“It’s Going to be Out There For a Long Time”: The Influence of Message Persistence on Users’ Political Opinion Expression in Social Media

Abstract

In light of the growing politicization of social media, the spiral of silence theory and its predictions on the conditions under which individuals express political opinions have gained increasing scholarly attention. This study contributes to this line of research by identifying the influence of a central characteristic of social media: message persistence. It was expected that high technical durability of political messages reduces users’ propensity to voice their opinion, moderating the silence effect. A pre-registered experiment (N = 772) revealed a small-to-medium persistence effect in three out of four topical contexts. While perceived congruence with the opinion climate was not associated with the likelihood of opinion expression, the latter could be explained by a mental cost-benefit calculus that was shaped by message persistence. Theoretical implications are discussed referring to (a) a situational approach regarding silencing processes on social media and (b) its connection to a behavioral calculus of human communication.