The Nexus between Social Media Platforms, Political Attitudes and Protest Participation: A Social Learning Approach

Amidst social and political concerns on the effect that some social media platforms have on the promotion of far-right discourses and actions across the globe (Webber & Manancourt, 2024), and changes in order to avoid recommending political content proactively (Instagram, 2024), this paper will use nationally representative survey data in five European countries to study the relation between engagement on a variety of social media platforms and different stages of mobilization into protests. For this purpose, we differentiate between consensus mobilization (i.e., individual attitudes towards protest and alignment with the goals and objectives of a movement) and action mobilization (i.e., an individual’s physical presence on a protest site or contribution to an online action, cf. Klandermans, 1997). Different social media sites are characterized by distinct affordances that influence the type of content users are exposed to, as well as how users are exposed to such content. Based on social learning theory (Bandura, 1977; Hoppitt & Laland, 2013), we expect that these differences facilitate or hamper the incorporation of distinct traits, including ideological radicalization and its direction, perceptions of collective efficacy and agreement with the goals and tactics of some movements, as well as protest participation. We will also explore whether there is heterogeneity in these social learning outcomes among diverse populational subgroups (based on age, gender, and ideology). In this way, this paper will contribute to debates about social learning and social movements, pointing at how social media affordances influence users’ political attitudes.