“I like them, but won't ‘like’ them”: An examination of impression management associated with visible political party affiliation on Facebook

Abstract

Unlike traditional media, our interactions with political parties via social media are generally public, subject to scrutiny by others and, consequently, a self-presentation concern. This paper contributes to theory on impression management within social network sites (SNSs) by providing an understanding of the effect of visible affiliation on page 'Liking' behavior in the context of political parties; specifically, the possible association with social anxiety and the use of protective impression management. We predict that while users may be motivated to 'Like' a political party, some may feel socially anxious about the impressions their friends may derive from this action, and so ultimately choose to refrain from 'Liking' the party. Furthermore, we propose a new function of 'Secret Likes' (i.e. 'Likes' that others cannot see) as a means to increase gateway interactions. A survey of eligible voters (n=225) was conducted in the month prior to the 2015 UK general election, examining behavior associated with the Facebook pages of the two largest political parties. Results support that conspicuous affiliation with political parties indeed hinders intention to 'Like' political pages and is associated with social anxiety. 'Secret Likes' were found to be a successful method to increase gateway interactions. In addition to the theoretical contribution, implications for political party communications and site designers are considered.

Conspicuous political brand interactions on social network sites

“…The option to inconspicuously 'like' a political brand's Facebook page, would eliminate the risk of projecting an undesired social-self, but would allow the potential advantages such as entertainment, information or identity affirmation for the user and a means of direct communication for marketers (Macafee 2013;Hanson et al 2010). Prior work by Marder et al (2016) found electorates had a higher intention to inconspicuously 'Like' compared to when this was conspicuous. However, this did not investigate the role of the undesired social-self in this difference in intention over two visibility conditions.…”

“…Drawing from Marder et al (2016) our underlying notion is that social anxiety mediates the relationship between the increased proximity to the undesired social-self and the intention to conspicuously 'like' a political brand's Facebook page as follows.…”

“…As we are examining conspicuous interactions on SNS, to be theoretically distinct from one's own negative self-schemas, we refer to the 'undesired social-self', which is defined as: a collection of negative external self-schemas based on the perceptions of others. Marder et al (2016) support the use of the undesired social-self in examining SNS phenomena; engagement with Facebook increases public self-awareness, linked with avoidance-based selfregulation (e.g. de-tagging).…”

“…Notwithstanding the advantages, such as entertainment, information, identity affirmation (Macafee 2013;Hanson et al 2010), both UK and US political brands have received fewer 'likes' than might be anticipated. We use self-concept theory to develop Marder et al's (2016) notion that the conspicuous nature of 'Liking' deters people. Although, voters may have some motivation to 'like' a political party, they may chose not to because of the social anxiety related to the visible nature of 'Liking' and a desire to avoid projecting an undesired social-self to their imagined audience, which is likely to suffer from context collapse.…”

“…However, a further explanation is provided in a study Marder et al (2016) carried out in the run up to the 2015 UK General Election, who propose that the visibility associated with 'Liking' was key in explaining this disparity. They found first, "that conspicuous affiliation with political parties indeed hinders intention to 'Like' political pages and is associated with social anxiety."…”