Examining the link between social media uses and gratifications, and political tolerance and dogmatism

Date
2017
Authors
Rathnayake, Chamil
Winter, Jenifer Sunrise
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Wiley-Blackwell
Volume
9
Number/Issue
4
Starting Page
444
Ending Page
466
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Abstract
The ability of social media to enable new uses and gratifications, and the role it plays in political behavior, has not been discussed adequately in the social media uses and gratifications literature. Sundar and Limperos (2013) provided a foundation for such a line of inquiry by suggesting a conceptual framework for new media that takes into account the role technological elements play in shaping uses and gratifications. Using a study that converts Sundar and Limperos's framework into a social media uses and gratification scale (Rathnayake & Winter, 2017), this paper examines associations between social media uses and gratifications, and political dogmatism and tolerance. A sample of 313 American citizens was used to develop two discriminant models. The models showed that social media uses and gratifications can be used to classify users with high or low levels of political dogmatism and tolerance with more than 70% accuracy. The results also indicated that while some gratifications, such as filtering, are common to individuals with high dogmatism as well as users with high tolerance, there were differences in the nature of uses and gratifications between these two groups. This shows that social media are open platforms that do not gratify only more tolerant and/or less-dogmatic users.
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Peer-reviewed journal article
Keywords
Uses and Gratifications, social media, dogmatism, tolerance
Citation
Rathnayake, C., & Winter, J. S. (2017). “Examining the link between social media uses and gratifications, and political tolerance and dogmatism.” Special Issue on The Platform Society. Policy & Internet, 9(4), 444–466. (Oxford Internet Institute). doi:10.1002/poi3.157.
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