Social Networks Influence Voter Turnout
Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/us/politics/social-networks-affect-voter-turnout-study-finds.html
In the era of technology and social media, it only takes one post to affect the lives of thousands of others. In a study conducted by Facebook, in which a “get out and vote” message showing pictures of friends who had voted was displayed on users’ feeds, it was shown that voter participation was directly impacted by what voters saw their friends post online. As we studied in class, voters turned out to be heavily influenced by the actions and messages of their “strong ties,” or close connections with whom the voter most likely has strong face-to-face relationships with.
The study was conducted in November 2010, on the day of the nationwide Congressional election. It provided a “get out the vote” message with pictures of friends who voted at the top of a user’s newsfeed to nearly all users signed in on the network – save two control groups of around 600,000 users each. One group received a message without pictures of their friends, and the other group received no message or pictures at all. While the study did not reveal what political party the voters affiliated with, it is estimated that around 340,000 additional votes nationwide were cast as a result of people seeing their friends post online that they had voted. While this is only a small portion of the total number of votes cast (around 90.7 million), this could have a significant impact on elections, especially smaller, more local, and individual races.