Political social media use and its linkage to populist and postmaterialist attitudes and vote intention in the Netherlands

Abstract

This study focuses on social media use of citizens from two groups that are often associated with the rise of social media: populist and postmaterialist citizens. Considering their ideological underpinnings, we theorize that they will make more political use of social media and that this further reifies their political attitudes into voting for populist and postmaterialist parties, respectively. Using unique survey data including the relatively new populist attitudes and political use of social media, we test this theory on the Dutch case. We find that both groups do not read political news or connect to politicians more, but both are more likely to react to political content. Moreover, social media use does not seem to lead to a retention in one’s own ideological funnel signified by populist or postmaterialist voting. Among more postmaterialist citizens, passive social media use even makes it more likely to vote for other parties.