Please cite this article in press as: Teresi, H., & Michelson, M.R. Wired to mobilize: The effect of social networking messages on voter turnout. The Social Science Journal (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2014.09.004 ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model SOCSCI-1215; No. of Pages 10 The Social Science Journal xxx (2014) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect The Social Science Journal journa l h om epa ge: www.elsevier.com/locate/soscij Wired to mobilize: The effect of social networking messages on voter turnout  Holly Teresi, Melissa R. Michelson ∗ Menlo College, 1000 El Camino Real, Atherton, CA 94027, USA a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 10 September 2014 Accepted 10 September 2014 Available online xxx Keywords: Civic participation Social media Social networks Facebook Experiment a b s t r a c t Recent scholarship has documented the effect of online social networking on political par- ticipation, a relationship hypothesized to be due to the generation of social capital. This paper tests the hypothesis that impersonal get-out-the-vote messages delivered via an online social network can increase voter turnout. Specifically, this study uses a field exper- iment of randomly assigned students from a large southern public university to test the effect of exposure to political messages via Facebook on the likelihood of them voting in the November 2010 election. The results indicate that encouragements to vote delivered through a social networking site can have substantively large effects on political behavior. © 2014 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Inspired by Putnam’s groundbreaking Bowling Alone (2000), a number of social scientists have since sought to explore how to build social capital and encourage civic engagement and political participation. Much of the social capital literature builds on Putnam’s argument that face- to-face interaction is what builds community and trust, which in turn stimulates political participation. Yet, an increasing amount of interpersonal interaction is con- ducted via social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Research with student samples and broader survey data find a statistically significant relationship between intensity of SNS use and political participation, both online and offline, suggesting that the  An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2012 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL. Our thanks to Peter Aronow for his statistical advice and to Nicole Elli- son, James Fowler, Donald P. Green, Shanto Iyengar and the anonymous reviewers of Social Science Journal for their feedback on earlier drafts. All errors, of course, remain our own. ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 650 543 3844. E-mail addresses: holly.teresi@gmail.com (H. Teresi), melissa.michelson@menlo.edu (M.R. Michelson). increased use of online social networking sites should not be interpreted as a danger to social capital but rather as an alternative means of generating it. 2. Literature review 2.1. Social networking Recent scholarship finds that social networking gener- ates social capital and political participation. In a survey of 286 undergraduates at Michigan State University, Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe (2007) find that intensity of Facebook use is strongly related to social capital. In a web survey of 2600 Texas college students, Valenzuela, Park, and Kee (2009) find small but statistically significant relationships between Facebook use and social capital, civic engagement, and political participation. Bode (2012) finds that particular Facebook activities generate various types of political par- ticipation. Pasek, More, and Romer (2009) find that use of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace can generate a culture that encourages social capital. Using the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s Spring Tracking Survey from 2008, Gainous, Marlowe, and Wagner (2013) find a strong positive relationship between online social http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2014.09.004 0362-3319/© 2014 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.