Repository logo

Browsing by Author "Hansen, Scott, author"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Political peersuasion: an investigation of the impact of social influence on Facebook
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Hansen, Scott, author; Kim, Jangyul, advisor; Sivakumar, Gaya, committee member; MacDonald, Bradley, committee member
    Since Facebook began in the mid-2000s, people have used the platform to present their own opinions, whether or not those opinions were popular. Thus, Facebook became a veritable marketplace of ideas, where opinions ranging on a variety of topics were shared, discussed, and potentially persuaded by their online friends. As politics have divided the nation across political spectrums to an extreme degree, Facebook has been a platform where opinions of a political nature have also been shared, discussed, and argued. This study examined the persuasive power Facebook users have over their online friends in a political context, specifically on the topic of vaccines. Results showed that source credibility can exist in a horizontal fashion rather than just a vertical one, where people trust their peers' political opinions, especially when they seem to be politically active, aware and knowledgeable. Additionally, the frequency with which peers on Facebook interact and the level of influence they have was shown to be a statistically significant result. The more people interact with each other over the mediated Facebook platform, the more trust, credibility, and level of persuasiveness is also increased. Due to the ability of Facebook to serve as a personal soap box of opinions, and people's willingness to state their opinions, the possibility of persuasion can exist on Facebook in some cases more than if they were talking face to face.