Where do social media and education meet? A closer look at understanding of democracy

ABSTRACTSocial media presents a contradictory relationship with democracy. Once, it was regarded as a tool for democracy, providing alternative sources of information and coordinating social movements for democratization. Later it also became a tool for authoritarian regimes to control information and spread propaganda to stay in power. This mixed perception suggests that both democratic and authoritarian forces can use social media to influence public opinion. This presents a puzzle to the relationship between social media use and democratic understanding. Does social media promote or erode understanding of democracy? This study argues that the effect of social media use on understanding of democracy depends on higher education. The relationship also differs between democracies and non-democracies. Using the newest wave of the World Values Survey (wave 7, 2017–2020), this study analyses the influence of social media use on understanding of democracy in non-democracies and democracies. The findings suggest that social media use positively affects understanding of democracy in democratic countries. However, the democratic effect of social media is nullified in non-democracy unless it interacts with higher education. The findings offer implications for the relationship between social media, higher education, and understanding of democracy.KEYWORDS: Understanding of democracysocial mediahigher educationregime typepublic opinion Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 See Chapman et al., “Under the Veil of Democracy”; Cinar and Bulbul, “Varieties of Democratic Understanding”; Gerber and Chapman, “Familiarity Breeds Contempt?”2 Chang et al., “Authoritarian Nostalgia in Asia”; Kirsch and Welzel, “Democracy Misunderstood”; Shin, “Popular Understanding of Democracy.”3 Kirsch and Welzel, “Democracy Misunderstood”; Yeung, “Overestimation of Democracy in Nondemocracies.”4 Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture.5 Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy.”6 Inglehart, “Modernization, Postmodernization and Changing Perceptions of Risk.”7 Canache, “Citizens’ Conceptualizations of Democracy”; Chapman et al., “Under the Veil of Democracy”; Cho, “To Know Democracy Is to Love It”; Gerber and Chapman, “Familiarity Breeds Contempt?”8 Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture; Inglehart, “Modernization, Postmodernization and Changing Perceptions of Risk”; Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy.”9 Lu and Chu, Understandings of Democracy.10 Zagrebina, “Concepts of Democracy in Democratic and Nondemocratic Countries.”11 Ceka and Magalhães, “Do the Rich and the Poor Have Different Conceptions of Democracy?”12 Allcott and Gentzkow, “Social Media and Fake News”; Behrouzian et al., “Resisting Censorship”; Dal and Nisbet, “Walking Through Firewalls”; Lessenski, “Resilience to ‘Post-Truth’.”13 Bodó et al., “Interested in Diversity”; Borgesius et al., “Should We Worry about Filter Bubbles?”14 Haerpfer et al., “World Values Survey: Round Seven – Country-Pooled Datafile.”15 For example, Guriev and Treisman, “Informational Autocrats.”16 Dahl, Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy.17 Dalton, Sin, and Jou, “Understanding Democracy”; Lu and Chu, Understandings of Democracy; Quaranta, “Meaning of Democracy.”18 Dalton, Sin, and Jou, “Understanding Democracy.”19 Quaranta, “Meaning of Democracy.”20 Lu and Chu, Understandings of Democracy.21 Kirsch and Welzel, “Democracy Misunderstood”; Shin, “Popular Understanding of Democracy.”22 Shin, “Popular Understanding of Democracy.”23 Kirsch and Welzel, “Democracy Misunderstood.”24 Zagrebina, “Concepts of Democracy in Democratic and Nondemocratic Countries.”25 Yeung, “Overestimation of Democracy in Nondemocracies.”26 Ibid.27 Shin, “Popular Understanding of Democracy,” italic is added.28 Chapman et al., “Under the Veil of Democracy”; Cho, “To Know Democracy Is to Love It.”29 Canache, “Citizens’ Conceptualizations of Democracy.”30 Gerber and Chapman, “Familiarity Breeds Contempt?”31 Cinar and Bulbul, “Varieties of Democratic Understanding.”32 Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture; Inglehart, “Modernization, Postmodernization and Changing Perceptions of Risk”; Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy.”33 Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture.34 Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy.”35 Inglehart, “Modernization, Postmodernization and Changing Perceptions of Risk.”36 Canache, “Citizens’ Conceptualizations of Democracy”; Chapman et al., “Under the Veil of Democracy”; Cho, “To Know Democracy Is to Love It”; Gerber and Chapman, “Familiarity Breeds Contempt?”37 Ceka and Magalhães, “Do the Rich and the Poor Have Different Conceptions of Democracy?”38 Ibid.39 Cho, “How Well Are Global Citizenries Informed about Democracy?”; Kirsch and Welzel, “Democracy Misunderstood.”40 Cho, “How Well Are Global Citizenries Informed about Democracy?”41 Ibid.42 Cho, “Internet and Democratic Citizenship.”43 Cho, “How Well Are Global Citizenries Informed about Democracy?”44 Kirsch and Welzel, “Democracy Misunderstood.”45 Gainous, Wagner, and Ziegler, “Digital Media and Political Opposition”; Reuter and Szakonyi, “Online Social Media and Political Awareness.”46 Gainous, Wagner, and Ziegler, “Digital Media and Political Opposition.”47 Gainous, Wagner, and Ziegler, “Digital Media and Political Opposition”; Reuter and Szakonyi, “Online Social Media and Political Awareness.”48 Tucker et al., “From Liberation to Turmoil.”49 Breuer, Landman, and Farquhar, “Social Media and Protest Mobilization.”50 Tucker et al., “From Liberation to Turmoil”, 48.51 Barberá, “Social Media, Echo Chambers, and Political Polarization.”52 Ibid.53 Deibert, “The Road to Digital Unfreedom.”54 Gunitsky, “Corrupting the Cyber-Commons.”55 Rød and Weidmann, “Empowering Activists or Autocrats?”, 340.56 Allcott and Gentzkow, “Social Media and Fake News”; Guess and Lyons, “Misinformation, Disinformation, and Online Propaganda”; Zhuravskaya, Petrova, and Enikolopov, “Political Effects of the Internet and Social Media.”57 Hunter, “Social Media, Disinformation, and Democracy.”58 Ibid.59 Ibid.60 Allcott and Gentzkow, “Social Media and Fake News.”61 Chang, “Media Use, Democratic Values, and Political Participation.”62 Placek, “Democracy: Social media use and democratic legitimacy.”63 Ibid.64 Swigger, “The Online Citizen.”65 Nisbet, Stoycheff, and Pearce, “Internet Use and Democratic Demands.”66 Chang, “Media Use, Democratic Values, and Political Participation.”67 Cho, “Internet and Democratic Citizenship.”68 Hassan, Kendall, and Whitefield, “Media, Cultural Consumption and Support for Democracy.”69 Placek, “Learning Democracy Digitally?”70 Ibid.71 Ibid.72 Barberá, “Social Media, Echo Chambers, and Political Polarization.”73 Gainous, Wagner, and Ziegler, “Digital Media and Political Opposition”; Reuter and Szakonyi, “Online Social Media and Political Awareness.”74 Cook and Westheimer, “Introduction”; Glaeser, Ponzetto, and Shleifer, “Why Does Democracy Need Education?”75 Ibid.76 Mann, “Twelfth Annual Report to the Massachusetts Board of Education”, 42–3.77 Webster, On the Education of Youth in America.78 Bratton et al., “The Effects of Civic Education on Political Culture.”79 Glaeser, Ponzetto, and Shleifer, “Why Does Democracy Need Education?”80 Dewey, “Democracy and Education.”81 Ibid.82 Edelstein, “Education for Democracy”; Carr, “Educators and Education for Democracy.”83 Hillygus, “The MISSING LINK.”84 Edelstein, “Education for Democracy.”85 Hutchins, “Democracy and Education.”86 Nie and Hillygus, “Education and Democratic Citizenship.”87 Jewett, “Thomas Jefferson and the Purposes of Education.”88 Torney-Purta, Richardson, and Barber, “Teachers’ Educational Experience and Confidence.”89 Edelstein, “Education for Democracy.”90 Englund, “Higher Education, Democracy and Citizenship.”91 Glaeser, Ponzetto, and Shleifer, “Why Does Democracy Need Education?”92 Cantoni et al., “Curriculum and Ideology”; Testa, “Education and Propaganda”; Voigtländer and Voth, “Nazi Indoctrination and Anti-Semitic Beliefs in Germany.”93 Huang, “Propaganda as Signaling.”94 Dahlum and Wig, “Educating Demonstrators.”95 Dahlum and Wig, “Chaos on Campus.”96 Barberá, “Social Media, Echo Chambers, and Political Polarization”; Gainous, Wagner, and Ziegler, “Digital Media and Political Opposition”; Reuter and Szakonyi, “Online Social Media and Political Awareness”; Placek, “Learning Democracy Digitally?”97 Gainous, Wagner, and Ziegler, “Digital Media and Political Opposition”; Reuter and Szakonyi, “Online Social Media and Political Awareness”; Placek, “Learning Democracy Digitally?”98 Edelstein, “Education for Democracy”; Englund, “Higher Education, Democracy and Citizenship”; Torney-Purta, Richardson, and Barber, “Teachers’ Educational Experience and Confidence.”99 Cook and Westheimer, “Introduction”; Glaeser, Ponzetto, and Shleifer, “Why Does Democracy Need Education?”; Placek, “Democracy.”100 Bodó et al., “Interested in Diversity”; Borgesius et al., “Should We Worry about Filter Bubbles?”101 Haw, “What Drives Political News Engagement in Digital Spaces?”102 Mattes and Luescher-Mamashela, “The Roles of Higher Education in the Democratization.”103 Dal and Nisbet, “Walking Through Firewalls”; Lessenski, “Resilience to ‘Post-Truth’.”104 Lessenski, “Resilience to ‘Post-Truth’.”105 Allcott and Gentzkow, “Social Media and Fake News.”106 Haw, “What Drives Political News Engagement in Digital Spaces?”107 Ibid.108 Behrouzian et al., “Resisting Censorship”; Dal and Nisbet, “Walking Through Firewalls.”109 Haerpfer et al., “World Values Survey: Round Seven – Country-Pooled Datafile.”110 Marshall and Curr, “Polity5”111 In addition, the “Don’t know” answer takes a small percentage of total responses, which would not significantly affect our outcome. The percentages of “Don’t know” answers are 2.6% for procedural democracy and 4.5% for liberal democracy.112 Haerpfer et al., “World Values Survey: Round Seven – Country-Pooled Datafile.”113 Kirsch and Welzel, “Democracy Misunderstood”; Shin, “Popular Understanding of Democracy.”114 Przeworski, “Minimalist Conception of Democracy: A Defence”; Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.”115 Haerpfer et al., “World Values Survey: Round Seven – Country-Pooled Datafile.”116 Ibid.117 One interesting finding from these descriptive statistics is that the average understanding of liberal democracy is higher in non-democracies than democracies. Although our research does not aim to find the reason for this interesting difference, one may suspect that relatively weak protection of civil rights in non-democracies makes citizens perceive its importance more critically than citizens in democracies. Particularly, citizens in competitive authoritarian regimes with elections, coded as non-democracy in our study, may have realized that procedural democracy without protected civil rights does not offer them the true benefit of democracy.118 Haerpfer et al., “World Values Survey: Round Seven – Country-Pooled Datafile.”119 Wike et al., “Globally, Broad Support for Representative and Direct Democracy.”120 Yeung, “Overestimation of Democracy in Nondemocracies.”121 Coppedge et al., “V-Dem Dataset V9.”122 Coppedge et al., “V-Dem Codebook V9”, 186.123 Cantoni et al., “Curriculum and Ideology”; Testa, “Education and Propaganda”; Voigtländer and Voth, “Nazi Indoctrination and Anti-Semitic Beliefs in Germany.”124 Yeung, “Overestimation of Democracy in Nondemocracies.”125 Huang, “Propaganda as Signaling.”126 Haerpfer et al., “World Values Survey: Round Seven – Country-Pooled Datafile.”127 Ibid.128 Ibid.129 Yeung, “Overestimation of Democracy in Nondemocracies”; Huang, “Propaganda as Signaling.”130 Dalton, Sin, and Jou, “Understanding Democracy”; Lu and Chu, Understandings of Democracy; Quaranta, “Meaning of Democracy.”131 Kirsch and Welzel, “Democracy Misunderstood”; Yeung, “Overestimation of Democracy in Nondemocracies.”132 Kirsch and Welzel, “Democracy Misunderstood”; Shin, “Popular Understanding of Democracy.”Additional informationNotes on contributorsLeeann H. YounLeeann H. Youn is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the World Languages and Cultures at University of Maryland Global Campus. Her research interests include Comparative Politics (democratization, party, campaign, and election) and Public Policy (policy making and implementation), and Asian politics.Haruka NagaoHaruka Nagao is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Oklahoma State University. Her/their research focuses on Chinese politics, health politics, gender and politics.William HatungimanaWilliam Hatungimana is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University. His specialization is in Comparative Politics and International Relations (IR). His research interests include Migration and Immigration Politics, China Politics, and African Politics.Rigao LiuRigao Liu is a Ph.D. candidate studying Comparative Politics and International Relations from the Department of Political Science at the University of Kansas (KU). He is also a Graduate Researcher of KU Trade War Lab. His research explores on public opinion, social development, and political economy in China.