Social Media and Rigid Beliefs: Evidence from Impeachment ...yongslee/SMRB.pdf · impeachment ruling did little to confirm the factual accuracy surrounding most of the circulating

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Social Media and Rigid Beliefs: Evidence from Impeachment of the President in South Korea

Yong Suk Leea1, a Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305

Abstract Controversial news with little to no factual support has been proliferating in recent years. Such news has spread widely via social media, where individuals can easily create and distribute news. Using the news and events surrounding the impeachment of the former South Korean president Park Geun-hye, I examine (1) the relationship between social media use and beliefs in controversial news and (2) the relationship between protest participation and rigid beliefs based on social media use. The results indicate that individuals who use social media as their primary source of news are significantly more rigid in their beliefs in controversial news. Further, those who strongly believe in controversial news and are more consistent or extreme in their ideological views are more likely to participate in (more) protests. Moreover, this pattern is significantly stronger for those who primarily get their news from social media. The findings of this paper suggest that social media may facilitate people with more polarized and rigid beliefs to affect public opinion through protests. Keywords: social media, news, rigid beliefs, polarization, protests, impeachment JEL Codes: L82, P16, Z13

1Correspondingauthor.Address:616JaneStanfordWay,StanfordCA,94305.Phone:1-650-736-0756.Email:yongslee@stanford.edu.Theauthorhasnodeclarationofinteresttoreport.

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1. Introduction

Some key features of social media, compared to traditional offline media, are low barriers to

entry and the reliance on user-generated content (Zhuravskaya et al. 2020). Individuals can easily

create and distribute news. In fact, controversial news with little to no factual support has been

proliferating in recent years (Allcot and Gentzkow 2017; Bradshaw and Howard 2017; Lazer et

al. 2018). Social media also enable people to share news with like-minded people, potentially

creating an echo-chamber effect (Sunstein 2001; Pew Research Center 2014; Bakshy et al.

2015). Moreover, studies have found that false information travels faster than truthful

information on social media (Vosoughi 2018) and that increased exposure to fake news increases

people’s tendency to believe in such news (Pennycook et al. 2018). Because of these

characteristics related to social media, and as more and more people use social media as their

primary source of news, understanding whether and how social media affect political outcomes

has become increasingly important.

Recently an increasing number of papers have started to empirically examine the impact

of social media on various political economy outcomes, including polarization and political

protests.2 Facebook and Twitter users are more likely to share and be exposed to news content

that are in line with their own ideology (Bakshy et al. 2015, Halberstam and Knight 2016).

However, Boxell et al. (2017) find that the growth in ideological polarization in recent years

were more pronounced among people who are least likely to use social media. Social media does

expose people to like-minded news, but whether such echo-chamber effect increases political

polarization is not clear. The evidence on social media and political protests is more robust.

Acemoglu et al. (2018) find that the number of Twitter posts related to Tahrir Square were

predictive of protest participation during the Arab Spring in Egypt. Fergusson and Molina (2019)

find a positive association between Facebook releases and protests across countries.

Furthermore, Enikolopov et al. (2020) use an instrumental variable strategy to show that social

media penetration causally increased political protests in Russia. Scholars have highlighted the

reduced coordination cost of social media in explaining social media’s impact on political

protests (Shirky 2011; Bond et al. 2012; Tufekci and Wilson 2012; Enikolopov et al. 2020).

While the literature has shown that social media facilitate protests, we still know

surprisingly little of the characteristics of the people who use social media and participate in

2 See Zhuravskaya et al. 2020 for an overview of the literature.

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political protests. This paper’s main objective is to examine this angle by asking whether social

media users who are more rigid in their beliefs or more polarized in their viewpoints are more

likely to participate in political protests. The public and the government have become

increasingly concerned about the effects of social media on public opinion and political

outcomes (Pew Research Center 2016, 2018), and scholars have found that political protests do

indeed influence public opinion (Madestam et al. 2013). If people with more rigid or polarized

beliefs are more likely to use social media and participate in protests, social media may play a

role in shaping public opinion towards those who hold more rigid beliefs. Though this paper does

not directly examine whether social media alters public opinion, the current paper aims to

contribute to this literature by first examining belief rigidity in relation to social media use and

protest participation. Understanding the beliefs and protest behaviors of individuals who use

social media as their primary source of news could shed light on how the prevalence of social

media might shape public opinion and political outcomes in modern democracies.

This paper examines these questions using the news and events surrounding the

impeachment of Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s previous president. Park was impeached due to

influence peddling by her close friend who had no role in the government. News related to the

scandal was widely covered in South Korea. However, there were also many controversial news

stories related to Park Geun-hye. As these news reports came out, people took to the streets and

demanded that Park step down. The opposition party eventually put forward an impeachment

proposal, and the Constitutional Court unanimously voted for impeachment. However, the

impeachment ruling did little to confirm the factual accuracy surrounding most of the circulating

news. Other than confirming one account of abuse of power, the Court explicitly stated that there

was insufficient evidence of the accusations brought forward against Park (Lim 2017).

Consequently, some of the people who initially believed the controversial news may have

become more ambiguous after the impeachment rulings.

I conducted an online survey one week before the impeachment ruling and followed up

with a post-impeachment survey after one month. To measure the rigidity of people’s beliefs, I

collected their pre- and post-impeachment beliefs on four news items related to Park Geun-hye. I

focused on news with little factual support and on which people may have adjusted their beliefs

following the impeachment ruling. In the pre-impeachment survey, I asked whether the

participants believed each news item was “True” or “False.” In the post-impeachment survey, I

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also allowed respondents to choose “Uncertain.” I find that people who use social media as their

primary source of news (hereafter: social media users) are significantly more rigid in their

beliefs—that is, they are less likely to change their beliefs concerning the news. Furthermore,

social media users are ideologically more polarized—their ideological views are more consistent

across issues and they have more extreme views. The relationship between social media and

rigid beliefs holds even when controlling for measures of ideological consistency, extreme

ideological views, political spectrum, individual characteristics, and personality traits. Focusing

on protests as the outcome, social media users are more likely to have participated in (more)

candlelight protests. Furthermore, social media users with more rigid beliefs or polarized views

are significantly more likely to participate in street protests.

By identifying the characteristics of people that are both more likely to use social media

and participate in protest, this paper contributes to the literature that examines the mechanism by

which social media may influence political outcomes. As people with more rigid and polarized

beliefs are more likely to use social media and participate in protests, and since protests have

been shown to influence public opinion, the findings imply that social media may facilitate

people with more rigid and polarized beliefs to influence public opinion towards the direction

that is closer to their own viewpoints. Of course, the more fundamental question one would want

to examine is whether social media causally affect political outcomes. I defer this to future

studies with better identification strategies, but at least this paper illuminates one mechanism by

which social media may affect political outcome –the selection of people with more rigid and

polarized beliefs into social media and protests. The next section discusses the contexts related to

the news, scandals, and impeachment of Park Geun-Hye. In section 3, I discuss the survey and

key variables. Section 4 presents the empirical results and Section 5 concludes.

2. The Context

2.1 The news and scandals

Park Geun-hye assumed office as South Korea’s first female president in February 2013. One of

Park’s appeals was her image as a clean leader. Almost all previous South Korean presidents or

their direct family members had been involved in some form of bribery or influence peddling

and were jailed. Park was never married; both of her parents were assassinated decades ago; and,

other than an estranged brother, she had no close family. Despite being elected the first female

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president of East Asia, Park experienced a less popular presidency than initially hoped. Her

governing style was reclusive, and she tended to hire and consult with only a small number of

people (Doucette 2017; Kim, H. 2017). Her presidency experienced a major crisis with the

Sewol ferry disaster of April 16, 2014. More than 300 people, most of them young students, died

while the nation helplessly watched the ferry sink live on TV. Park made her first appearance

after seven hours of the sinking, and people wondered what the president was doing that day and

how she could have let such disaster unfold in front of everyone’s eyes (Fermin-Robbins 2018).

Her popularity declined substantially.

In September 2016, news broke about the influence of Choi Soon-sil, Park’s long-time

friend, who had no official governmental position, over Park. Several news media reported that

Choi had access to confidential government documents and information. Evidence that Choi

edited and provided feedback on presidential addresses emerged. Continued news investigation

found that Choi established several foundations through which she yielded political and financial

influence. Taking advantage of her close ties with Park, Choi requested donations from major

conglomerates to fund foundation activities. Choi's foundations used those funds to buy horses

and fund her daughter's equestrian activities. Park was accused of being involved in this process,

as she met with many of the conglomerate owners around the same time. Furthermore, it was

revealed that Choi used her influence not only to send her daughter to a prestigious women’s

university, but also to reprimand a professor who gave her daughter low grades due to poor

attendance and performance. Many people were shocked and infuriated that someone with no

official government position could hold so much political and financial influence. In late October

2016, Park publicly acknowledged her close ties with Choi, and her approval ratings fell to an

all-time low of 5 percent (Harris 2017; Fendos 2017).

Various news stories emerged around this time, especially on the internet and social

media. For instance, it became known that there was a private meeting between Park Geun-hye

and Jay Lee, Samsung’s vice chairman and heir apparent. News concerning the motives of the

meeting quickly spread. Some news stories reported that Lee asked Park to help in his succession

of Samsung and, in return, offered to donate to one of Choi’s foundations. Other news stories

proposed the opposite angle: that Park first asked Lee to support Choi’s foundation and

equestrian activities and, in return, offered to push the National Pension Fund to support Lee’s

cause at Samsung (Seo 2016; Kim, S. 2017; Fermin-Robbins 2018). Park’s response to the

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Sewol ferry disaster was also the subject of many news stories. The ferry’s crash and sinking

were televised in the morning, but Park did not make her first remark or appearance regarding

the disaster until seven hours after the disaster began. News stories speculated on what Park had

been doing during that “lost seven hours.” Some reported that Park was receiving a beauty (i.e.,

Botox) treatment. Others reported that Park had brought in a shaman to perform shamanistic

rituals, was doing her hair, or had simply slept in (Fermin-Robbins 2018, Lee 2018). Overall,

there was no shortage of news related to Park during this period, but most lacked concrete

evidence.

2.2 The candlelight protests

The public eventually took to the streets, and on October 29, 2016, the first candlelight protest

demanding Park’s resignation was held in downtown Seoul. The candlelight protests became a

weekly event and grew larger by the week, with crowd estimates ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 million

in the late November protests (Campbell 2018). Park eventually offered to resign as president on

November 12, 2016, and to let the National Assembly decide when she should step down to

ensure an orderly transfer of power (Choi 2016). However, many considered Park’s offer of

resignation as an easy way out to avoid impeachment. Thus, the candlelight protests continued to

grow into December of 2016, when the opposition party submitted the “President impeachment

proposal” to the National Assembly for violations of the constitution and the law. Six days later,

the National Assembly voted 234 to 56 to impeach President Park, and she was immediately

suspended from her executive powers. The Constitutional Court then had six months to decide

on a ruling.

However, as the scandal headed towards the impeachment ruling, conservatives and pro-

Park supporters rallied against the candlelight protests supporting Park’s case. The counter-

protests by Park supporters—the so-called the Taegeukgi protests—argued that Park was not

guilty because she did not personally take any bribes. Though she made bad judgments regarding

Choi, they argued that her actions were not cause for impeachment. Moreover, the counter-

protests pointed out the lack of evidence for the accusations against Park. In the midst of

continued weekly protests on both sides, the Constitutional Court set March 10, 2017, as the date

for ruling.

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2.3 The impeachment of Park Geun-hye

The Court’s ruling was televised live on all major TV and cable stations and was streamed live

on media websites. The TV viewing rating was 37.7% (Yoon 2017). The Court first announced

that Park’s actions violated the constitution and the law and that the benefits of dismissing her

were overwhelming. It then ruled for Park’s impeachment with a unanimous 8-0 vote. As many

of the Constitutional Court Justices held conservative and right-of-center views, the unanimity of

the vote came as a surprise. The Court then discussed the four central claims of the impeachment

bill: (i) the abuse of power in the appointment of civil servants, (ii) the infringement of the

freedom of speech and press, (iii) the failure to protect the right of life and to faithfully carry out

presidential responsibilities during the sinking of Sewol ferry, and (iv) the abuse of power in

granting political power to Choi Soon-sil. The Court dismissed the first two claims for

insufficient evidence. It also dismissed the third claim because the constitutional duty to

faithfully carry out presidential responsibilities is a relative and abstract notion on which

impeachment cannot be adjudged. The Court did find Park guilty of the last claim: that Park

violated the constitution by allowing Choi to extort tens of millions of dollars from companies

and by sharing official documents with sensitive information (Lim 2017). In short, the Court

dismissed all claims except for those concerning Park’s involvement in Choi Soon-sil’s influence

peddling.

How might the Constitutional Court’s rulings have affected people's beliefs about the

various news? Other than confirming Choi Soon-sil’s influence peddling, the court rulings did

not confirm or disprove most of the news that had been proliferating on social media. The rulings

could have rendered people less certain about their beliefs in some of the news.

3. Data and Key Variables

3.1 The pre- and post-impeachment surveys

I used a survey firm to recruit respondents in South Korea and conduct two online surveys in

Korean. The first survey was conducted between March 1 and March 7, 2017, shortly before the

Constitutional Court’s ruling on March 10, 2017. The post-impeachment survey was conducted

between April 3 and April 7, 2017. The utilized survey firm maintains a pool of panelists, and

2,000 individuals across four age groups (20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s) and 1,000 college students were

randomly recruited from this pool. Excluding respondents who did not complete either survey or

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completed in a time too short to be considered reliable yielded a panel of 2,749 respondents.

Approximately 46% were in their twenties due to the oversampling of college students, and the

rest were relatively evenly split between their thirties, forties and fifties. The gender split was

pretty even, with about 50.5% of the respondents being female. In both surveys, I asked about

people’s beliefs concerning news related to Park Geun-hye. In the pre-impeachment survey, I

collected information related to primary news sources, political leanings and worldviews,

personal characteristics, and protest participation. In the post-impeachment survey, I quizzed

respondents on the reason the Court upheld impeachment and collected additional personal

characteristics, including personality traits. The Appendix provides more detail on the survey

implementation, the other control variables used in the analysis, and the survey questions. Table

1 presents the summary statistics. I discuss the key variables below.

3.2 Beliefs in controversial news and belief rigidity

To measure the rigidity of people's beliefs in controversial news in the pre-impeachment survey,

I first asked whether the respondents believed whether each of the below news items was “True”

or “False.” These were news items that were widely circulated and familiar to most people, but

that lacked concrete evidence.3

News item 1. Park Geun-hye asked Samsung’s Jay Lee to support Choi Soon-sil's equestrian

and winter sports efforts, and in return offered to help him with his succession of Samsung.

News item 2. Park Geun-hye was receiving a beauty treatment on the day of the Sewol Ferry

Disaster.

News item 3. Park Geun-hye directly ordered the creation of a blacklist of artists.

News item 4. Samsung's Jay Lee asked Park Geun-hye to help with his succession and

provided a bribe amounting to tens of billions of dollars.

News item 1 concerned the private meeting between Park and Lee and whether Park directly

offered to help Lee with his succession. News item 4 was similar, but positioned Jay Lee as the

protagonist. The meeting between Park and Lee and Samsung’s donation to Choi's foundation to

support equestrian activities were facts; however, there was uncertainty concerning whether there

was a quid pro quo agreement and, if so, who initiated it (Seo 2016; Kim, S. 2017; Fermin-

3 I refer to the news as “controversial” rather than “fake” because the factual accuracy of each news could not be confirmed but the veracity of each news would have considerable political ramifications.

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Robbins 2018). News item 2 was one of the most widely circulated news items related to Park's

whereabouts during the day of the Sewol ferry sinking (Fermin-Robbins 2018; Lee 2018). News

item 3 concerned the Park administration's blacklisting of many left-leaning artists. Whether or

not Park directly ordered these artists blacklisted was unknown (Choi 2017). The Constitutional

Court's impeachment ruling did not resolve the uncertainty in any of the above news items.

In the post-impeachment survey, I again asked whether people believed each news item

was “True” or “False,” but additionally allowed the option “Not certain whether the news is true

or false.” If the Constitutional Court's ruling had any effect, it would have been to reduce

people’s confidence in their beliefs. This seems to have been the case. Approximately 15% of

respondents changed their views on News item 1, and 20% of respondents changed their views

on the other three news items. Figure 1 depicts how people’s beliefs in each news item changed

after the impeachment ruling using spine plots (stacked bar plots). The horizontal axis represents

the share of people based on their beliefs in each news before the impeachment ruling. The

vertical axis represents their beliefs in the same news after the impeachment ruling.

Approximately 10 to 20% of those who initially believed that the news was “True” changed their

beliefs to “Uncertain” after the impeachment ruling. Also, depending on the news item, around

75% to 85% of those who initially believed the news was “False” changed their beliefs to

“Uncertain” or “True.” As Figure 1 indicates, for each news item, those who continued to believe

that the news was “True” after the impeachment ruling comprised the largest share of the

respondents.

In the empirical analysis I focus on the rigidity of one’s belief in the news, that is,

whether one who initially believed the news was true (false) continues to believe the news is true

(false) after the impeachment ruling. Since I added the “not certain” option only in the post-

impeachment survey, I would not be able to identify those who might have responded “not

certain” in both surveys. However, this paper’s objective is to examine those who maintain

strong beliefs, whether true or false, and individuals who are ambiguous in their beliefs in both

surveys are not of primary interest in the empirical analysis. In practice, I measure the rigidity of

people's beliefs by counting the number of news items about which individuals held the same

beliefs post-impeachment. As Figure 2 indicates, about 44.6% of the respondents did not change

their beliefs on any one of the four news items, and the majority of them believed that the news

items were true in both periods. About 8% of the sample changed their beliefs on all four news

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items, 10% changed their beliefs on three news items, 15% changed their beliefs on two news

items, and 22.5% changed their beliefs on one news item.

3.3 Ideological consistency and extreme ideological beliefs

Many people have a mix of progressive and conservative viewpoints on different issues.

However, there are also people who have consistently liberal or conservative views on all

matters, and such people tend to be more involved in the political process (Pew Research Center

2014). The increase in the number of people with consistent ideological views characterizes the

recent rise in political polarization (Gentzkow 2016). I measured the respondents’ ideological

consistency using four questions that gauged their ideological worldview. I asked about the

extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the below statements on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1

corresponded to fully agreeing to the left and 10 corresponded to fully agreeing to the right. For

each question, the left represented the progressive viewpoint, and the right represented the

conservative viewpoint in contemporary South Korea (Appendix Figure 1 presents the

distribution for each question).

1. Luck and connection determine success vs. If you work hard you will eventually live a

good life

2. Income should be more equal vs. Income inequality is necessary to motivate people

3. The government should guarantee the people’s livelihood vs. Each individual should

support himself/herself

4. Small and medium enterprises will drive future growth vs. Conglomerates will drive

future growth

I constructed a measure of ideological consistency by adding the responses across the four

questions and then normalizing so that the midpoint was equal to zero. Appendix Figure 2

presents the histogram, which resembles a normal distribution, but with a concentration of

people at the left. The higher density at the left reflects of the young being more progressive in

Korea and the survey oversampling people in their 20s.

I also constructed a measure of extreme ideological beliefs by summing the instances in

which each individual responded to the above questions with a 1 or 10. Though more than 65%

did not choose the most extreme views on any of the questions, approximately 5% chose an

extreme response to all four: mostly the most progressive response.

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3.4 Protest participation

I asked whether people participated in the candlelight protests and, if so, how often. Over 31% of

the respondents had participated in the candlelight protests: 18% participated once, 6.3%

participated twice, 3.7% participated three times, 0.7% participated four times, and 2.6%

participated five or more times. Only 2.6% participated in the pro-Park (Taegeukgi) protests.

3.5 The reason for impeachment

Some of the respondents may not have updated their beliefs because they were not paying

attention to or interested in the rationale behind the Constitutional Court's ruling. To control for

this factor, I directly asked respondents about the reason the Constitutional Court decided to

impeach Park Geun-hye in the post-impeachment survey. Specifically, I asked:

Which of the below did the constitutional court adjudge as a violation of constitutional law and,

thus, use as a basis for impeaching Park Geun-hye? Select all that apply.

A. Collusion with Choi and abuse of authority

B. Violation of duty to protect lives in the Sewol ferry disaster

C. Abuse of authority in the appointment of civil servants

D. Infringement upon the freedom of the press

The correct answer was A only, and 22.6% of the responses were correct. I used the results of

this quiz as a proxy for people’s attentiveness to the facts surrounding Park's impeachment.

3.6 Primary source of news

Respondents primarily received their news from TV (41.6%) and online websites (41%). Social

media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Kakaostory, Band, etc.) was the primary source of news

for 8.7% of the respondents. Furthermore, 5.5% primarily got their news from friends and

family, 2.36% got their news from print media, and 0.8% got their news from the radio

(Appendix Figure 3). Though social media ranked third, TV and online websites were still the

respondents’ primary sources of news. The survey also asked how much the participants believed

in their primary news source. Those who chose TV had the highest level of trust, at 55%, while

those who chose social media had the lowest, at 40%.

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Figure 3 illustrates how rigid beliefs, ideological views, political spectrum, and protest

participation varied by primary news source. The diamonds indicate the mean and the bands

indicate the 95% confidence interval. The news sources were listed in the order of the number of

people using each news source. Hence, the confidence intervals are shorter for TV and websites

and longer for print and radio. Social media users are generally more rigid in their beliefs, more

consistent in their ideological views and more likely to hold extreme ideological views. They

identified as progressive more than other media users and were more likely to participate in

protests. However, in many cases the differences were not statistically significant with the other

media users. Figure 4 further illustrates some basic individual characteristics - such as, age,

gender, education, income, region, risk tolerance, and personality traits - by primary news

source. Social media users tend to be younger. In terms of gender they are pretty evenly split.

Social media users tend to be more risk tolerant, extrovert, and open than those who primarily

get their news from TV or websites, though less agreeable and conscientious. Figure 5

summarizes the differences in rigid beliefs and protest participation between those whose

primary news source were social media and the rest. Social media users on average were

significantly more rigid in their beliefs in controversial news, and were also significantly more

likely to have participated in (more) candlelight protests.

Finally, figure 6 examines the relationship between protest participation and rigid beliefs

or ideological consistency by social media use. The lines indicate the best linear fit between the

two groups. As the different slopes indicate, protest participation by social media users was more

strongly associated with ideological consistency, extreme ideological views, or rigid beliefs. The

next section examines whether the descriptive patterns we find in this section are statistically

meaningful in an econometric framework.

4. Results

4.1 Social media and rigid beliefs

Table 2 presents the relationship between social media and rigid beliefs. Poisson regression

results are presented, since the dependent variable is in counts. The coefficient estimate indicates

the change in the log number of news in which respondents hold the same beliefs, for a one unit

change in the independent variable.4 Appendix Table 1 shows the OLS regression results, where

4 Results from negative binomial regressions return nearly identical results.

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the coefficient estimate indicates the change in the number of news in which respondents hold

the same beliefs, for a unit change in the independent variable. All regressions in Table 2 control

for a rich set of variables using fixed effects for gender, birth year, education level, region,

income level, employment status, and occupation category. Even with these controls, column 1

indicates that social media users have significantly more rigid beliefs (i.e., they are more likely to

hold the same beliefs on the news items post-impeachment). Some people may have not changed

beliefs because they were unaware of the details behind the Constitutional Court’s decision.

Hence, I control for whether participants correctly answered the reason behind the Court’s

impeachment ruling in column 2. Those who answered the quiz correctly are significantly more

likely to adjust beliefs post-impeachment; however, the estimate on social media users remains

positive and significant. I next control for ideological consistency, extreme ideological views,

and political spectrum in column 3. Ideological consistency and extreme ideological views are

both positively associated with more rigid beliefs, and progressives are more likely to have rigid

beliefs. The estimate on social media drops to 0.072 but is still significant at the 5% level. I next

control for people's pre-impeachment beliefs on each item and how much they believed in their

primary news source (column 4), as well as for risk preference and personality traits (column 5).

Controlling for these reduces the estimate on social media users to 0.053, but the estimate

remains statistically significant. Among the personality traits, openness is significantly

associated with less rigid beliefs, and conscientiousness is associated with more rigid beliefs

(Appendix Table 2). The Poisson estimate implies that the log number of news in which

individuals maintain rigid beliefs is greater by 0.053 for social media users compared to others

with similar observable characteristics. In other words, social media users maintain rigid beliefs

in about 5.3% more news items than others. This relationship is stronger than the effects from a

standard deviation change in the political spectrum, ideological consistency, or extreme

ideological beliefs.

4.2 Social media and protest participation

I next examine how protest participation relates to social media use and ideological polarization

using logistic regressions in Table 3 columns 1 to 4. Social media users are significantly more

likely to have participated in the candlelight protests (column 1). The next three columns

examine the relationships between protest participation and ideological polarization or rigid

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beliefs by social media use. People who are more ideologically polarized (i.e., more consistent or

extreme in their ideologies) are significantly more likely to participate in protests. Furthermore,

this relationship is significantly stronger for social media users (columns 2 and 3). The same

pattern holds between protest participation and rigid beliefs (column 4). The magnitudes of the

estimates on the interaction terms indicate that the relationships between protest participation and

beliefs are more than twice as large for those who primarily get their news from social media.

The key finding here is that social media users with more rigid beliefs or polarized views are

significantly more likely to participate in street protests.

In addition to whether or not a respondent participated in the candlelight protests, I

examine the frequency of participation using Poisson regressions in columns 5-8. Column 5

indicates that social media users participated in more protests. The relationship between

ideological consistency and the number of protests is positive, and the relationship is stronger for

social media users (columns 6 and 7). Again, similar patterns emerge for those with more

extreme or rigid ideological beliefs (column 8). In Appendix Table 3, I present OLS regressions

in place of the logit regressions, and tobit regressions in place of the poisson regression. I present

the tobit regression results, since the survey capped protest frequency at five. The results are

qualitatively similar to that of Table 3. Finally, I also examine the opposition protests that is, the

so called “taegeukgi” protests organized by the pro-Park Geun Hye camp, in Table 4. Even in the

opposition camp, who tended to be much older, social media users were significantly more likely

to participate in protests.

4.3 Is social media really different from other media?

Finally, I examine whether the patterns between social media and rigid beliefs or protest

participation are a unique social media effect or related to other media sources. Table 4 examines

all media source, with TV as the base omitted category. Relative to those who primarily get their

news from TV, social media users have significantly more rigid beliefs. Those who primarily get

their news from websites also exhibit high levels of rigid beliefs, but the effect is smaller and

statistically weaker. This may be because social media and the internet facilitate people to read

news that are in line with their beliefs more so than other news medium. Furthermore, social

media exacerbate this tendency by automatically feeding news that are in line with the user’s

political preference. In terms of protest participation, only social media exhibits a positive and

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significant relationship at the 5% level. This may reflect social media’s unique ability to

facilitate coordination among like-minded people.

5. Conclusion

The findings of this paper indicate that individuals who use social media as their primary source

of news are significantly more rigid in their beliefs in controversial news. Those who strongly

believe in controversial news and are more consistent or extreme in their ideological views are

more likely to participate in protests and in more protests. Moreover, this pattern is significantly

stronger for social media users. Research has found that protests have real-world impact on

shaping public opinion and the policy-making process (Madestam et al. 2013). Furthermore, a

relatively small number of people can more effectively mobilize political protests (Olson 1971).

Though protest participation is an individual decision, the choice to participate is influenced by

others and initially coordinated by a small number of people. Through the selection of people

with rigid and polarized beliefs into social media, social media may facilitate these types of

people to have a disproportionately large effect on public opinion and policy making through

mobilization.

Generalizing the findings of this paper to other contexts will require care, since the

number of people who used social media as their primary news source is still relatively small,

and the impeachment context and related news were specific to South Korea. Nonetheless, social

media’s role as a news medium and the concern that social media may be contributing to

polarization has been increasing in many societies. More research that examine social media’s

role as a news medium and its impact on public opinion in different countries will further our

understanding of how social media would affect our societies in the near future.

Acknowledgements

I thank Ruben Enikolopov and anonymous referees for suggestions. I thank Matthew Gentzkow,

David Yang, Emily Oster, Jesse Shapiro, and Munseob Lee for helpful input. Special thanks to

Joyce Lee for valuable suggestions throughout the project. I thank the Stanford Cyber Initiative

at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies for supporting this research. The author

has obtained Stanford University Institutional Review Board Approval (IRB-40745) for the

survey conducted in this paper.

16

References Acemoglu, D., Hassan, A., Tahoun, A. (2018). The Power of the Street: Evidence from Egypt’s Arab Spring. Review of Financial Studies, 31(1): 1-42. Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2): 211-236. Bakshy, E., Messing, S., & Adamic, L. (2015). Exposure to Ideologically Diverse News and Opinion on Facebook. Science, 348(6239): 1130–1132. Bond R. M., Fariss C.J., Jones J.J., Kramer A.D.I., Marlow C., Settle J.E., and Fowler J.H. (2012). A 61-Million-Person Experiment in Social Influence and Political Mobilization. Nature, 489: 295–298. Boxell, L., Gentzkow, M. and Shapiro, J. (2017). Greater Internet Use is Not Associated with Faster Growth in Political Polarization Among US Demographic Groups. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(4): 10612-10617. Bradshaw, S., & Howard, P. (2017). Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: a Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation. Oxford, UK: project on computational propaganda. Campbell, C. (2018, November 28). Huge Numbers Demand the Ouster of South Korea's President in a Fifth Week of Protests. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/4583033/south-korea-protest-demonstration-seoul-park-geun-hye-choi-soon-sil/. Choi, S. (2016, November 29 )ParkGeun-hye,EmbattledSouthKoreanPresident,SaysShe’sWillingtoResign.Retreivedfromhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/world/asia/park-geun-hye-south-korea-resign.htmlChoi, S. (2017, July 27). 6 Ex-Officials in South Korea Are Sentenced for Blacklisting Artists. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/world/asia/south-korea-park-aides-artists-blacklist.html. Doucette, J. (2017). The Occult of Personality: Korea's Candlelight Protests and the Impeachment of Park Geun-hye. The Journal of Asian Studies, 76(4): 851-860. Enikolopov, R., Petrova, M., & Macarin, A. (2020). Social Media and Protest Participation: Evidence from Russia. Econometrica. forthcoming. Fendos, J. (2017). The History of a Scandal: How South Korea's President Was Impeached. The Diplomat. Retrieved from http://thediplomat.com/2017/01/the-history-of-a-scandal-how-south-koreas-president-was- impeached/. Fergusson, L., and Molina, C. (2019). Facebook Causes Protests. CEDE Working Paper No. 2019-41. Fermin-Robbins, J. (2018). The Impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. Gentzkow, M. (2016). Polarization in 2016. Mimeo. Harris, B. (2017, March 9). Timeline: Downfall of Park Geun-hye. Financial Times. Kim, S. (2017, June 12). There’s Still No Smoking Gun in the Samsung Bribery Trial. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-12/thirteen-weeks-into-samsung-bribes-trial-there-s-no-smoking-gun.

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Kim, H. (2017). “Spoon Theory” and the Fall of a Populist Princess in Seoul. The Journal of Asian Studies, 76(4): 839-849. Lazer, D-M-J et al. (2018). The Science of Fake News. Science, 359, 1094-1096. Lee, C. (2018, March 29). Was Park Geun-hye Asleep While Sewol Ferry Was Sinking. The Korea Herald. Retrieved from http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180329000933. Lim, H. (2017). A Closer Look at the Korean Constitutional Court’s Ruling on Park Geun-hye’s Impeachment. Yale Journal of International Law. Madestam, A., Shoag, D., Veuger, S., Yanagizawa-Drott, D. (2013). Do Political Protests Matter? Evidence from the Tea Party Movement. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 128:1633–1685. Olson, M. (1971). The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Pennycook, G., Cannon, T., & Rand, D. (2018). Prior Exposure Increases Perceived Accuracy of Fake News. Forthcoming in Journal of experimental psychology: general. Pew Research Center (2014). Political Polarization in the American Public. Pew Research Center (2016). Many Americans Believe Fake News Is Sowing Confusion. Pew Research Center (2018). Americans Favor Protecting Information Freedoms over Government Steps to Restrict False News Online. Seo, Y. (2016, November 23). Why Are South Koreans So Angry about Presidential ‘Choi-Gate’? Here Are 4 Reasons. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/23/why-are-south-koreans-so-angry-about-presidential-choi-gate-here-are-4-reasons. Shirky, C. (2011). The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change. Foreign Affairs 90 (1): 28–41. Sunstein, C. (2001). Echo Chambers: Bush v. Gore, Impeachment, and Beyond. Princeton University Press. Tufekci, Z., & Wilson, C. (2012). Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest: Observations from Tahrir Square. Journal of communication, 62: 363–379. Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The Spread of True and False News Online. Science, 359: 1146-1151. Yoon, K. (2017, March 10). Impeachment Ruling TV Viewership Ratings. Yonhap News. Retrieved from http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/bulletin/2017/03/10/0200000000AKR20170310091900033.HTML. Zhuravskaya, E. M. Petrova, and R. Enikolopov. (2020). Political Effects of the Internet and Social Media. Annual Review of Economics. Forthcoming.

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Figure 1. Beliefs in each news item before and after impeachment

Notes: The horizontal axis represents the share of people based on their beliefs in each news before the impeachment ruling. The vertical axis represents their beliefs in the same news after the impeachment ruling. All four news were widely circulated and familiar but did not have clear supporting evidence. The impeachment ruling did not resolve the uncertainty in any of the news. Each of the four news is described below. News 1. Park Geun Hye asked Samsung’s Jay Lee to support Choi Soon Sil's equestrian and winter sports efforts, and in return offered to help him with his succession of Samsung News 2. Park Geun Hye was receiving beauty treatment on the day of the Sewol ferry disaster News 3. Park Geun Hye directly ordered to create a blacklist of artists News 4. Samsung's Jay Lee asked Park Geun Hye to help with his succession and provided a bribe amounting to tens of billions of dollars

19

Figure 2. Rigid beliefs – the number of news that individuals hold the same beliefs before and

after the impeachment ruling.

Notes: The above figure indicates that about 44.6% of the respondents did not change their beliefs on any of the four news items and they predominantly believed that the news were all true (43.7% out of 44.6%). The rest 55.4% changed their views on at least one news item, and 8% changed their beliefs on all news items.

20

Figure 3. Key variables based on primary source of news

Notes: The diamonds indicate the mean and the bands indicate the 95% confidence interval.

TVWebsites

Social MediaFamily & friends

Print mediaRadio

2 2.5 3 3.5Number of news respondents hold the same belief

95% confidence intervals

TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

-.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4Ideological consistency


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

-.4 -.2 0 .2 .4Extreme ideological beliefs


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

-.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4Political spectrum


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

.1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6Correctly answer quiz95% confidence intervals

TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

0 .2 .4 .6Participated in protests


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

0 .5 1 1.5Frequency of protests95% confidence intervals

TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

-.05 0 .05 .1 .15Participated in opposition protests


21

Figure 4. Individual characteristics based on primary source of news

Notes: The diamonds indicate the mean and the bands indicate the 95% confidence interval.

TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

30 35 40 45 50Age


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

0 .2 .4 .6 .8Female


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

-.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8Education level


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

-.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8Income level


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

0 .1 .2 .3 .4College student


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

.1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6Lives in Seoul


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

3 3.5 4 4.5Risk tolerance


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

-.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8Extraversion


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

-.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6Agreeableness


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

-.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6Conscientiousness95% confidence intervals

TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

-1 -.5 0 .5Neuroticism


TVWebsites


Print mediaRadio

-.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6Openness


22

Figure 5. Rigid beliefs and protest participation by social media use

Notes: The bands indicate the 95% confidence interval. The other media include TV, websites, family and friends, print media, and radio.

.3.3

5.4

.45

.5.5

5

Primary source of news: other mediaPrimary source of news: social media

Share that participated in candlelight protests

23

Figure 6. The relation between protest participation and ideological consistency or rigid beliefs - by social media use

Notes: The lines indicate the best linear fit for each group. The other media include TV, websites, family and friends, print media, and radio.

24

Table 1. Summary statistics

Variable Mean Std. Dev. Min Max Obs

Rigid beliefs-Number of news items on which individuals hold the same beliefs 2.857 1.302 0 4 2,749

Social media is primary news source 0.087 0.282 0 1 2,749

Gets impeachment ruling correct 0.226 0.418 0 1 2,749

Ideological consistency 0.000 1 -1.235 2.848 2,749

Extreme ideological beliefs 0.000 1 -0.605 2.898 2,749

Political spectrum 0.000 1 -2.248 2.981 2,749

Belief in news from primary news source 0.000 1 -2.528 2.392 2,749

Pre-impeachment belief of news 1 0.916 0.277 0 1 2,749




Risk preference 0.000 1 -1.513 2.557 2,749

Personality trait: extraversion 0.000 1 -3.091 3.369 2,749

Personality trait: agreeableness 0.000 1 -3.710 3.239 2,749

Personality trait: conscientiousness 0.000 1 -4.121 2.971 2,749

Personality trait: neuroticism 0.000 1 -3.690 3.315 2,749

Personality trait: openness 0.000 1 -3.804 3.615 2,749

Female 0.505 0.500 0 1 2,749

Age 35.088 11.850 20 59 2,749

Notes: Ideological consistency, extreme ideological beliefs, political spectrum, belief in primary news source, risk preference, and the personality trait variables are standardized.

25

Table 2. Social media and rigid beliefs- Poisson regression results

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Number of news items on which individuals hold the same beliefs pre and post impeachment ruling

Social media is primary news source 0.104*** 0.101*** 0.072** 0.051** 0.053** (0.030) (0.029) (0.028) (0.023) (0.023)

Gets impeachment ruling correct -0.142*** -0.134*** -0.057*** -0.058*** (0.024) (0.023) (0.019) (0.019)

Ideological consistency 0.037*** 0.026*** 0.027*** (0.010) (0.008) (0.008)

Extreme ideological beliefs 0.023** 0.013 0.012 (0.010) (0.008) (0.008)

Political spectrum -0.114*** -0.039*** -0.040*** (0.009) (0.007) (0.007)

Gender control Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Age fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Education fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Region fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Income fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Employment status fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Occupation category fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Belief on news pre-impeachment Yes Yes Risk and personality trait controls Yes N 2749 2749 2749 2749 2749

Notes: Each column represents result from a Poisson regression. The coefficient estimate indicates the change in the log number of news in which respondents hold the same beliefs, for a one unit change in the independent variable. Appendix Table 2 presents additional coefficient estimates subsumed in the above table. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.

26

Table 3. Social media and protest participation

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Participated in candlelight protests (Logit regression results)

Frequency of candlelight protests (Poisson regression results)

Social media is primary news source 0.621*** 0.447** 0.540*** -0.664 0.492*** 0.362*** 0.402*** -0.450 (0.187) (0.201) (0.193) (0.764) (0.122) (0.137) (0.127) (0.602)

Social media primary news source * Ideological consistency

0.358* 0.058 (0.186) (0.085)

Ideological consistency 0.245*** 0.208*** (0.055) (0.040)

Social media primary news source * Extreme ideological beliefs

0.317* 0.137 (0.166) (0.083)

Extreme ideological beliefs 0.142** 0.137*** (0.057) (0.039)

Social media primary news source * Rigid beliefs in news

0.379* 0.258 (0.220) (0.163)

Rigid beliefs in news 0.169*** 0.147*** (0.054) (0.047)

N 2746 2746 2746 2746 2749 2749 2749 2749 Notes: In each column one's political spectrum, belief in each news pre-impeachment and primary news source, risk preference, personality traits, gender, age fixed effects, education fixed effects, region fixed effects, income fixed effects, employment status fixed effects, and occupation category fixed effects are included as control variables. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.

27

Table 4. Social media and the opposition (Taegeukgi) protests (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Participated in opposition protests (logit regressions)

Frequency of opposition protests (poisson regressions)

Social media is primary news source 1.463*** 1.154** 1.291** 2.575** 1.419*** 0.986 1.254** 1.953* (0.463) (0.541) (0.521) (1.297) (0.465) (0.665) (0.518) (1.121)

Social media primary news source * Ideological consistency

0.671** 0.820** (0.332) (0.343)

Ideological consistency 0.009 -0.113 (0.169) (0.213)

Social media primary news source * Extreme ideological beliefs

0.480 0.548* (0.320) (0.317)

Extreme ideological beliefs 0.194 0.120 (0.160) (0.168)

Social media primary news source * Rigid beliefs in news

-0.423 -0.247 (0.378) (0.293)

Rigid beliefs in news 0.635*** 0.590*** (0.185) (0.130)

N 1986 1986 1986 1986 2749 2749 2749 2749 Notes: In each column one's political spectrum, belief in each news pre-impeachment and primary source of news, risk preference, personality traits, gender, age fixed effects, education fixed effects, region fixed effects, income fixed effects, employment status fixed effects, and occupation category fixed effects are included as control variables. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.

Table 5. Social media versus other media sources

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Number of news items on which individuals hold the

same beliefs

Participated in candlelight protests

Frequency of candlelight protests

Poisson OLS Logit OLS Poisson Tobit

Social media is primary news source

0.069*** 0.228*** 0.566*** 0.116*** 0.416*** 0.344***

(0.025) (0.075) (0.201) (0.040) (0.132) (0.123)

Newspaper is primary news source

-0.009 -0.009 0.456 0.085 0.354* 0.293*

(0.042) (0.122) (0.286) (0.055) (0.194) (0.175)

Web is primary news source 0.031** 0.086* 0.093 0.016 0.030 -0.007

(0.015) (0.045) (0.114) (0.021) (0.087) (0.051)

Radio is primary news source

0.045 0.078 -0.680 -0.095 -0.216 -0.122

(0.077) (0.245) (0.525) (0.082) (0.360) (0.251)

Family/friends are primary news source

-0.004 0.010 -0.436* -0.079* -0.211 -0.118

(0.033) (0.099) (0.259) (0.043) (0.203) (0.103) N 2749 2749 2746 2749 2749 2749

R-sq 0.481 0.167 Notes: In each column one's ideological consistency, extreme ideological beliefs, political spectrum, belief in each news pre-impeachment and primary news source, risk preference, personality traits, gender, age fixed effects, education fixed effects, region fixed effects, income fixed effects, employment status fixed effects, and occupation category fixed effects are included as control variables. Column (1) and (2) additionally control for whether one gets the quiz on impeachment ruling correct. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.

28

Supplementary Appendix I. Supplementary Figures and Tables Appendix Figure 1. Distribution of ideological worldviews

1. Luck 2. Income 3. Living support 4. Conglomerates

Notes: I ask the extent to one agrees or disagrees with the below statements in a 1 to 10 scale, where 1 corresponds to fully agreeing to the left statement and 10 fully agreeing to the right statement. For each question the left represents the progressive's viewpoint and the right the conservative's viewpoint in contemporary South Korea.

1. Luck and connection determine success vs. If you work hard you will eventually live a good life 2. Income should be more equal vs. Income inequality is necessary to motivate people 3. The government should guarantee the people’s living vs. Each individual should support himself/herself 4. Small and medium enterprises will drive future growth vs. Conglomerates will drive future growth

Appendix Figure 2. Ideological consistency

Notes: Ideological consistency is measured by adding the responses across the four questions and then normalizing so that the midpoint is equal to zero. The above figure presents the histogram, which resembles a normal distribution, but with a concentration of people at the left. The higher density at the left is a reflection of the young being more progressive in Korea and the survey oversampling the 20s. Appendix Figure 3. Primary source of news - the distribution of respondents based on their primary source of news.

0.416

0.410

0.087

0.055

0.024

0.008Radio

Print media

Family & friends

Social Media

Websites

TV

Prim

ary

sour

ce o

f new

s

fraction

29

Appendix Table 1. Social media and rigid beliefs- OLS regression

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)


Social media is primary news source 0.312*** 0.298*** 0.213** 0.182*** 0.183*** (0.093) (0.091) (0.085) (0.070) (0.070)

Gets impeachment ruling correct -0.410*** -0.383*** -0.154*** -0.156*** (0.067) (0.062) (0.054) (0.054)

Ideological consistency 0.111*** 0.083*** 0.089*** (0.029) (0.025) (0.025)

Extreme ideological beliefs 0.074** 0.046* 0.043* (0.030) (0.025) (0.025)

Political spectrum -0.340*** -0.121*** -0.125*** (0.025) (0.022) (0.022) (0.021)

Gender control Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Age fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Education fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Region fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Income fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Employment status fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Occupation category fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Belief in each news pre-impeachment Yes Yes Belief in primary news source Yes Yes Risk preference Yes Personality traits Yes R-sq 0.085 0.103 0.196 0.477 0.480

Notes: Number of observations is 2,749. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

30

Appendix Table 2. Social media and rigid beliefs – Poisson regression

(1) (2)


Social media is primary news source 0.051** 0.053** (0.023) (0.023)

Gets impeachment ruling correct -0.057*** -0.058***

(0.019) (0.019)

Ideological consistency 0.026*** 0.027*** (0.008) (0.008)

Extreme ideological beliefs 0.013 0.012

(0.008) (0.008)

Political spectrum -0.039*** -0.040***

(0.007) (0.007)

Pre-impeachment belief of news 1 0.000 0.000

(0.008) (0.008)

Pre-impeachment belief of news 2 0.147*** 0.146*** (0.053) (0.053)



Belief in news from primary news source 0.409*** 0.409*** (0.035) (0.035)

Risk preference 0.006 (0.007)

Personality trait: extraversion 0.010 (0.007)

Personality trait: agreeableness -0.009 (0.007)

Personality trait: conscientiousness 0.014* (0.007)

Personality trait: neuroticism -0.006 (0.007)

Personality trait: openness -0.022*** (0.007)

Gender control Yes Yes Age fixed effects Yes Yes Education fixed effects Yes Yes Region fixed effects Yes Yes Income fixed effects Yes Yes Employment status fixed effects Yes Yes Occupation category fixed effects Yes Yes R-sq 0.477 0.480

Notes: Number of observations is 2,749. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

31

Appendix Table 3. Social media and protest participation (OLS and tobit regressions)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Participated in candlelight protests (OLS regressions)

Frequency of candlelight protests (tobit regressions)

Social media is primary news source 0.129*** 0.093** 0.113*** -0.104 0.399*** 0.295*** 0.347*** -0.313

(0.039) (0.039) (0.039) (0.098) (0.122) (0.112) (0.116) (0.225) Social media primary news source * Ideological consistency

0.072** 0.199*

(0.032) (0.106)

Ideological consistency 0.049*** 0.146***

(0.010) (0.028) Social media primary news source * Extreme ideological beliefs

0.063** 0.207*

(0.032) (0.107)

Extreme ideological beliefs 0.031*** 0.104***

(0.011) (0.028) Social media primary news source * Rigid beliefs in news

0.072** 0.222***

(0.030) (0.083)

Rigid beliefs in news 0.030*** 0.068***

(0.008) (0.020) N 2746 2746 2746 2746 2749 2749 2749 2749 R-sq 0.151 0.165 0.165 0.164

Notes: In each column one's political spectrum, belief in each news pre-impeachment and primary source of news, risk and personality trait, gender, age fixed effects, education fixed effects, region fixed effects, income fixed effects, employment status fixed effects, and occupation category fixed effects are included as control variables. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.

32

II. Supplemental information on the survey implementation I used the marketing and survey company Macromill-Embrain, a Korean affiliate of Macromill Inc., a multinational marketing survey, to conduct both the pre and post impeachment survey. The pre-impeachment survey was conducted between March 1 and March 7, 2017, which was shortly before the constitutional court’s ruling on March 10, 2017. The sample was randomly targeted across four age group categories (20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s) and additionally sampled college students, since the latter are more likely to use social media. The initial survey sample was contacted by email to participate in the web-based survey on personal computers. In cases respondents did not participate, another email was sent out after three to four days. The target size for the first survey was 3,000 people with 3,114 ultimately participating in the first survey. I survey the same respondents after the impeachment ruling. The post-impeachment survey was conducted between April 3 and April 7, 2017. As before email invitations were sent out but additional encouragements were made through text messages. Participants accrue points by participating in the firm’s various surveys, and they can later use the accrued points to exchange for cash or use for online purchases. Compensation is set by the expected time of completion and translates to about 100 KRW (approximately 10 US cents) per minute. The survey firm’s expected time for completion was between 6 and 7 minutes. The median time for actual completion was 7 minutes and 44 seconds. After surveys that were incomplete or had implausibly short response times were excluded, I ended up with a panel of 2,749 people that fully responded to both surveys. III. Other controls variables in the data The survey asked the education level of the respondent across 7 categories: less than high school, graduated high school, attend a 2 year college, graduated a 2 year college, attend a 4 year college, graduated a 4 year college, and graduate school or above. Respondent region was selected across the 12 provinces or province level cities. Respondents selected their own or household (if still a student) income level across 9 bins. Employment status was defined as employed, self-employed, unemployed looking for work, or unemployed not looking for work. There were a total of 13 occupation categories that the respondents could choose from. They were: student, public service, professional, education, medical, military/police, finance, large corporation, small or medium enterprise, foreign enterprise, entrepreneur, unemployed, or other. Individual risk preference was based on the answer to a question that asks where the respondent's life views lie along a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is "I tend to avoid risk and choose the most safe options" and 10 is "I appreciate risk and challenges." Personality traits were measured using the Big 5 personality traits tests. I control for each of the five personality traits - extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism - in the regressions. IV. Survey Questionnaires [Pre-impeachment Survey Questionnaire] This survey aims to better understand people’s beliefs surrounding the recent events and news surrounding the impeachment of the president. The survey will be used solely for academic research only. All personal information will remain confidential. We care about the quality of our data. In order for us to accurately measure your knowledge and opinions, it is important that you thoughtfully provide your best answers to each question in this survey. A. Basic characteristics 1. What is your gender?

1) Male 2) Female

2. What is your age? (________) 3. Where do you currently reside?

1) Seoul 2) Incheon 3) Busan 4) Daejeon 5) Daegu 6) Gwangju 7) Ulsan

33

8) Gyeonggi-do 9) Chungchung-do 10) Gyeongsang-do 11) Cholla-do 12) Gangwon-do 13) Jeju-do

4. What is your employment status?

1) Student 2) Employee 3) Self-employed 4) Unemployed looking for work 5) Unemployed not looking for work

B. Media and the news 5. What is your primary source of news? Rank the top three sources. What percent of the news from your primary news sources do you believe in? (Please enter a number between 0 and 100).

1) Friends and family 2) Websites (Online newspapers, online news sites, news portals, etc.) 3) Social media (Facebook, Twitter, KakaoStory, Band, Instagram, etc.) 4) TV 5) Print media (Newspaper, magazine, etc.) 6) Radio

1st = _____________. I believe in _____% of the news from this source. 2nd = _____________. I believe in _____% of the news from this source. 3rd = _____________. I believe in _____% of the news from this source. Please indicate whether you believe each of the following news is true or false. 6. Park Geun-hye asked Samsung’s Jay Lee to support Choi Soon-sil's equestrian and winter sports efforts, and in return offered to help him with his succession of Samsung.

1) True 2) False

7. Park Geun-hye was receiving a beauty treatment on the day of the Sewol Ferry Disaster.

1) True 2) False

8. Park Geun-hye directly ordered the creation of a blacklist of artists.

1) True 2) False

9. Samsung's Jay Lee asked Park Geun-hye to help with his succession and provided a bribe amounting to tens of billions of dollars.

1) True 2) False

Perception on impeacment 10. What do you think is the probability in percentage points (choose between 0 to 100) that Park Geun-hye will be impeached?

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

11. Do you think Park Geun-hye should be impeached? 1) Yes 2) No

34

12. Will you concede to the impeachment rulings by the constitutional court? 1) I will concede regardless of the impeachment results 2) I will concede if Park is impeached and not concede if not impeached. 3) I will concede if Park is not impeached and not concede if impeached.

C. Individual characteristics 13. Where do you consider yourself along the “liberal” “conservative” political spectrum?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very liberal Neutral Very

conservative 14. We would like to know your views of various issues. How would you place your views on this scale? 1 means you agree completely with the statement on the right; 10 means you agree completely with the statement on the right: if your views fall somewhere in between, you can choose a number in between.

Luck and connection determine success

If you work hard you will eventually live a good life

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Income should be more equal Income inequality is

necessary to motivate people

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 The government should guarantee the people’s livelihood

Each individual should support himself/herself

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Small and medium enterprises will drive future growth

Conglomerates will drive future growth

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 15. Have you participated in the candle light protests in the past 6 months?

1) No 2) Yes, 1 time 3) Yes, 2 time 4) Yes, 3 time 5) Yes, 4 time 6) Yes, 5 time or more

16. Have you participated in the Taegeukgi protests in the past 6 months?

1) No 2) Yes, 1 time 3) Yes, 2 time 4) Yes, 3 time 5) Yes, 4 time 6) Yes, 5 time or more

17. Regarding your future career life, please tick a box on the scale, where the value 1 means: “unwilling to take risks”, and “ the value 10 means “fully prepared to take risk”.

Unwilling to take risks Fully prepared to take risk 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

18. If you had 10,000,000 KRW in your bank account, what percentage of that amount would you invest in the stock market? (___________%)

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19. What is your education level? 1) Less than high school degree 2) High school degree 3) Enrolled in 2 year college 4) Associates (2 year college) degree 5) Enrolled in 4 year college 6) Bachelors (4 year college) degree 7) Graduate school or above

20. Which university and major did you graduate from or are currently enrolled in?

_______________University _______________ Major 21. How many years have you worked in the labor market?

_______________year(s)

22. Which best describes your occupation? 1) Student 2) Civil servant 3) Legal or accounting professional (lawyer, accountant, etc.) 4) Education profession (teacher, professor, etc.) 5) Medical profession (doctor, nurse, pharmacist, etc.) 6) Solider, police, firefighter 7) Finance professional 8) Employee of a chaebol 9) Employee of a small medium enterprise 10) Employee of a foreign company 11) Entrepreneur/self-employed 12) Unemployed 13) Other (__________)

23. What is your household annual income?

1) Less than 20 million KRW 2) 20 – 30 million KRW 3) 30 – 40 million KRW 4) 40 – 50 million KRW 5) 50 – 70 million KRW 6) 70 – 100 million KRW 7) 100 – 150 million KRW 8) 150 – 250 million KRW 9) More than 250 million KRW

[Post-impeachment Survey Questionnaire] This survey aims to better understand people’s beliefs surrounding the recent impeachment of the president. The survey will be used solely for academic research only. All personal information will remain confidential. We care about the quality of our data. In order for us to accurately measure your knowledge and opinions, it is important that you thoughtfully provide your best answers to each question in this survey. A. Basic characteristics 1. What is your gender?

1) Male 2) Female

2. What is your age? (________) 3. Where do you currently reside?

o Seoul

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o Incheon o Busan o Daejeon o Daegu o Gwangju o Ulsan o Gyeonggi-do o Chungchung-do o Gyeongsang-do o Cholla-do o Gangwon-do o Jeju-do

4. What is your employment status?

o Student o Employee o Self-employed o Housewife o Unemployed looking for work o Unemployed not looking for work

B. Impeachment result 5. Which of the below did the constitutional court adjudge as a violation of constitutional law and, thus, use as a basis for impeaching Park Geun-hye? Select all that apply.

☐ Collusion with Choi and abuse of authority ☐ Violation of duty to protect lives in the Sewol ferry disaster ☐ Abuse of authority in the appointment of civil servants ☐ Infringement upon the freedom of the press

6. Do you accept the constitutional court’s decision to impeach Park Geun-hye?

1) Yes 2) No

C. Belief in the news Please indicate whether you believe each of the following news is true or false. 7. Park Geun-hye asked Samsung’s Jay Lee to support Choi Soon-sil's equestrian and winter sports efforts, and in return offered to help him with his succession of Samsung.

1) True 2) False 3) Not certain whether the news is true or false

8. Park Geun-hye was receiving a beauty treatment on the day of the Sewol Ferry Disaster. 1) True 2) False 3) Not certain whether the news is true or false

9. Park Geun-hye directly ordered the creation of a blacklist of artists.


10. Samsung's Jay Lee asked Park Geun-hye to help with his succession and provided a bribe amounting to tens of billions of dollars.


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D. Perceptions on the criminal trial 11. What do you think is the probability that Park Geun-hye will be incarcerated?

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 12. Do you think Park Geun-hye should be incarcerated?

1) Yes 2) No

13. Will you concede to the rulings by the criminal trial?

1) Yes 2) No

E. Personality traits Here are a number of characteristics that may or may not apply to you. For example, do you agree that you are someone who likes to spend time with others? Please write a number next to each statement to indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with that statement.

1 Disagree Strongly

2 Disagree

a little

3 Neither agree nor disagree

4 Agree a little

5 Agree

strongly I am someone who…

1. _____ Is talkative 23. _____ Tends to be lazy 2. _____ Tends to find fault with others 24. _____Is emotionally stable, not easily upset 3. _____ Does a thorough job 25. _____ Is inventive 4. _____ Is depressed, blue 26. _____ Has an assertive personality 5. _____ Is original, comes up with new ideas 27. _____ Can be cold and aloof 6. _____ Is reserved 28. _____ Perseveres until the task is finished 7. _____ Is helpful and unselfish with others 29. _____ Can be moody 8. _____ Can be somewhat careless 30. _____ Values artistic, aesthetic experiences 9. _____ Is relaxed, handles stress well. 31. _____ Is sometimes shy, inhibited 10. _____ Is curious about many different things 32. _____ Is considerate and kind to almost everyone 11. _____ Is full of energy 33. _____ Does things efficiently 12. _____ Starts quarrels with others 34. _____ Remains calm in tense situations 13. _____ Is a reliable worker 35. _____ Prefers work that is routine 14. _____ Can be tense 36. _____ Is outgoing, sociable 15. _____ Is ingenious, a deep thinker 37. _____ Is sometimes rude to others 16. _____ Generates a lot of enthusiasm 38. _____ Makes plans and follows through with them 17. _____ Has a forgiving nature 39. _____ Gets nervous easily 18. _____ Tends to be disorganized 40. _____ Likes to reflect, play with ideas 19. _____ Worries a lot 41. _____ Has few artistic interests 20. _____ Has an active imagination 42. _____ Likes to cooperate with others 21. _____ Tends to be quiet 43. _____ Is easily distracted 22. _____ Is generally trusting 44. _____ Is sophisticated in art, music, or literature

Social Media and Rigid Beliefs: Evidence from Impeachment ...yongslee/SMRB.pdf · impeachment ruling did little to confirm the factual accuracy surrounding most of the circulating

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