POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING: INDIVIDUALS' E-PARTICIPATION ACTIVITIES ON TWITTER IN TERMS OF LIFE SATISFACTION

Year 2020, Volume: 29 Issue: 4, 354 - 372, 30.12.2020

Şakir Güler

Abstract

Political studies on well-being often question the impact of political concepts on well-being. But a growing literature in recent years claims that, contrary to popular belief, well-being can also affect political participation. This new literature focuses more on traditional behaviors (e.g. voting, protest) of political participation. The effect of well-being on e-participation has not yet been studied. For this reason, the presented research explores the impact of well-being on e-participation behaviors performed on Twitter to contribute to the developing literature. The main purpose of the research is to test the impact of well-being on e-participation activities. For this purpose, I designed causal research that adopts the relational scanning model. I collected research data from 573 Turkish participants via a survey. Data were analyzed using the Structural Equation Model (SEM). The results show that well-being has a negative effect on political expression behaviors and positively affect policy following behavior. Well-being has no significant effect on the dimension of participation in local government. The results show that well-being also affects e-participation behaviors, so it offers a new perspective on the developing literature.

Keywords

well-being, political participation, e-participation, Twitter, digital communication

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