This research study examines whether different degrees of social media (SM) usage increase the likelihood of individual and collective political actions---such as voting behavior or participation in protests or rallies. Studies on social media (SM) usage and political behavior show a positive relationship between SM and political engagement (Boulianne 2015), although how SM usage is associated with individual versus collective political actions remains unclear. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, political strategist firm Cambridge Analytica and Russia's Internet Research Agency micro-targeted biased FB content towards politically-related groups to shape the political narratives around candidates and voting behavior. While the effects of these fake news articles on election results is unknown, this study revisits the relationship between SM usage and political actions and attitudes during this last election period.

Using the American National Election Survey 2016 Time Series Data, this study uses binary logistic and linear regression to reexamine the relationship between SM usage and political actions and attitudes surrounding the 2016 election. Parallel to previous studies, the researcher concludes that SM usage is moderately correlated to collective political actions, but remains weak and conditionally related to individualized political action.