Citizen Engagement in a Digital Age Twitters’ Role to Civic and Political Mobilizations Amber Ebrahim 10202234 Master thesis Political Science: International Relations University of Amsterdam, 23 June 2017 Supervised by dr. S. Tanaka Second reader: G. Schumacher
[email protected] Harvard Style (formatting) 1 Abstract Using empirical data, this thesis examines several theories on civic mobilizations and political engagement on social networking platforms. In specific, the impact of three drivers of political mobilization and participation on social networking platforms (political party platforms, hashtags and social capital) will be assessed. By focusing on three subcases of Kinderpardon in the Netherlands, this thesis can fill the empirical and theoretical gap in the existing literature. By constructing the three drivers of political mobilization, the impact of different factors on social networking platforms can be determined and measured more specifically. The results of this thesis indicate a predominantly positive relationship between the use of social networking platforms and political engagement, with informational, expressive, and relational uses being of particular importance. Keywords: political engagement, civic mobilizations, social networking platforms, political party platforms, hashtags, media-hypes, social capital. 2 Table of Contents Abstract p. 2 List of abbreviations p. 4 List of tables p. 4 List of figures p. 4 Chapter 1: Introduction p. 5 Chapter 2: Literature review p. 9 2.1 Contemporary Western democracies p. 10 2.2 Political participation on social networking platforms p. 11 2.2.1 Web 2.0 p. 12 2.3 Media-hypes p. 13 2.4 The mobilizing role of social media p. 14 Chapter 3: Theory p.