the general population: Political attitudes and demographics of British social media users |
| title_fullStr | Twitter and Facebook are not representative of the general population: Political attitudes and demographics of British social media users |
| title_full_unstemmed | Twitter and Facebook are not representative of the general population: Political attitudes and demographics of British social media users |
| title_short | Twitter and Facebook are not representative of the general population: Political attitudes and demographics of British social media users |
| title_sort | twitter and facebook are not representative of the general population political attitudes and demographics of british social media users |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168017720008 |
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