Political News in the News Feed: Learning Politics from Social Media

Abstract

Although literature about the relationship between social media and political behaviors has expanded in recent years, little is known about the roles of social media as a source of political information. To fill this gap, this article considers the question of whether and to what extent learning political information occurs via Facebook and Twitter. Theory suggests that social media may play a significant role in the learning of political information within the modern media environment. Making use of a combination of experimental and survey-based studies, the data suggest that the potential for users to learn political information from social media exists but is not always realized within the general population.