Litmus Test for a Democratic Public Sphere? Discussion on the Abortion Issue on Polish Twitter

Abstract

The paper’s aim is to present key findings of the analysis of the discussion on the abortion issue on Polish Twitter. Social media are believed to be a tool serving the political periphery to participate in political discourse and with the COVID- 19 pandemic they have become crucial in our everyday communication. In this context, the Twitter discussion on abortion issue and Women’s Strike protests that took place in October 2020 in Poland was analyzed. The discussion on the abortion issue itself in many countries brings broader questions on the state of public discourse and democratic processes, and the protests brought even more inquiries about freedom of speech or the right to protest. In total, 68,716 tweets were collected from October 20 till November 15, 2020, and analyzed with MAXQDA software to answer two main research questions: RQ1: Who was shaping the discussion in the analyzed period? RQ2: Were the two sides of the conflict represented in the discussion? The analysis showed great potential that Twitter has for Polish public discourse, but also many obstacles, problems, and even social cleavages manifesting in the analyzed discussion.