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Internal, External, and Government Political Efficacy: Effects on News Use, Discussion, and Political Participation

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News use and political discussion are often studied as important factors in understanding the effects of political efficacy on participation. However, measurements of external efficacy often blur distinctions between personal ability and government responsiveness. This study establishes a measure for perceptions of competence in the institutions of democratic government—government efficacy (GE). Drawing on panel survey data from the United States, confirmatory factor analysis introduces GE as a unique construct. Political efficacy dimensions are tested for their impact on news consumption, discussion, and political participation. Results add to the extant literature revolving the role of political efficacy on news use, discussion, and participation.
... Gil de Zúñiga et al. (2012) demonstrate a direct link between social media use and social capital. In later work, Gil de Zúñiga et al. (2017) tested the connections between social media use, social media social capital, and online and offline political participation, finding that "social media social capital is not only related to online political participation but also to political participation that occurs outside the digital sphere" (p. 62). ...
... The positive relationship between political self-efficacy and the political use of social media has been explored in previous studies (Vecchione & Caprara, 2009;Yang & DeHart, 2016). Research on political self-efficacy has concluded that internal efficacy is a crucial starting point for initiating discussion and political participation (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017). Yamamoto et al. (2017) argue that there is a negative relationship between internal political efficacy, apathy, and cynicism regarding political participation. ...
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In order to frame this research into how young Vietnamese people use social media to engage in political issues, the study focuses on the most popular social media platform in Vietnam: Facebook (Steckman, L. M., & Andrews, M. J. (2017). Online around the world: A geographic encyclopedia of the internet, social media, and mobile apps. ABC-CLIO., p. 342). A “sequential explanatory design” (Ivankova et al., Field Methods 18:3–20, 2006) is proposed as a means of finding answers to the research questions. It starts with the collection and analysis of the quantitative data from Internet-based surveys.
... It indicates that citizens with a higher level of internal political efficacy will have a stronger e-participation intention. This finding is consistent with the previous studies of Gil de Zúñiga et al. (2017), Koo et al. (2016), Lai and Beh (2024), and Lebrument et al. (2021). Citizens have more political information and greater self-confidence in participating in political activities, which leads to a stronger intention to participate in political activities. ...
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Citizens' e-participation determines the successes and failures of digital government or e-government. However, its results to date have not been satisfactory. IT adoption models dominate previous studies. However, citizens' psychological factors have been overlooked. The field has fallen into the trap of "technological solutionism." This research focuses on political efficacy and collected self-reported data from 388 respondents through an online questionnaire. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling was carried out for data analyses. The results showed that e-participation intention positively affects e-participation behavior. Both internal political efficacy and external political efficacy have a positive significant relationship with e-participation intention. Additionally, descriptive analysis results revealed the relationships between citizens' demographic factors and their influence on e-participation, including gender, age, monthly income, education level, political affiliation, and occupation. This research provides further empirical evidence and insightful knowledge for scholars, enriching political efficacy theory. Government officials can benefit from this research where targeted measures can be developed.
... Following this, participants were asked to answer the survey question in light of this specific context. This study followed the methodology used in previous studies that employed a longitudinal approach, where both survey phases used the same questionnaire (e.g., Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017;Jones-Jang et al., 2021). Thus, the participants read the same contextual content about the case in both waves. ...
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This study adopts a relational empowerment approach to view the company as a change agent in corporate political advocacy. The study examines the public's commitment to a company after assessing its cause advocacy initiatives driven by a public-serving motive. Using a two-wave longitudinal survey and the case of Lyft's opposition stance on the Texas abortion ban, the study found that a public-serving motive leads to commitment-a significant mediator facilitating the public's confidence in following the company's footsteps to be part of the change. The study's theoretical contribution lies in incorporating relational empowerment as a foundation of community mobilization, specifically based on the public's assessment of the motives behind a company's issue advocacy behavior. Commitment strengthens a collective sense of efficacy, the conviction that the community can achieve goals that benefit society.
... Unlike broader political disconnection, non-political use of social media may stem from a low sense of digital or political competence, or from a negative judgment of the effectiveness of online political engagement. This is similar to how offline political non-participation can arise from low internal and external political efficacy(Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017;Oser et al., 2022). Political efficacy is defined as the belief in one's ability to influence political processes, encompassing both internal efficacy (confidence in one's own abilities to understand and participate in politics) and external efficacy (belief in the responsiveness of political institutions, or in this case online platforms, to citizen input; seeBoulianne et al., 2023). ...
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There is a growing body of literature on the use and selection of social media platforms for political activism. However, less attention has been given to identifying citizens who are politically disconnected—those registered on social media platforms but not engaging in political activities. Additionally, whether patterns of non-use of social media for politics vary across different platforms remains understudied. Based on an online survey of 1,978 respondents conducted after the 2022 French presidential election campaign, this article aims to address these questions by examining the patterns and factors contributing to political disconnection from social media, particularly across six platforms: Facebook, private social networks, Instagram, Snapchat, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok. Our findings indicate that three main factors explain political disconnection: digital skills, interest in politics (except for platforms less frequently used for politics), and social media efficacy. These results provide significant and original contributions to the broader debate on how and why individuals disconnect socially and technologically on social media platforms. While many studies focus on the variables that account for political participation in the age of social media, ours examines the conditions that explain non-use in the context of political disconnection. We also contribute to the existing literature by analysing the phenomenon of non-use holistically, addressing platform type, demographics, digital literacy, and political traits (e.g., interest and competence).
... Tully and Vraga, 2018). However, previous research has tested the internal political efficacy addressing the confidence in one's own ability in affecting politics or political change and external political efficacy referring to confidence in the governments' responses to the publics' request (Craig and Maggiotto, 1982;Gil de Z uñiga et al., 2017). This leaves room to explore epistemic political efficacy more thoroughlyconfidence in one's Online Information Review own ability to understand and determine the truth about factual aspects of politics (Pingree, 2011;Pingree et al., 2012) and its possible association with fake news literacy. ...
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Purpose In the past few years, research focusing on misinformation, referred to broadly as fake news, has experienced revived attention. Past studies have focused on explaining the ways in which people correct it online and on social media. However, fewer studies have dealt with the ways in which people are able to identify fake news (i.e. fake news literacy). This study contributes to the latter by theoretically connect people’s general social media use, political knowledge and political epistemic efficacy with individuals’ fake news literacy levels. Design/methodology/approach A diverse and representative two-wave panel survey in the United States was conducted (June 2019 for Wave 1, October 2019 for Wave 2). We performed cross-sectional, lagged and autoregressive regression analyses to examined how social media us, people’s political knowledge and political epistemic efficacy are related to their fake news literacy. Findings Results suggest that the more people used social media, were politically knowledgeable and considered they were able to find the truth in politics (i.e. epistemic political efficacy), the more likely they were to discern whether the news is fake. Implications of helping media outlets and policy makers be better positioned to provide the public with corrective action mechanisms in the struggle against fake news are discussed. Research limitations/implications The measurement instrument employed in the study relies on subjects’ self-assessment, as opposed to unobtrusive trace (big) digital data, which may not completely capture the nuances of people’s social media news behaviors. Practical implications This study sheds light on how the way people understand politics and gain confidence in finding political truth may be key elements when confronting and discerning fake news. With the help of these results, journalists, media outlets and policymakers may be better positioned to provide citizens with efficient, preemptive and corrective action mechanisms in the struggle against misinformation. Originality/value Recent literature highlights the importance of literacy education to contest fake news, but little is known about what specific mechanisms would contribute to foster and reinvigorate people’s fake news literacy. This study helps address this gap. Peer review The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-03-2024-0140
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