Media, information, and political participation: The importance of online news sources in the absence of a free press

Social media use is positively associated with political participation, but does this relationship persist when traditional and social media are restricted by the government? We argue that, under conditions of repression, social media and other online news sources play a key role in providing information free from government filters, which makes political participation more likely. We test this theory using data collected through an original, nationally-representative, face-to-face survey conducted in Turkey in April 2015 (n = 1,068). We find that both conventional and protest participation are significantly higher among respondents who use online sources, including social media, to access political news.