Empowering the religious minority: examining the mobilizing role of social media for online political participation in an Asian democracy

Abstract

Most current studies examining the mobilizing or reinforcing role of social media for political participation focus on gender and socioeconomic stratifications and are based in Western democratic societies. Attention to religious status as a form of social stratification concerning social media use for political participation, more so in non-Western settings, is nearly absent. This study, through survey data from India, investigates the roles of political interest, social media news use, and religious status in explaining online political participation gaps. Results show that individuals with higher political interest and frequent social media news use are likelier to engage in online political participation. Next, social media news use can moderate the relationship between political interest and online political participation, exacerbating the participatory gaps between politically interested and disinterested citizens. However, we also find that these relationships are further conditional upon the religious status of the citizens. Specifically, we observe that social media mobilizes politically interested members of religious minorities more than the majority group. The findings reveal the subtleties of the effects of social media on online political participation in a non Western context. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of political engagement in the digital age.