What is it about?
Political polarization on Twitter varies greatly across democratic countries. Possible factors explaining the variance are national electoral rules and party systems. A 16-country analysis shows that polarization is the highest in two-party systems with plurality electoral rules and the lowest in multi-party systems with proportional voting.
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Why is it important?
The issue of political polarization on social media is actively discussed by both, academics and the general public. However, most of the evidence on the matter comes from just one country - the US. This paper shows that polarization levels vary greatly across democracies, hence, the findings from the US can not be generalized to the other states. When speaking about polarization on social media, national political contexts need to be taken into account.
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This page is a summary of: Context matters: political polarization on Twitter from a comparative perspective, Media Culture & Society, October 2019, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0163443719876541.
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