Dated 3rd April 2022
Abstract Purpose – This study aims to examine the relationship of information quality of social media, social media reputation, social media political marketing activities, trust and political involvement of millennials. Methodology – The empirical analysis was conducted using a sample of 309 millennials. This study used online survey for the data collection. After passing reliability and validity tests, the data were analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling.
Findings – The results show that information quality of social media has positive and significant direct influence on reputation and trust. Information quality of social media also has a significant indirect influence on trust through social media reputation. However, there is no significant relationship between information quality and political involvement. Social media political marketing activities also have a direct and indirect significant effect on political involvement through trust. Finally, trust also has a positive and significant impact on political involvement.
Practical implications – This research may contribute to the political marketing experts and politicians in increasing the quality and credibility of advertisements on social media, which will affect trust and political involvement of millennial generation. Moreover, politicians and political marketing experts who have an online-based community should optimize their marketing activities in social media to encourage positive behavior and trust from social media users.
Value – This study has shown a more comprehensive model of the relationship between information quality of social media and political involvement. This study also reveals the significant indirect effect of the trust on the relationship between information quality on social media, social media political marketing activities and political involvement.
Keywords Information quality, Reputation of social media Social media political marketing activities, Trust, Political involvement.
Discussion
This study analyzes the effect of social media (e.g. information quality of social media and
reputation of social media) and social media political marketing activities on political
involvement by considering trust. This section contains the theoretical contributions and
practical implications of our research results, presents the main limitations and gives
recommendations for further research.
In general, we found empirical evidence for millennial generation political involvement
model. Specifically, our main contributions are presented as follows. First, we found that
social media has a positive effect on trust. This fact is in line with the TRA which shows that
people would consider the consequences of alternative behaviors before getting involved in
certain action (Fisbein and Ajzen, 1975). Our findings imply that social media is perceived
well as a valid, reliable and reputable information source in providing political information.
Several previous studies affirm our findings. For example, Johnson and Kaye (1998) stated
that the majority of millennials believe that information obtained from online sources is
credible. Filieri et al. (2015) stated that information quality has the most relevant impact on
fostering trust in online interactions. However, we found evidence that information quality
of social media has no impact on political involvement. This finding implies that various
information, dynamic contents and latest information presented on social media without a
boost of trust would have no impact on political involvement. Therefore, political
communication pattern through the use of technology and information quality becomes the
important element that must be considered by political marketers. This pattern is a
challenge to optimize the strategy as an alternative method in overcoming the traditional
political communication pattern (Sanchez-Villar et al., 2017), considering the ever-increasing
importance of interactive communication tool in Web 2.0 era (Zheng and Zheng, 2014). This
result is not able to support the previous findings (Mohamad et al., 2018).
Second, we found evidence that social media political marketing activities give a positive
effect on trust and political involvement. Our findings imply that political marketing
activities through social media are believed to be able to create intense communication
between politicians and citizens. Communication through virtual media is deemed to be an
effective form of Web-based political involvement (Valenzuela et al., 2012), by providing
credible information sources (Johnson and Kaye, 1998). It should be noted that the b value
coefficient on the relationship between social media political marketing activities and trust
is the highest value among all the tested relationships; and this fact shows that social media
political marketing activities construct is proven to be valid in assessing trust and political
involvement. Social media users believe that political marketing activities in social media
are able to increase their desire to get involved in democratic parties. The result of this
finding is able to support the previous results (Kim and Ko, 2010).
Furthermore, the last finding of this research is that we are able to prove that trust on
social media is able to give a positive effect on political involvement, which has not been
explained well previously (Sanchez-Villar et al., 2017). Our findings imply that trust plays a
role in filtering and evaluating information flow and credibility issues that are often found in
social media (Tang and Liu, 2015). This finding supports the previous findings (Lin and
Ching Yuh, 2010), where trust has positive and significant impact on customer purchase
intention. Moreover, this finding incorporates the role of trust as an indirect variable. The
research results show that trust is not yet proven to be having a good role as indirect
variable on the link between information quality of social media and political involvement.
However, trust is proven to be valid as indirect variable between social media political
marketing activities and political involvement. Surprisingly, we also found three significant
indirect effects in our proposed research model. There is an indirect effect on the relationship
between the information quality of social media and the reputation of social media.
Likewise, the relationship between the information quality of social media on political
involvement through trust, as well as the relationship between social media political
marketing activities and political involvement through trust.
Conclusion
Theoretical contribution and managerial implication
In summary, this study has some contributions, including theoretical development and
managerial implication. First, this study found a more comprehensive model of the
relationship of information quality of social media, reputation, trust, social media
political marketing activities and political involvement of millennial generation in
Indonesia. Theoretically, this study has contributed to the knowledge development on
political marketing field by addressing a more comprehensive model of the relationship
between information quality of social media and political involvement, especially in the
millennial generation context. The information quality of social media has been found as
a key factor in affecting trust, which is neglected in the previous studies and especially in
the millennial voters’ context. Second, this study found a significant indirect effect of the
relationship between information qualities of social media on political involvement
through social media reputation, political marketing activities and trust. These results
provide a better understanding of the specific indirect influence relationship between the
quality of information (e.g. variety of information, dynamic content, information content
and up-to-date information) and encouraging political involvement. Interestingly, this
study reveals that social media reputation, political marketing activities and trust have
an essential role in building the perception of the millennial generation to be involved in
democratic parties.
For the managerial implication, this study revealed that it may become guidance for
political marketing practitioners (e.g. politicians and political party leaders) and political
marketing consultants in treating the millennial generation and make them involved in the
political agenda, such as general election. The decision-makers, e.g. in political party leaders,
may create programs through social media to increase the millennial generation trust, which
will affect their involvement in political agenda. The politicians should gain the millennial
generation trust by using social media as their campaign media if they want to be elected.
Therefore, political candidates have to concern with the information quality of social media
and reputation of social media platforms, which will affect the millennial voters’ trust and
their willingness to involve in political agenda. The political candidates are also able to
correct themselves, explain potential misunderstandings and discrepancies between
promises and expectations that they offer through social media platforms. Moreover, the
political candidates have an opportunity to create programs suitable for the millennial
voters and share them through social media platforms. Therefore, it may increase the
millennial voters’ political involvement.
Limitation and future study
Moreover, there are some limitations of our research. First, our research only focused on
millennials; this means that the respondents of this research were homogeneous. Next,
researchers need to consider the use of larger and more geographically diverse samples to
provide more comprehensive picture of the political involvement of millennial generation.
Second, this study only addressed millennial generation; however, the voters are not only
millennial. Hence, the future research should include generation X or generation Y to get a
better generalization. Third, our research only focused on one country; therefore, the result
cannot be generalized to other countries. Further researchers are advised to expand the
study to other developing countries, such as Southeast Asian countries (e.g. Thailand and
the Philippines). Fourth, the R2 and Q2 values are still in the weak category. Hence, an
opportunity to study other influential factors, such as socio-cultural factor, is open.