Social Media and Politics

Researchers studying social media and politics examine how platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok reshape the ways citizens encounter political information, form opinions, and participate in public life. A central concern is whether these tools genuinely broaden democratic engagement or whether uneven access to technology — the digital divide — reproduces and even deepens existing inequalities in political voice. Scholars also debate whether online environments support the kind of reasoned, open exchange that deliberative democracy requires, or whether algorithmic curation and partisan sorting undermine it. Active questions include how civic engagement translates across online and offline contexts, and what role platform design plays in determining whose speech reaches whom.

Works

133,001

Total citations

1,864,264

Keywords

Social MediaDigital DividePolitical ParticipationDeliberative DemocracyOnline CommunicationMedia Use