Dr. Helen Margetts Shares Findings on How Social Media Is Transforming Politics

During a public lecture hosted by CMDS on February 9, Professor Helen Margetts explored how social media is transforming collective action. Margetts, who is Director of the Oxford Internet Institute and Professor of Society and the Internet at the University of Oxford, noted that the percentage of people who are online continues to rise—in all parts of the world. The use of social media is also increasing, providing enhanced opportunities for more people to participate in politics.

Margetts explained how social media facilitate “tiny acts” of political participation—actions that require only micro donations of time, effort, or money. She observed that although many in Britain do not consider these “tiny acts” to be part of politics since they are not “painful enough,” they are significant. One example of a “tiny act” that she explored in some detail during her presentation on Monday evening was signing an online petition.

Margetts noted that petition platforms generate interesting data, data that she and her colleagues are mining to discover some surprising facts. For example, only a very few petitions succeed. Another interesting finding: those petitions that are successful develop quickly. “If a petition is going to make it, it makes it in 10 hours or less,” she said.

According to Margetts, social media influences an individual’s decision to participate in political life in two ways—through social information and also visibility. She observed that when you sign a petition online, you are able to see immediately how many others have signed, something that is not possible when you sign a petition “in the real world.” The availability of this “social information” changes behavior. “People are more likely to sign a petition if they know that many others are signing it too,” she said. Social media also makes it possible for others to observe your participation. The “ice bucket challenge” was an example of the visibility effect.

The type of political participation that social mobilization encourages tends to be unpredictable: it lacks leaders, institutions, and organizations, and so it is difficult to sustain. Margetts proposed “chaotic pluralism” as the model of democracy best able to describe the new politics. One of the interesting characteristics of this type of politics is that it is shaped more by personalities than by demographics, as the costs of participation fall. “We can see,” said Margetts, “that different personality types respond differently to social influences.”

Margetts noted that data generated from the internet could be used by states for self-improvement, for example in showing how policy change and service delivery are experienced by citizens. “But states lag behind civil society in maximizing the potential of social media and the new kinds of data that they generate, challenged by ethical, logistical, and reputational issues which need further study,” Margetts cautioned.