Social Media Activism in the Digital Age: Testing an Integrative Model of Activism on Contentious Issues

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to propose an integrative model of activism that explains why and how individuals in the networked society are engaged in contentious issues. Incorporating the situational theory of problem solving (STOPS), hostile media perception, affective injustice, and social media efficacy, this study examined how the integrative model of activism predicts social media activism and offline activism on three issues of gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power. The integrative model of activism provides a valuable standpoint to understand activist publics and serves as a springboard for further scholarly discussion on activism and conflict resolution.

Keywords

situational theory of problem solving (STOPS)hostile media perception affective injustice social media efficacy activism

Citizens in this social media–active society have become increasingly informed about and engaged in controversial social issues. Over the past several years, outcry related to the deaths of Black men at the hands of White police officers, as well as accompanying charges of racial inequality, have led not only to social media activism (e.g., #BlackLivesMatter), but also to offline activism (e.g., the U.S. national anthem protests). In addition, after 58 people were killed at a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the gun control issue took center stage (Solis, 2017), and the immigration policies of the Trump administration have triggered national debate as well. Individuals can be engaged in issues such as these and more through both social media and offline activism.

Social scientists have long sought to understand what motivates people to participate in social activism on contentious issues (Kawakami & Dion, 1995; Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears, 2008). The rapid emergence of social media has led scholars to shift the focus of this question toward the impact of social media on offline activism, as social media enable people to connect and organize themselves (Earl, Hunt, Garrett, & Dal, 2014; Gerbaudo & Treré, 2015; Kavada, 2015). However, little existing research on activism explains the formation of activist publics and their collective activities in the social media environment. Given the fact that people living in a digitally networked society are easily exposed to controversial issues, it is imperative to understand how individuals engage in activism in social media, as well as its relationship with offline activism.

The purpose of this study, therefore, is to explore why people become engaged in activism through social media, and how such engagement leads to offline activism on contentious issues (i.e., gun ownership, immigration, and police use of force). To better explain activism in the digital age, this study proposes an integrative model involving the situational theory of problem solving (STOPS), social media efficacy, and the concepts of hostile media perception and affective injustice. This model will provide a theoretical foundation to understand the factors driving people to become activists on contentious issues in the digital age.

This study segments the concept of activism by introducing two categories: social media activism, which describes communicative action on social media that seeks to collectively address a problem, and offline activism, which describes political participation in actual events that also seek to address contentious issues, but through physical assemblies of motivated individuals. Both are subsets within the broader definition of activism: a collective action of like-minded individuals (i.e., polarized people) to change a society, a policy, or an organization with regard to contentious issues.

Literature Review

Conceptualization of Activism and Social Media Activism

Activism is a highly important research topic in public relations, because dealing with activist publics effectively determines an organization’s success or failure (L. Grunig et al., 2002). From the perspective of public relations, activism is broadly defined as a “process by which groups of people exert pressure on organizations or other institutions to change policies, practices, or conditions the activists find problematic” (Smith, 2005, p. 5). An activist public is able to organize a group or individuals to influence another publics through collective action (J. Grunig & Repper, 1992). In this regard, public relations plays a critical role in today’s complex and turbulent environment by scanning for issues and responding to activism (L. Grunig et al., 2002). When it comes to activism studies, public relations scholars have suggested that it is valuable to cultivate relationships through symmetrical communication with activist publics (Anderson, 1992; L. Grunig, 2002). Furthermore, recent research has found the value of activism by understanding activists as cocreators of the relationship between organizations and their publics (Botan & Taylor, 2004; Ciszek, 2015; Uysal & Yang, 2013).

Activism in sociology is generally defined as a series of contentious performances by which ordinary people strive to change social issues through collective action (Tilly, 2004). Another sociologist defined activism as “networks of information interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in political or cultural conflicts, on the basis of shared collective identities” (Diani, 1992, p. 1). Diani stressed the presence of information exchange among individuals and groups: Information interaction transforms a set of opinions and belief systems into collective action (McCarthy & Zald, 1977; Touraine, 1981), and networks promote the circulation of resources for action (della Porta, 1988). Shared beliefs and solidarity allow people to assign a common meaning to specific collective events (Oliver, 1989).

According to Norris (2004), a political scientist, activism is a participation mode for cause-oriented activities, whereas traditional participation-related elections and parties are citizen-oriented activities. Activism in a representative democracy typically focuses on specific issues and policy concerns, utilizing collective action to express political grievances, voice opposition, and challenge authority (Meyer, 2015; Norris, 2004). Tarrow (2011) defined activism as collective challenges toward antagonists (e.g., elites, opponents, and authorities), emphasizing that contentious forms of collective action are different from other forms of activism, such as market relations, lobbying, and representative politics, because they involve ordinary people challenging power holders.

Taken together, these cross-disciplinary definitions of activism inform this study’s conceptualization and blending of concepts. Activism as a social phenomenon often features the following: (a) contentious issues, (b) collective action, (c) solidarity or collective identity, and (d) an effort to solve problems using communication. This study seeks to add an additional feature to the definition of activism: polarized groups (like-minded people) based on issues. In the Merriam-Webster dictionary (n.d.), activism is defined as “a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.” While highlighting the importance of action, the dictionary also specifies that individuals choose one side of a controversial issue. Based on the abovementioned four core components, informed by cross-disciplinary scholarship and a new contribution that emphasizes issue polarization, this study conceptualizes activism as collective action of like-minded people (i.e., polarized people) to change a society, a policy, or an organization in relation to contentious issues.

Activism has continued to evolve since the emergence of social media, and today, social media is a strategic means for activism. Like-minded people in the social media communication environment can easily come together and facilitate collective action to change society or social problems. Many scholars have studied social media as a tool of mobilization and interaction to stimulate activism (Boulianne, 2015; Harlow, 2011; Harlow & Guo, 2014; Rolfe, 2005; Velasquez & LaRose, 2015; Wojcieszak, 2009). For example, the Arab Spring protests in Tunisia and Egypt in early 2011 were considered social media–inspired protests, and even called “Facebook revolutions” (Tufekci & Wilson, 2012). During the evolution of the Arab Spring movement, social media such as Twitter and Facebook were indispensable for citizens who used them to share their expressions of dissent and to disseminate information (Youmans & York, 2012). In the United States, the 2011 Occupy Movement was a digitally driven protest against social and economic inequality around the world (Fowler, 2002); thousands of social media users adopted the hashtag #wearethe99percent, launched by an anonymous Facebook user (Gerbaudo & Treré, 2015). The Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaigns, which originated in the African American community to protest police violence and racism, also used social media extensively (Freelon, Mcilwain, & Clark, 2016). Since the Twitter hashtag #Blacklivesmatter was created in July 2013, it has been used to diffuse and share information related to BLM activism. All these examples demonstrate that social media platforms have become an important resource for successful activism by activating individual participation.

Social media are central to contemporary social activism as advanced tools of communication and information. Beyond simply sending and receiving messages, social media facilitate collective action, reduce cost and time, and overcome the cognitive constraints of individuals (Bimber, Flanagin, & Stohl, 2005). Social media mobilize and recruit individuals for collective action efforts on contentious issues (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012, 2013). More important, they make it easier for users to express personal opinions and to organize collective activities. For example, a person who is angry about police violence is able to post his or her opinion on a personal social media account, such as Facebook or Twitter. This posting may diffuse in the network through sharing functions (i.e., connected or collective actions), and accordingly, other individuals may be exposed to mobilizing information even if they do not seek it out (Pasek, More, & Romer, 2009; Tang & Lee, 2013; Xenos, Vromen, & Loader, 2014).

This study conceptualizes social media activism as a fundamentally communicative process that involves individuals’ communicative actions to collectively solve problems. This conceptualization adapts information-transmitting behaviors from the STOPS theory and connective-type collective activities on social media (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012, 2013), because these are strongly related to characteristics of activists and the collective action aspect of activism. Prior research of social movement theories has demonstrated that efforts of transmitting information are essential to facilitate collective action (Tarrow, 2011). To gain more members, activist publics tend to engage in educating others about a given issue. Connective-type collective activities on social media are another dimension through which to conceptualize social media activism. According to Bennett and Segerberg (2012, 2013), connective–collective activities successfully lead to the recruitment and mobilization of individuals for activism. Social media enable individuals to express their personal ideas about contentious issues, as well as provide opportunities for others in the network to participate in activities related to the issues (Bimber et al., 2005). The connected system of social media builds collective action to enhance activism (Shumate & Lipp, 2008). Nekmat, Gower, Zhou, and Metzger (2015) suggested four broad categories of connective–collective activities in social media: commenting, relaying information received, uploading materials, and affiliating.

Leading Factors to Activism in the Digitally Networked Society

A collective effort to change society or a social problem is accomplished through communicative action. Using the STOPS’ theoretical framework, this study conceptualizes activism in social media as a fundamentally communicative process. STOPS was constructed with the premise in mind that a person’s communicative action is purposive; it is intended to solve a problem. J.-N. Kim and Sriramesh (2009) argue that activism is an effort of activists to solve contentious issues through communication behaviors. Particularly, the theory predicts individuals’ communicative behaviors through situational motivation and its antecedents in problem solving (J.-N. Kim & Grunig, 2011).

Situational variables and motivation in problem solving

With regard to initial influences that predict activism, this study began by examining three perceptual variables (problem recognition, constraint recognition, and involvement recognition) and a situational motivation variable that are used in STOPS to explain the communicative actions of people. Previous research using STOPS has indicated three situational variables as antecedent factors that increase situational motivation for communicative action in problem solving (e.g., J.-N. Kim & Grunig, 2011; J.-N. Kim, Shen, & Morgan, 2011; Shin & Han, 2016). Activism may begin with an individual’s perception of a problematic situation, such as some organizational decision or social/political turbulence. In STOPS, problem recognition is defined as “a perceptual discrepancy between expected and experienced states in a given situation that produces an uncomfortable feeling of badness-of-fit that one experiences in living” (J.-N. Kim, Gruing, & Ni, 2010, p. 128). Furthermore, even if people try to solve the problem, they may encounter obstacles and experience constraint recognition, which refers to the restrictions on a decision maker (J. Grunig, 1968). STOPS follows the definition of constraint recognition used in the situational theory of publics: “people perceive that there are obstacles in a situation that limit their ability to do anything about the situation” (Grunig, 1997, p. 10). And finally, one should perceive a personal connection to the problematic situation to want to become collectively involved in activism. Although there are many social issues in the world, specific individuals will not think about or act on them unless they perceive some involvement. The concept of involvement recognition, defined as a perceived connection between the self and the problem (J.-N. Kim, Ni, Kim, & Kim, 2012; J.-N. Kim & Grunig, 2011), is well known in communication and marketing research. STOPS, however, states that the perceived connection of oneself to the situation triggers individuals’ communicative actions.

Following the assumption of STOPS, this study predicts relationships between these three situational variables and situational motivation in contentious issues. Given the relationships between the three situational variables and situational motivation in STOPS, this study proposes the following hypotheses:

H1: Problem recognition will be positively associated with situational motivation on contentious issues (i.e., gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power).

H2: Constraint recognition will be negatively associated with situational motivation on contentious issues (i.e., gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power).

H3: Involvement recognition will be positively associated with situational motivation on contentious issues (i.e., gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power).

In STOPS, situational motivation plays a role in connecting the three perceptual variables and communication behaviors. Situational motivation in problem solving represents “as a state of situation-specific cognitive and epistemic readiness to make problem-solving efforts” (J.-N. Kim & Grunig, 2011, p. 132). As individuals perceive a certain issue to be more problematic, feel more connected to it, and have fewer constraints, they are more motivated to try to solve the problem. Stronger motivation makes people more active in their communicative efforts to solve a given problem.

As communication is purposive to solve a given problem (J.-N. Kim & Grunig, 2011), this study tests the relationship between situational motivation and activism. Situational motivation in STOPS can be related to two types of activism: (a) social media activism, which refers to collective communication action on social media (e.g., creating and sharing information on social media), and (b) offline activism, which encompasses traditional activism behaviors (e.g., signing petitions and attending protests). This study, therefore, seeks to test the following hypothesis:

H4: On contentious issues (i.e., gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power), situational motivation in problem solving will be positively associated with (a) social media activism and (b) offline activism.

Hostile media perception

With STOPS’ variables, this study also examines hostile media perception, affective injustice, and social media efficacy to predict social media activism and offline activism. The concept of hostile media perception refers to audiences’ perceptions of bias in news coverage (M. Kim, 2015). Considering the influence of the media on the salience of issues, this study assumes that hostile media perception may fuel activism related to contentious issues. As individuals are exposed to media coverage of controversial issues, their perception of the media’s fairness toward the issues can vary. The hostile media effect is the tendency of individuals to perceive that seemingly balanced news coverage of a controversial issue is biased against the individual’s own position (Choi, Yang, & Chang, 2009; Gunther & Chia, 2001). Hostile media perception is linked to behavioral intentions. Prior research has found that hostile media perception increases individuals’ willingness to voice behavioral intentions for political participation (Ho et al., 2011; Rojas, 2010) and opinion expression (Scheufele & Eveland, 2001). Recent research has also revealed that hostile media perception leads to activism among liberals (Feldman, Hart, Leiserowitz, Maibach, & Roser-Renouf, 2015), and prior research found that hostile media perceptions are specifically associated with climate change activism among liberals (Feldman et al., 2015). Hostile media perceptions also increase individuals’ willingness to engage in discursive activities (e.g., signing a petition, attending a public forum, posting an opinion on the web page of an organization they support) on three controversial issues (Hwang, Pan, & Sun, 2008).

Building on this body of research, this study argues that when individuals perceive news media coverage as being biased against their own views, they may participate in activism to correct and influence public opinion. Specifically, this study posits that individuals with higher levels of hostile media perception are more likely to participate in activism to share their ideas and opinions on contentious issues. This leads to the following hypothesis:

H5: On contentious issues (i.e., gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power), hostile media perception will be positively associated with (a) social media activism and (b) offline activism.

Affective injustice

This study explores affective injustice as another factor that leads activism. People may recognize an issue through news media outlets, but they may understand the issue through their own subjective comparisons and emotions. The concept of affective injustice was proposed to describe a context in which feelings of group-based relative deprivation were strongly related to collective action (Kawakami & Dion, 1995; Pettigrew, 2015; Zomeren et al., 2008). The view of affective injustice assumes that individual responses to events are relevant to one’s group or oneself (e.g., “I think the way we are treated by [out-group] is unfair”). Furthermore, affective injustice may indicate negative emotions caused by individuals’ perceptions of unfairness regarding an issue related to them either directly or indirectly (e.g., “I feel angry about public policies related to this issue because people affected by this issue are treated unfairly”). In this regard, the affective experience of injustice, or individuals’ experiences of injustice, may predict collective action in a given situation. Therefore, feelings of injustice and subjective experiences of unjust disadvantage may play a vital role in predicting activism and collective action by people on contentious issues, as proposed in the following hypothesis:

H6: On controversial issues (i.e., gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power), affective injustice perception will be positively associated with (a) social media activism and (b) offline activism.

Social media efficacy

Social media allow people to distribute a wide range of information related to contentious issues by creating and sharing content, for both known and unknown individuals. It has, therefore, become far more important to understand what motivates people to create and share information regarding contentious issues. In extant literature, scholars have explored self-efficacy to measure performance using contemporary technologies such as the computer and Internet (Compeau & Higgins, 1995; Eastin & LaRose, 2000). For example, Eastin and LaRose (2000) suggest the concept of perceived technological efficacy, which refers to one’s confidence of ability and understanding that online participation aids online activist campaigns. Nekmat and his colleagues (2015) identified perceived technological efficacy by adapting an Internet self-efficacy scale. And, with regard to social media, Hocevar, Flanagin, and Metzger (2014) conceptualized social media efficacy as the characteristics of social media users based on “a person’s level of social media content production and consumption, perceived social media skill, and confidence in his or her ability to successfully find information online” (p. 255). People who have strong self-efficacy beliefs in their use of social media may be more likely to use social media for activism. Therefore, it is possible that social media efficacy increases social media activism on contentious issues. The following hypothesis predicts that social media efficacy is a positive predictor for social media activism:

H7: Social media efficacy will be positively associated with social media activism on contentious issues (i.e., gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power).

The Relationship Between Social Media Activism and Offline Activism

Prior research has demonstrated that consumption of political information and interpersonal political discussion both lead to positive participation (Shah, Cho, Eveland, & Kwak, 2005). Political expression also mediates the relationship between social media news use and online/offline political participation (Gil de Zúñiga, Molyneuz, & Zheong, 2014). Today, social media not only provide a resource for political or social discussion, but also create opportunities to discuss and transmit information, thereby encouraging collective action. Accordingly, this study assumes that opinion expression and discussion in social media are related to offline activism. Whereas social media activism is conceptualized in the current study as the communication behaviors of people related to collective action in the social media environment, offline activism is conceptualized as a form of political participation. Based on previous research, it is reasonably assumed that social media activism is positively associated with offline activism, because individuals who are motivated to engage in activism issues tend to participate in collective action both on social media and offline. Consequently, this study suggests that social media activism is associated with traditional activism, including joining interest groups and signing petitions. To test the relationship between social media activism and offline activism, this study posits the following hypothesis:

H8: Social media activism will be positively associated with offline activism on contentious issues (i.e., gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power).

Given the presumed positive relationship between social media activism and offline activism, this study explores the role of social media activism as a mediator between situational motivation and offline activism. STOPS states that situational motivation connects three situational variables (problem recognition, constraint recognition, and involvement recognition) and communication behaviors (taking, selecting, and transmitting information) that people engage in to solve a certain problem (J.-N. Kim & Grunig, 2011). The current study suggests that people in today’s networked society use social media as a means of communication for expressing their opinions and garnering others’ support regarding contentious issues. In other words, collective communication behaviors in the social media environment may serve as a mediator for the mechanism through which situational variables and motivation influence offline activism. Situational motivation, derived from recognizing a problem and personal involvement with it, leads to active communication behaviors using social media, which may subsequently influence participation activism outside of social media. Therefore, this study proposes the following research question to explore how social media activism mediates the influence of situational motivation and offline activism:

RQ1: On contentious issues (i.e., gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power), how does social media activism mediate between situational motivation and offline activism?

Based on the literature, this study proposes a theoretical model to understand why and how people become activist publics in social media, and to explore the relationship between social media activism and offline activism on contentious issues (Figure 1). Using the proposed integrative model, this study examines three contentious issues (gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power) in the United States. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the integrative model of activism regarding three issues and to suggest the mode testing results.

Figure 1.

A proposed integrated model of activism on contentious issues.

Method

Viewpoints of Participants on Three Social Issues

This study attempts to examine how individuals engage in collective action in the social media environment, and their participatory behaviors on contentious issues. Three issues were selected to conduct this study: gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power. These issues are of great importance among Americans, and have been contentious topics with opposing viewpoints in the United States for some time (Pew Research Center, 2016).

As such, this study measured the viewpoints of participants regarding these three issues so as to better understand the positions of respondents in this research. As shown in Table 1, all questions regarding the three issues met satisfactory levels of internal consistency, that is, Cronbach’s alpha > .70. All items used a 6-point Likert-type scale, indicating level of agreement with each statement by the provided scale, with 1 representing strongly disagree and 6 representing strongly agree. Based on the responses to questions about the three issues, this study aimed to determine where respondents stand on each one. Questions regarding each contentious issue included directions to measure viewpoints of participants, and the mean responses for the four items for each of the three issues are as follows: Gun ownership is 3.59 (e.g., expanding background checks would be effective in reducing gun violence in the United States), immigration is 3.78 (e.g., overall, immigrants from other countries mainly strengthen American society), and police use of power is 3.94 (e.g., in general, the police are more likely to use deadly force against a Black person than against a person of another race). The results showed that participants tended to have slightly liberal views on the three issues.

Table 1.

Reliability, Means, and SDs of Items for Three Issues (N = 649).

Items for three issues		M
Items for three issues		(SD)
Gun ownership (α = .81)	Expanding background checks would be effective in reducing gun violence in the United States	4.42
		(1.55)
	A nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons would be effective in reducing gun violence in the United States	3.90
		(1.80)
	Gun ownership in this country protects people from becoming victims of crime (reversed)	3.28
		(1.69)
	Protecting the constitutional right of citizens to own guns is important (reversed)	2.77
		(1.57)
Immigration (α = .89)	Illegal immigrants coming to this country today take jobs away from American citizens (reversed)	3.84
		(1.69)
	Illegal immigrants should be deported back to their native countries (reversed)	3.76
		(1.77)
	Overall, immigrants from other countries mainly strengthen American society	4.24
		(1.50)
	Undocumented immigrants in the United States should be allowed to stay in the United States, and eventually apply for citizenship	3.65
		(1.66)
Police use of power (α = .89)	In general, the police are more likely to use deadly force against a Black person than against a person of another race	3.99
		(1.65)
	In general, African Americans are treated less fairly than Whites in dealings with police, such as traffic incidents	4.14
		(1.60)
	In general, minorities are treated fairly by the police (reversed)	3.81
		(1.55)
	Police killings of African Americans are simply a by-product of law enforcement officers doing their job (reversed)	3.92
		(1.64)

Data Collection and Data Screening

This study conducted an online survey from February 1 to February 13, 2017. Participants were recruited from Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Recent research has shown that MTurk provides a large, diverse pool of respondents who tend to be more representative of the population than many other forms of recruitment, such as student or convenience samples (Berinsky, Huber, & Lenz, 2012). This online crowdsourcing platform allows also researchers to obtain relatively focused and externally valid samples, more so than college samples (Paolacci & Chandler, 2014; Paolacci, Chandler, & Ipeirotis, 2010). For this study, a survey questionnaire was created using Qualtrics.com and was launched on MTurk with a survey link, which contained an informed consent form and a questionnaire. To increase the quality of responses and the motivation of participants, we conducted a pilot test (N = 50) before a main test (N = 800) and paid each participant 50 cents as compensation. During data screening, 151 cases from the main test were deleted from the total sample of 800 respondents for the following reasons: missing data (n = 93), non–social media users (n = 25), attention check failure (n = 29), and outlier cases (n = 4).

Description of Sample

The total sample size for data analysis was 649, with 41.9% (n = 272) male participants and 58.1% (n = 377) female participants. The mean age of the participants was 31.5 years (range = 19-84 years). In terms of ethnicity, 79.4% of participants (n = 515) were White, 8.8% (n = 57) were African American, 4.9% were Asian American (n = 32), and Other races comprised 6.2% (n = 45) of participants. Regarding education, 8.9% of respondents (n = 57) had a high school degree or less, 34.1% of respondents (n = 221) had a 2-year associate degree or less, 41% (n = 266) had a bachelor’s degree or less than the 4-year university level, and 16.2% (n = 105) had a postgraduate degree. Twenty-six percent of participants had a family income of less than US$30,000, 24% had a family income between US$30,000 and US$49,999, 27% had a family income between US$50,000 and US$79,999, and 23% had a family income of US$80,000 or more. Participants in the study showed some Democratic party inclination, with 24.3% identifying as Republicans, 44.8% as Democrats, and 30.8% as Independents, and in terms of political ideology, participants had liberal inclination: 51.3% (n = 333) were liberal (from extremely liberal to slightly liberal), 19.1% (n = 124) were moderate, and 29.6 % (n = 192) were conservative (from extremely conservative to slightly conservative). See Table 2.

Table 2.

Sample Descriptive Statistics (N = 649).

Variables		n	%
Gender	Male	272	41.9
	Female	377	58.1
Age	19-29	198	30.4
	30-39	236	36.3
	40-49	90	13.8
	50-59	84	12.9
	Above 60	15	6.6
Race	White	515	79.4
	African American	57	8.8
	Asian American	32	4.9
	Other races (e.g., Hispanic/Latino)	45	6.2
Education	High school degree or less than high school level	57	8.9
	Two-year associate degree or less than associate level	221	34.1
	Bachelor’s degree or less than 4-year university level	266	41
	Postgraduate degree or less than postgraduate level	105	16.2
Income	Below US$30,000	166	25.6
	Between US$30,000 and US$49,999	158	24.3
	Between US$50,000 and US$79,999	176	27.1
	More than US$80,000	149	23.0
Partisanship	Republican	158	24.3
	Democrat	291	44.8
	Independent	200	30.8
Political ideology	Conservative (extremely to slightly)	192	29.6
	Moderate	124	19.1
	Liberal (extremely to slightly)	333	51.3

Measures

Offline activism

Five survey items for offline activism were adapted from previous research (Feldman et al., 2015; Willnat, Wong, Tamam, & Aw, 2013; Zomeren et al., 2008). The questions regarding offline activism included seven items to evaluate how people would participate in activism regarding the three focused issues (e.g., I would attend a rally or demonstration supporting my view regarding a given issue). All items used a 7-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (very unlikely) to 7 (very likely). Wording was slightly modified for the context of the specific issues, and seven items were used to measure each of the three: gun ownership (α = .95), immigration (α = .95), and police use of power (α = .95).

Social media activism

This study conceptualized social media activism based on previous research in terms of activism: connective–collective action (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; Nekmat et al., 2015), and information transmission behaviors of people (Lee, Chon, Oh, & Kim, 2017; J.-N. Kim et al., 2012). Social media activism in this study was measured based on two dimensions, indicating different levels of communicative behaviors: proactive (e.g., I would create social media posts about this issue whenever I had a chance) and reactive (e.g., I would retweet or mention content about this issue if the content agrees with my viewpoint). Respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement on a 7-point scale from 1 = very unlikely to 7 = very likely. Six items were used to measure proactive social media activism for each issue: gun ownership (α = .95), immigration (α = .94), and police use of power (α = .96). Four items were used to measure reactive social media: gun ownership (α = .90), immigration (α = .88), and police use of power (α = .90).

Situational variables and situational motivation

All items were adapted from previous STOPS research (Chen, Hung-Baesecke, & Kim, 2016; J.-N. Kim & Grunig, 2011). There are three situational variables (problem recognition, constraint recognition, and involvement recognition) related to situational motivation in problem solving, and respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement, on a scale from 1 = not at all to 7 = very much, for items related to each. Four items (e.g., To what extent do you think there is something missing in public policies on this issue?) were used to measure problem recognition: gun ownership (α = .92), immigration (α = .89), and police use of power (α = .94). Another four items (e.g., Do you think you could affect changes to public policies related to solving this issue?) assessed constraint recognition: gun ownership (α = .97), immigration (α = .97), and police use of power (α = .96). Finally, five items (e.g., How much do you believe public policies on this issue affect or could affect you personally?) measured involvement recognition: gun ownership (α = .91), immigration (α = .87), and police use of power (α = .96). Situational motivation in problem solving was measured by three items (e.g., How often do you stop to think about this issue?): gun ownership (α = .88), immigration (α = .87), and police use of power (α = .90).

Hostile media perception

Hostile media perception was measured by five items (e.g., the portrayal of this issue in the news media coverage is biased) adapted from M. Kim (2015) and Hwang et al. (2008). Each item was measured by a 7-point Likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree): gun ownership (α = .95), immigration (α = .96), and police use of power (α = .95).

Affective injustice

Affective injustice was conceptualized as individuals’ perceptions of unfairness and their negative emotions regarding contentious issues (Zomeren et al., 2008). It was measured by four 7-point Likert-type items (e.g., I feel angry about public policies related to this issue because people affected by this issue are treated unfairly): gun ownership (α = .94), immigration (α = .96), and police use of power (α = .96).

Social media efficacy

Six items measuring social media efficacy (e.g., I can use social media as an effective way of connecting with others) were adapted from the scales for Internet self-efficacy (Kim & Glassman, 2013) and social media self-efficacy (Hocevar et al., 2014). Participants answered social media efficacy questions before they answered other main questions measuring their perceptions and behavioral intentions toward the issues. Six items, rated with a 7-point Likert-type scale, were used to measure social media efficacy (α = .86).

Results

The proposed hypotheses and research question were tested using SEM with AMOS. The proposed research model was run for each of the three social issues: gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power. The final model of this study is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

The results of testing integrated model of activism on contentious issues (N = 649).

Gun Ownership

As structural models reached good data–model fit, this study proceeded to interpret the hypotheses. The model testing of gun ownership shows $χ_{d f}^{2}$ (835) = 2,652.204, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.94, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.06, and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = 0.09. Three perceptual variables, problem recognition (β = 0.20, p < .001), constraint recognition (β = −0.13, p < .001), and involvement recognition (β = 0.57, p < .001), were positively associated with situational motivation, meaning that these three perceptual variables were found to be significant predictors of situational motivation. In addition, situational motivation (β = 0.45, p < .001), social media efficacy (β = 0.11, p < .01), and affective injustice (β = 0.18, p < .001) were positively related to social media activism. Situational motivation (β = 0.14, p < .001), affective injustice (β = 0.08, p < .01), and social media activism (β = 0.70, p < .001) were also significantly associated with offline activism (see Table 3).

Table 3.

Hypothesis Testing in the Proposed SEM Model: Gun Ownership, Immigration, and Police Use of Power (N = 649).

Hypotheses	Parameters	Standardized coefficient (β)			SE			Critical ratio			p
Hypotheses	Parameters	Gun ownership	Immigration	Police use of power	Gun ownership	Immigration	Police use of power	Gun ownership	Immigration	Police use of power	Gun ownership	Immigration	Police use of power
H1	PR → SM	0.20	0.23	0.15	0.04	0.04	0.03	5.85	7.29	4.92	.001	.001	.001
H2	CR → SM	−0.13	−0.33	−0.22	0.03	0.03	0.03	−3.79	−9.29	−7.11	.001	.001	.001
H3	IR → SM	0.57	0.30	0.52	0.05	0.07	0.06	12.86	7.19	12.00	.001	.001	.001
H4a	SM → SMA	0.45	0.78	0.85	0.05	0.09	0.07	10.90	10.91	15.05	.001	.001	.001
H6a	AI → SMA	0.18	0.17	ns	0.04	0.04	ns	4.85	4.50	ns	.001	.001	ns
H7	SME → SMA	0.11	0.10	0.11	0.08	0.08	0.07	3.03	2.76	3.24	.002	.006	.001
H8	SMA → OFFA	0.70	0.68	0.74	0.03	0.03	0.04	14.30	13.31	13.41	.001	.001	.001
H4b	SM → OFFA	0.14	0.15	0.25	0.03	0.03	0.03	4.18	4.73	6.38	.001	.001	ns
H6b	AI → OFFA	0.08	0.09	ns	0.02	0.02	ns	2.87	3.13	ns	.004	.002	.001

Note. SEM = structural equation modeling; PR = problem recognition; SM = situational motivation; CR = constraint recognition; IR = involvement recognition; SMA = social media activism; AI = affective injustice; SME = social media efficacy; OFFA = offline activism.

Immigration

The structural model was tested to examine an integrative model in the context of the immigration issue as well. The model testing shows $χ_{d f}^{2}$ (827) = 2,589.597, CFI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMR = 0.09. Three perceptual variables were positively associated with situational motivation: problem recognition (β = 0.23, p < .001), constraint recognition (β = −0.33 p < .001), and involvement recognition (β = 0.30, p < .001), indicating that these three perceptual variables were significant predictors of situational motivation. Situational motivation (β = 0.78 p < .001), social media efficacy (β = 0.10, p < .01), and affective injustice (β = 0.17, p < .01) were also positively related to social media activism. Finally, situational motivation (β = 0.15, p < .001), affective injustice (β = 0.09, p < .001), and social media activism (β = 0.68, p < .001) were significantly associated with offline activism (see Table 3).

Police Use of Power

Another structural model was tested to examine an integrative model toward police use of power. The model testing shows $χ_{d f}^{2}$ (675) = 2,096.613, CFI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMR = 0.06. Three perceptual variables were positively associated with situational motivation: problem recognition (β = 0.15, p < .001), constraint recognition (β = −0.22, p < .001), and involvement recognition (β = 0.52, p < .001), meaning once again that the three perceptual variables were found to be significant predictors of situational motivation. Also, situational motivation (β = 0.85 p < .001) and social media efficacy (β = 0.11, p < .01) were positively related to social media activism. Situational motivation (β = 0.25, p < .001) and social media activism (β = 0.74, p < .001) were significantly associated with offline activism (see Table 3).

Mediation Effect of Social Media Activism

With the SEM test showing that situational motivation and offline activism were partially mediated through situational motivation (see Table 4), we conducted bootstrap procedures to generate a 95% confidence interval testing the indirect effect of social media activism on offline activism. The technique of bootstrapping involves resamples from the same data to estimate the mediated effect repeatedly and to allow the estimation of confidence intervals for the effect (Preacher & Hayes, 2004). Preacher and Hayes (2008) recommend bootstrapping as “the most powerful and reasonable method of obtaining confidence limits for specific indirect effects under most conditions” (p. 886). Estimates in this study were calculated based on 5,000 bootstrapping samples. Table 3 shows the indirect effects of social media activism on the three issues (gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power). The indirect positive effects of social media activism between situational motivation and offline activism were all statistically significant (situational motivation → social media activism → offline activism): gun ownership (β = 0.31, p < .001), immigration (β = 0.39, p < .001), and police use of power (β = 0.51, p < .01). These indirect effects indicate that social media activism is a positive and critical mediator through which situational motivation increases offline activism.

Table 4.

Direct, Indirect, and Total Effects Using Bootstrapping: Gun Ownership, Immigration, and Police Use of Power (N = 649).

Path	Direct effect			Indirect effect			Total effect
Path	Gun ownership	Immigration	Police use of power	Gun ownership	Immigration	Police use of power	Gun ownership	Immigration	Police use of power
PR → SM	0.21***	0.23***	0.07***				0.20**	0.23***	0.15***
→ SMA				0.09***	0.11***	0.07***	0.09**	0.18***	0.12***
→ OFFA				0.09***	0.10***	0.07***	0.09*	0.16***	0.13***
IR → SM	0.68***	0.30***	0.54***				0.57***	0.30***	0.52***
→ SMA				0.25***	0.17***	0.37***	0.25***	0.23***	0.44***
→ OFFA				0.26***	0.15***	0.38***	0.26***	0.20***	0.45***
CR → SM	−0.13**	−0.33***	−0.29***				−0.13***	−0.33***	−0.22***
→ SMA				−0.06**	−0.36***	−0.27***	−0.06***	−0.26***	−0.19***
→ OFFA				−0.06**	−0.31***	−0.27***	−0.06***	−0.23***	−0.19***
AI → SMA	0.18***	0.17**	—				0.18***	0.17**	—
→ OFFA	0.06*	0.09*	—	0.13***	0.05*	—	0.21**	0.20***	—
SME → SMA	0.24**	0.10*	0.09**				0.11**	0.10*	0.11**
→ OFFA				0.08**	0.01*	0.03***	0.08**	0.07*	0.08**
SM → SMA	0.54***	0.78***	0.87***				0.45**	0.78***	0.85***
→ OFFA	0.12**	0.15***	0.12***	0.31***	0.39***	0.51**	0.45**	0.68***	0.87***
SMA → OFFA	0.49***	0.68***	0.41***				0.70**	0.68***	0.74***

Note. This is based on the 5,000 bootstrap procedure to examine the significance of the total effects and the indirect effects. Standardized regression coefficients (β) reported. PR = problem recognition; SM = situational motivation; SMA = social media activism; OFFA = offline activism; IR = involvement recognition; CR = constraint recognition; AI = affective injustice; SME = social media efficacy.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to propose an integrative model of activism to understand how individuals in our networked society engage in both social media and offline activism on contentious issues, by incorporating STOPS, hostile media perception, affective injustice, and social media efficacy. The integrative model of activism was tested in the context of three contentious issues: gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power. This proposed model appears to have a good model fit and sheds light on the driving forces of activism.

The key findings of this study provide several meaningful insights into the role of social media in the formation of activism. First of all, this study confirms the utility of the STOPS frameworks for activism by explaining why people are active in communicative action and collectively engaged in activism on contentious issues. Second, affective injustice (i.e., negative emotions) and efficacy in using social media are critical indicators to predict activism. Third, social media activism functions as a mediator, leading individuals to actively participate in offline activism. Given the results of the study, this integrative model of activism contributes to the practice and study of public relations as a means to explain and predict activism.

Individuals living in today’s networked society have entered a new phase in problem solving on contentious issues. Individuals in the social media environment not only are easily exposed to social issues, but also engage in the issues by creating and transmitting information. Applying the STOPS framework to activism revealed interesting points to explain activist publics and to predict activism in the organizational environment. Because a problem is a joint product of individuals’ minds and the perceived world, the result explains that problem recognition is a starting point to understand why people evolve into activist publics to solve a problem collectively. At the same time, constraint recognition also appears to be an important factor to explain why people are motivated to engage in activism. Because respondents were social media users, it is reasonable to assume that social media may decrease constraint recognition in approaching controversial issues. Stronger involvement recognition between people and an issue likewise motivates them to be active in problem solving.

This study further suggests the utility of STOPS in predicting behavioral intentions related to activism. The results indicate that individuals are more likely to participate in social media activism and offline activism when they are motivated regarding a given issue. Bridging situational motivation to activism (both on social media and offline) predicts a positive relationship. Thus, the model of activism viewed using STOPS explains and predicts the process of how individuals become motivated to engage in collective communication behaviors related to activism issues in the social media environment, as well as participatory behaviors offline. Responding to activism in our networked society, this study explains that individuals, as collective problem solvers, engage in social media activism and participatory behaviors.

Another important contribution of this study is the exploration of new theoretical grounds, through the testing of affective injustice and social media efficacy in the model of activism. The concept of affective injustice is based on the assumption that feelings of group-based relative deprivation bring about collective action (Kawakami & Dion, 1995), but this study extends the concept to individuals, and their negative feelings about events that do not directly affect them. This extended concept of affective injustice suggests that although individuals may not have a direct relationship with a certain issue, they may nonetheless be willing to participate in collective action to solve the issue when they experience negative feelings of unfairness. Affective injustice can, therefore, be a factor to predict activism. The data supported all proposed hypotheses regarding the relationship between affective injustice and offline activism, except in the context of police use of power. A possible explanation for this result is that people do not perceive all issues with the same weight. When considering the original definition of affective injustice, which highlights a direct relationship between a person and an issue, an indirect relationship with a given issue may have a more limited effect on activism. Another possibility is that offline activism about contentious issues might not always be directly propelled by affective injustice.

This study also suggests the importance of social media efficacy as a motivation for people to engage in social media activism. This finding not only contributes empirical support for prior findings about the positive relationship of self-efficacy and activism, but also extends the theoretical implication of self-efficacy for activism within the context of social media. Particularly, the results of this study are consistent with prior findings indicating that efficacy is one of the key predictors of collective action. Although previous literature has focused on the idea that people who believe in their ability to achieve a goal are more likely to engage in collective action (e.g., Zomeren et al., 2008), the findings of this study revealed that a belief in one’s own ability to accomplish desired functions through social media influences activism behaviors in the social media environment. In the networked society, a person’s abilities to use social media (e.g., using social media to write a post and connect with others) are valuable for predicting activism in the social media environment.

Finally, this study conceptualized social media activism with two dimensions of communication activeness (proactive and reactive) in the social media environment by incorporating information-transmitting behaviors (J.-N. Kim, Grunig, & Ni, 2010) and connective-type collective activities (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). In the present study, social media activism is conceptually distinct from offline activism, in that, communicative action in the social media environment is distinct from traditional offline activism. As information-transmitting behaviors and collective activities on social media are related to characteristics of activist publics (Ferre, 1992; Ni & Kim, 2009; Tarrow, 2011), this study conceptualized social media activism based on information transmission and connective-type collective activities. This provides new insights into using social media in collective action for offline activism. Collective action through social media makes people more active in offline activities intended to solve a given problematic situation. Previous research has focused on social media use leading to offline political participation (Bode et al., 2014; de Zúñiga et al., 2014; Hyun & Kim, 2015), but this study more specifically suggests that active communicative behaviors aimed at collectively solving a problem lead people to participate in collective action on the issue. Considering the scarcity of explanations for the formation of activist publics in the digital age, the results of this study provide insights to understand how individuals on social media become activist publics. This model of activism may lay a foundation for understanding activist publics and activism in the digital age. Understanding why and how people become activist publics could be a first step to finding solutions in activism issues.

Limitations and Future Research

Despite its meaningful findings, this study has several limitations. First, the model of activism was applied to three contentious issues (gun ownership, immigration, and police use of power), so it is difficult to generalize the results to other issues (e.g., health care policy, abortion, climate change, etc.). Future studies should replicate the model with other topics. Second, the model should be tested across the private and for-profit sectors, including in corporations and other cases with varying cultural factors. Third, this study used a nonprobability sample based on an online panel from Amazon’s MTurk, which limits statistical generalization. Particularly, participants leaned slightly Democrat/liberal compared with recent trends in the United States. As participants had somewhat more liberal views on the three issues, further research should test equally distributed samples on each contentious issue. If organizations in the public sector wish to test this model and obtain more generalizable knowledge about active publics and activism on a given issue, they should consider adopting a probability sample. In the same sense, to increase the external validity of this model, researchers should examine different issues in different contexts.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Myoung-Gi Chon is an assistant professor at the School of Communication and Journalism, Auburn University. His research interests lie in risk-crisis management, employee communication behavior, health communication, and public diplomacy.

Hyojung Park is an associate professor at the Manship School of Communication, Louisiana State University. Her research explores the role and effective use of new media in branding, relationship management, and crisis communication.

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