Social media and the democratization of political participation: a global perspective

This study explores the relationship between social media use, political efficacy, media literacy, and online political participation across five national contexts—Germany, India, Brazil, Turkey, and Egypt. Drawing on a cross-national survey of 1,000 respondents (200 per country), it examines how psychosocial factors and institutional environments shape digital civic engagement. The analysis includes regression, mediation, and structural equation modeling (SEM), revealing social media use as the strongest predictor of participation, followed by political efficacy and media literacy. Perceived government surveillance is negatively associated with participation and is consistent with an attenuating pathway between key predictors and participation, particularly in contexts reporting higher surveillance perceptions such as Egypt and Turkey. The SEM model shows strong fit (CFI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.047) and highlights both direct and indirect pathways of association. The contribution of the study is comparative and theoretical, showing how enabling psychosocial resources and constraining surveillance perceptions co-exist across diverse political systems and shape participation in the digital public sphere.