Abstract
In general, political participation means all the action of citizens that has the aim or the effect of influencing government or politics. Studies argue that media consumption and political participation are correlated: offline and online political participation affect each other. Knowing the relationship between online and offline political activity can improve estimations of offline political events based on social media data.
 By comparing these empirical results, in this study we investigate whether social media usage reinforces or weakens the willingness to become involved in a demonstration or other offline political activity. Numerous studies have already attempted to measure this effect, with contradictory findings related to the direction and volume of the latter.
 We explore this connection by synthesizing recent empirical political science papers. For this purpose, we compare the results of the former using Bayesian updating – a tool for comparing studies regardless of their methodology or data collection method. This method of data analysis is also insensitive to the operationalization of either the dependent or the explanatory variables.
 Based on the aforementioned studies, our results prove that online political activity has a significant positive effect on offline political activity, in spite of the fact that some research has found an insignificant connection.
Highlights
The links between patterns of social media usage and civic engagement have been investigated since the early 2000s
After comparing the research in terms of the different research designs, we found that online political participation does have a significant effect on offline political action
The results suggest that social media can be used as an indicator of offline political participation: those who read news about politics via Facebook were more likely to participate in the forms of offline action that were specified than those who did not
Summary
The links between patterns of social media usage and civic engagement have been investigated since the early 2000s. In 2008, during the elections in the United States, social media became for the first time the main tool used in a political campaign, and since the impact of the platform has been subject to scientific debate. Our aim in this article is to examine a sample of earlier studies related to this scientific debate, and to compare their results in order to answer the question they all raise: Does online political activity reinforce or substitute offline political action?. Our method is an investigation of recent studies about the relationship between online and offline political participation. Researchers are debating what effect online media has on citizens regarding their political activity. Can be used to compare studies regardless of their methodology and sample: it permits the comparison of studies with different research designs and methods
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