Antecedents of Political Consumerism: Modeling Online, Social Media and WhatsApp News Use Effects Through Political Expression and Political Discussion

Abstract

According to lifestyle politics theory, social media platforms introduce new ways for people to engage in civic life. Based on the communication mediation model, prior scholarship laid out theoretical and empirical foundations for how media exposure to the news positively influences people’s political participatory behavior through supplemental communicative processes. Building on this line of research, we rely on a two-wave panel survey of U.S. adults to examine how the different online and social media communicative patterns among U.S. citizens, such as news use, political expression, and discussion, predict political consumerism behavior - the purchase decision of consumers based on political or ethical reasons. Advancing diverse causal order structural equation models, this study highlights a positive influence of news consumption, social media political expression, and political discussion in explaining political consumerism (i.e., boycotting and buycotting). Specifically, results underscore the importance of political expression and discussion mediating the relationship between online, social media and WhatsApp news use and political consumerism. Implications for future research and limitations to the study are provided in the manuscript.