Based on a quantitative content analysis of political actors' Facebook posts (N = 1915), this study investigates profile-level and post-level drivers of user engagement (comments, likes, and shares) by employing a multilevel approach. For the first time in extant research, we also examine the factors that drive political actors to react to user comments. Findings indicate that the number of followers, the use of an official fan profile, and party vote share were negatively related to political actors' reactions to user comments. Furthermore, party profiles were least successful in stimulating user engagement. On the post level, we found that reasoning, post length, and references to competitive political actors have the potential to increase different types of user engagement. Negative, but not positive tonality increased user engagement and positive emotional expressions had a stronger effect on user engagement than negative emotions. Furthermore, humorous posts were more likely to be commented, liked, or shared, while mobilization cues had predominantly negative effects on user engagement.

Although studies suggest that the use of social media can promote political participation (PP), there is a lack of theorizing about the psychological processes underlying this relationship. This article attempts to fill this gap by suggesting a social media political participation model. Taking a goal systemic perspective, the model specifies a set of interrelated processes that need to be realized so that social media use affects PP. Furthermore, key contingent conditions are outlined and insights into fostering PP are offered. The article explains ways of testing the model with surveys and experiments. Implications for future research are discussed.

While citizen science research is already established in the natural sciences, it remains difficult to find in mainstream social sciences. Yet, social science research stands to benefit greatly from civic engagement. In this age of new technologies, citizen contributions have become more feasible. In Austria, for example, students are engaged in a citizen science project called YAPES, in which they use their smartphones to submit comments and photos about how they get in touch with political issues. Challenges do exist for this form of research, however, from the relation between human observation and data quality to ethical questions.

Existing research indicates that incidental exposure to political information on social media may function as an equalizer, stimulating political engagement among the politically detached. In this article, we challenge this notion and propose that there are good reasons to assume that incidental exposure may reinforce existing gaps. We test the equalizing against the reinforcing hypothesis using data from a two-wave panel study ( N = 559). We find a positive main effect of incidental exposure on low-effort digital participation. However, this effect was not conditional on political interest, as the equalizing assumption would have suggested. More interestingly, we found that the effect of incidental exposure on high-effort digital participation was conditional on political interest. However, against the assumption of equalization, individuals with low levels of political interest were negatively affected by incidental exposure, thus lending support for the reinforcement hypothesis. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed.

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