Citizens turn increasingly to social media to get their political information. However, it is currently unclear whether using these platforms actually makes them more politically knowledgeable. While some researchers claim that social media play a critical role in the learning of political information within the modern media environment, others posit that the great potential for learning about politics on social media is rarely fulfilled. The current study tests which of these conflicting theoretical claims is supported by the existing empirical literature. A preregistered meta-analysis of 76 studies (N = 442,136) reveals no evidence of any political learning on social media in observational studies, and statistically significant but substantively small increases in knowledge in experiments. These small-to-nonexistent knowledge gains are observed across social media platforms, types of knowledge, countries, and periods. Our findings suggest that the contribution of social media toward a more politically informed citizenry is minimal.

中文翻译：

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人们会在社交媒体上了解政治吗？对 76 项研究的荟萃分析

公民越来越多地转向社交媒体来获取他们的政治信息。然而，目前尚不清楚使用这些平台是否真的让他们更有政治知识。虽然一些研究人员声称社交媒体在现代媒体环境中的政治信息学习中发挥着关键作用，但其他人则认为社交媒体上学习政治的巨大潜力很少得到实现。当前的研究测试了现有实证文献支持这些相互矛盾的理论主张中的哪些。一项针对 76 项研究（N = 442,136）的预注册元分析显示，在观察性研究中，没有证据表明社交媒体上有任何政治学习，实验中的知识增长具有统计学意义，但实质上的增长很小。在社交媒体平台、知识类型、国家和时期都可以观察到这些小到不存在的知识收益。我们的研究结果表明，社交媒体对提高政治知情度的公民的贡献微乎其微。