Social Media Activism in Response to the Influence of Political Parody Videos on YouTube

Abstract

Grounded in scholarship on both the perceptual and behavioral components of the thirdperson effect, the present experimental study examined the effects of perceived impact of political parody videos on self and on others, by varying the perceived intent of the video producer and perceived level of exposure. Building on previous research on the behavioral consequences of such presumed influence, we tested a hierarchical regression model to show how perceived influence on others predicted individuals' willingness to engage in social media activism (i.e., corrective actions). Results demonstrated that participants in our study showed greater perceived influence of the political parody video when it was presented by a source of highly persuasive intent than by a source of low persuasive intent. Unlike our prediction for the effect of perceived exposure, we did not find the effect of perceived level of exposure on the presumed influence on others. Finally, the results of a hierarchical regression analysis showed that the perception of influence on others was positively associated with participants' willingness to take a corrective action-the likelihood of engaging in political social media activism.

Playing With Politics: Online Political Parody, Affinity for Political Humor, Anxiety Reduction, and Implications for Political Efficacy

“…Smith & Duggan, 2012). It should therefore come as no surprise that scholars have begun to explore the impact of exposure to these parody videos on viewer perceptions and political engagement (Becker, 2014;Lim & Golan, 2011;Tryon, 2008). Previous empirical research has suggested that exposure to politically oriented usergenerated YouTube content can impact evaluations of target politicians' credibility and favorability but has failed to offer evidence of a relationship between exposure to political content and feelings of political cynicism or efficacy (Rill & Cardiel, 2013).…”

Corrective or Confirmative Actions? Political Online Participation as a Consequence of Presumed Media Influences in Election Campaigns

“…As shown in previous studies, the perception of media influences on other people can result in increased political participation (e.g., Lim & Golan, 2011;Rojas, 2010). In the present study, this relation was examined in the context of an election.…”

“…One exception to this is a study by Lim and Golan (2011) that shows that the stronger the influence of political YouTube videos was thought to be on others, the more willing the respondents were to critically comment on them or to upload their own videos professing the opposite political tendency. Bernhard and Dohle (2013) also took online media into account in a study on the context of the dispute about a public construction project in Germany.…”

“…First, as a rule, presumed media influences are measured with rather general questions or items (an exception among others: Huh, DeLorme, & Reid, 2004). In the context of political communication, for instance, most studies only apply one general question regarding presumed influences on attitudes (Lim & Golan, 2011) or on opinions of others (Rojas, 2010). Thus, existing research "lacks attention to another A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 8 important consideration-that perceived media effects may be multidimensional" (Huh, DeLorme, & Reid, 2004, p. 573).…”

“…Second, most studies on corrective actions did not distinguish between perceived influences of different media; either they examined the presumed influence of media in general (Barnidge & Rojas, 2014;Rojas, 2010) or they focused on online media (Lim & Golan, 2011). There are hardly any studies on corrective actions that examine the presumed influence of online media and compare it to the presumed influence of different offline media (an exception : Bernhard & Dohle, 2013).…”