WhatsApp, polarization, and non‐conventional political participation: Chile and Colombia before the social outbursts of 2019

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• dc.contributor.author Scherman, Andrés
• dc.contributor.author Etchegaray, Nicolle
• dc.contributor.author Browne, Magdalena
• dc.contributor.author Mazorra, Diego
• dc.contributor.author Rojas, Hernando
• dc.date.accessioned 2022-11-02T07:30:16Z
• dc.date.available 2022-11-02T07:30:16Z
• dc.date.issued 2022
• dc.description.abstract Chile and Colombia are two South American countries with political and economic similarities that, during 2019, faced strong social outbursts, which translated into massive street protests and the weakening of their governments. Using data collected in the period immediately prior to the start of this social unrest, this study seeks to establish the role played by strong‐tied social media—which are generally homogeneous, formed by close people, and with a high potential for influ‐ encing their members—in three phenomena associated with political conflict: (a) perceived political polarization, (b) affec‐ tive polarization, and (c) non‐conventional political participation. To estimate this influence, information collected through surveys in Chile in 2017 and Colombia in 2018 was used within the framework of the Comparative National Elections project. In both countries, probabilistic samples were employed to do face‐to‐face interviews with samples of over 1,100 people. In both countries, the results show that the use of social media with strong ties, specifically WhatsApp, tends to be related to two of the studied phenomena: perceived political polarization and non‐conventional participation. An interaction is also observed between WhatsApp use and political ideology that amplifies the degree of perceived political polarization, affective polarization, and participation in one or both of the countries studied. We conclude by arguing that this dual phenomenon of polarization and participation can be problematic for democracy, since polarized groups (or groups that have the perception that there is ideological polarization in the political elite) tend to consider the position of the rest of the citizens to be illegitimate, thus undermining collective problem‐solving.
• dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
• dc.identifier.citation Scherman A, Etchegaray N, Browne M, Mazorra D, Rojas H. WhatsApp, polarization, and non‐conventional political participation: Chile and Colombia before the social outbursts of 2019. Media and communication. 2022;10(4):77-93. DOI: 10.17645/mac.v10i4.5817
• dc.identifier.doi https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i4.5817
• dc.identifier.issn 2183-2439
• dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54651
• dc.language.iso eng
• dc.publisher Cogitatio Press
• dc.rights © 2022 by the author(s); licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY).
• dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• dc.rights.uri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
• dc.subject.keyword affective polarization
• dc.subject.keyword Chile
• dc.subject.keyword Colombia
• dc.subject.keyword non‐conventional political participation
• dc.subject.keyword political polarization
• dc.subject.keyword social media
• dc.subject.keyword WhatsApp
• dc.title WhatsApp, polarization, and non‐conventional political participation: Chile and Colombia before the social outbursts of 2019
• dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
• dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion