How do Healthy Political Discussions Invigorate Online Participation? Evidence from 17 European Countries

IF 4.9 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Social Media + Society Pub Date : 2025-10-19 DOI:10.1177/20563051251350978

Laia Castro, Yannis Theocharis, Agnieszka Stępińska, David Nicolas Hopmann, Christian Schemer, Toril Aalberg, Ana Sofia Cardenal, Nicoleta Corbu, Claes de Vreese, Frank Esser, Karolina Koc-Michalska, Jörg Matthes, Tamir Sheafer, Sergio Splendore, James Stanyer, Jesper Strömbäck, Václav Štětka, Peter Van Aelst, Alon Zoizner

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Social media provide unprecedented opportunities for public deliberation. However, a growing number of users perceive negativity in political debate taking place in those venues and are increasingly frustrated when discussing politics with those they disagree with. In this article, we test the proposition that perceiving online discussions as healthier (i.e. more polite and civil) than offline discussions invigorates online political participation. We rely on an online survey fielded in 17 European countries on more than 28,000 individuals. Our findings indicate that being embedded in healthier discussions on social media is more of an important predictor of online participation for those respondents reporting higher political discussion fatigue and less so for those perceiving online discussions as fun. Overall, our study offers cross-national evidence of why and for whom exposure to healthy political discussions online might be mobilizing.

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健康的政治讨论如何激发网络参与？来自17个欧洲国家的证据

社交媒体为公众讨论提供了前所未有的机会。然而，越来越多的用户认为在这些场所进行的政治辩论是消极的，并且在与他们不同意的人讨论政治时越来越感到沮丧。在这篇文章中，我们测试了一个命题，即认为在线讨论比离线讨论更健康（即更有礼貌和文明），从而激发了在线政治参与。我们在17个欧洲国家对28,000多人进行了在线调查。我们的研究结果表明，对于那些对政治讨论感到高度疲劳的受访者来说，参与社交媒体上更健康的讨论更能预测在线参与，而对于那些认为在线讨论很有趣的受访者来说，这一点则不那么重要。总的来说，我们的研究提供了跨国证据，说明在线健康的政治讨论可能会动员的原因和对象。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Social Media + Society COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

9.20

自引率

3.80%

发文量

111

审稿时长

12 weeks

期刊介绍： Social Media + Society is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that focuses on the socio-cultural, political, psychological, historical, economic, legal and policy dimensions of social media in societies past, contemporary and future. We publish interdisciplinary work that draws from the social sciences, humanities and computational social sciences, reaches out to the arts and natural sciences, and we endorse mixed methods and methodologies. The journal is open to a diversity of theoretic paradigms and methodologies. The editorial vision of Social Media + Society draws inspiration from research on social media to outline a field of study poised to reflexively grow as social technologies evolve. We foster the open access of sharing of research on the social properties of media, as they manifest themselves through the uses people make of networked platforms past and present, digital and non. The journal presents a collaborative, open, and shared space, dedicated exclusively to the study of social media and their implications for societies. It facilitates state-of-the-art research on cutting-edge trends and allows scholars to focus and track trends specific to this field of study.