The (In)Stability of Symbolic Identity and Social Media

• In Event: The Media's Role in Forming and Reinforcing Political Identity and Community

Abstract

Existing research recognizes the critical role of symbolic identities in the political ‎domain as they have the power to affect social attitudes, political identities, voting ‎patterns, party assessments, and more. Evidence suggests that social identity develops ‎in early childhood and remains stable throughout individuals’ lifespan. However, a ‎growing body of literature argues that political leaders may use rhetorical acts to ‎entrepreneur identities, thus unifying their potential supporters around specific ‎identities. This paper explores the relationship between politicians’ discourse on ‎social media and the stability of symbolic identities among the public. We use unique ‎data sets collected over four years, drawn from two main sources: (1) a computational ‎content analysis of political discourse that measured and classified symbolic political ‎identities; (2) a 14-wave panel that measured the respondents’ degree of identification ‎with symbolic identities. We find that identities are dynamic and changing. ‎Respondents who are exposed to politicians’ discourse on social media are ‎significantly more inclined to change their identification over time. Moreover, we ‎found correlations between identities mentioned by individuals and those mentioned ‎by the political leaders they follow. These findings contribute in several ways to our ‎understanding of both the (in)stability of symbolic identities and the ability of leaders’ ‎political rhetoric to influence the electorate.‎

Authors

• Yael Rivka` Kaplan, Hebrew University

• Israel Waismel-Manor, University of Haifa

• Guy Mor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Naama Rivlin-Angert, Tel Aviv University