Interpersonal Goals and Political Uses of Facebook

Many have noted the immense potential of social media as a catalyst for political engagement. While we know a great deal about the people who use social media for politics, and even why they do it, we know very little about when, or under what conditions, political uses of social media actually occur. In this article I extend interpersonal goals theory to examine when political social media use happens. Results suggest that, above and beyond cognitive political engagement, interpersonal goals contribute significantly in explaining political behaviors on Facebook. I find that political posts entail greater affective and interaction-related risks than following political pages or updating one's profile, while "liking" political posts affords users a low-cost/low-reward strategy for managing interactions. As such, this study provides evidence that political expression on Facebook takes several distinct forms.