Social media and social capital revisited: social trust and community satisfaction as catalysts of civic participation

The current study seeks to advance our theoretical understanding of how the use of social media can facilitate civic participation by considering the different types of social media use as well as social capital. For social capital, this study considers psychological indicators (i.e., social trust and community satisfaction). Also, this study distinguishes active informational use of social media (i.e., expressive, searching, and sharing activities) from passive informational use of social media (i.e., simply viewing information). Analyses of a national survey conducted in South Korea (n = 1,294) show that active, not passive, informational social media use positively predicts civic participation. Importantly, active informational social media use facilitates civic participation among individuals with strong psychological social capital such as social trust and community satisfaction.