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Social Media Sharing and Corrective Action Hypothesis

Diego Mazorra (UNIVERSIDAD EXTERNADO DE COLOMBIA)

Keywords: New sources of information on public opinion and the use of social media to voice public opinion

Abstract

The Corrective Action Hypothesis has been studied recently in the political communication theory. According to Rojas, people who perceives media as biased may provoke an opinion expression aimed to correct the wrongdoings they perceive in media. This study hypothesizes that share news in social media is another form of corrective action. Although different authors like Barnidge show the links between hostile media perception and corrective opinion expressions online there is no evidence of use of social media sharing as a corrective expression. This evidence is vital in the highly polarized social media ecology where opinions are often expressed in the information people like or share with his contacts. This paper fills this gap of knowledge analyzing a national survey data that was designed to represent Colombia’s adult urban population. The survey was elaborated in an online panel by Survey Sampling International (SSI). This analysis takes the information of 521 respondents between April 26 and April 29 of 2016. Specifically, the research search for the existence of Hostile Media Perception and Third Person effect in the sample, to show the relation of this effects with Corrective Action Hypothesis, and juxtapose them against social media sharing, to reveal this action as a new form of demonstrate opinion expression in these environments. The study found that people who often share content they like in social media are the ones who perceive media as biased and have high levels of trust to social media news. There is however no support for the third person effect as mediator in the social media use as a corrective action. These findings show the differences that corrective action hypothesis have in social media environments and expand this theory to consider the centrality of trust in media news as a moderator of this action. In conclusion, this project, shows how the action of share content in social media networks like Facebook or WhatsApp are related with hostile perception against media news, and high levels of trust in online news, not necessarily related with political polarization or third person effect, and could shed new lights in the way of expansion of partisan news in this media environment.