News consumption, expressive social media activities, political discussions, and political consumerism: examining reciprocal relations with panel data

Abstract

ABSTRACT Empirical studies have shown that news consumption, expressive social media activities, and political discussions are positively related to political consumerism. However, political consumerism is usually conceptualized as boycotting and/or buycotting, neglecting discursive and lifestyle political consumerism. Moreover, most studies are based on cross-sectional data and do not explore potential reciprocal relationships. To address these research gaps, I conducted a three-wave panel survey targeting the German population (N = 1,945). The results of the confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the theoretical conceptualization of political consumerism as a multifaced phenomenon is empirically plausible. Applying the O-S-R-O-R model, partial correlations and random intercept cross-lagged panel analyses revealed that the reciprocal relationships between information, communication, and political consumerism activities differ depending on which political consumerism activity is considered: expressive social media activities predict boycotting, information and communication activities do not predict buycotting, political discussions and discursive political consumerism tend to reinforce each other, and political discussions follow rather than predict lifestyle political consumerism. These results emphasize the differences between various political consumerism activities and suggest that such activities should be analyzed separately.