Intensive Users of Social Media

Target group study with intensive users of social networks. The focus was on the frequency of use, significance and purpose of use of social media. Further questions were: How do social networks affect the information behaviour of their users? Where do social networks come into contact with political content or topics? Other focal points were political information behaviour and the credibility of social media. In addition, the following research questions were examined: Which information offerings of the Federal Government are important and which are actually used? What are the expectations of these information services? What are the respondents´ attitudes towards the relationship between politics and social networks?

Topics: Social media use: frequency of use of social media; platforms used at least once a day; ranking of the four most frequently used social networks; preferred devices for social media use; type of use or reasons for use; attitude towards social media in general with regard to time spent, credibility of information, quality of social contacts, relevant information and life without social networks.

Politics and media: political interest; points of contact with politics in everyday life; frequency of use of various media offers for political information; attitude towards politics and political information in social networks with regard to trustworthiness, credibility and orientation.

Political information behaviour in social networks: frequency of interaction with political activities of others in social networks; frequency of own political activities in social networks; seen political content on the social networks Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube and WhatsApp; opinion on political posts and contributions in the used social networks; personal consequences of political oversupply; Facebook users: active search for political content or automatic display in newsfeed; comparison of the quality of political discussions within and outside social networks; friends in social networks personally known; similar or rather different political views of these friends; own reaction to political posts of friends; following politicians, parties and political institutions in social networks; following persons and organizations sharing personal political opinions or with different political opinions; reasons why the respondent follows politicians etc. in social networks; perception of hate comments; evaluation of the law against hate comments.

Information behaviour concerning the Federal Government: importance of selected information offerings of the Federal Government; perception and frequency of use of these information offerings; expectations of information offerings of the Federal Government in social networks.

Living conditions: assessment of one´s own economic situation; satisfaction with democracy; democracy as a good form of government; party identification.

Demography: sex; age; household size; education; gainful employment; occupational status; federal state; city size; net household income.

Additionally coded was: weighting factor.