Abstract
A growing body of research has examined the uptake of social media by politicians, the formation of communication ties in online political networks, and the interplay between social media and political polarization. However, few studies have analyzed how social media are affecting communication in parliamentary networks. This is especially relevant in highly fragmented political systems in which collaboration between political parties is crucial to win support in parliament. Does MPs’ use of social media foster communications among parliamentarians who think differently, or does it result in like-minded clusters polarized along party lines, confining MPs to those who think alike? This study analyzes the formation of communication ties and the degree of homophily in the Dutch MPs’ @mention Twitter network. We employed exponential random graph models on a 1-year sample of all tweets in which Dutch MPs mentioned each other ( N = 7,356) to discover the network parameters (reciprocity, popularity, and brokerage) and individual attributes (seniority, participation in the parliamentary commissions, age, gender, and geographical area) that facilitate communication ties among parliamentarians. Also, we measured party polarization by calculating the external–internal index of the mentions. Dutch MPs’ communication ties arise from network dynamics (reciprocity, brokerage, and popularity) and from MPs’ participation in the parliamentary commissions, age, gender, and geographical area. Furthermore, there is a high degree of cross-party interactions in the Dutch MPs’ mentions Twitter network. Our results refute the existence of “echo chambers” in the Dutch MPs’ mentions Twitter network and support the hypothesis that social media can open up spaces for discussion among political parties. This is particularly important in fragmented consensus democracies where negotiation and coordination between parties to form coalitions is key.
Highlights
A growing body of research has examined the uptake of social media by politicians, the formation of communication ties in online political networks, and the interplay between social media and political polarization
We aim to tackle a gap in the literature when it comes to understanding the formation of communication ties and political polarization in online parliamentary networks
The selection was driven by significance levels and the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC)
Summary
A growing body of research has examined the uptake of social media by politicians, the formation of communication ties in online political networks, and the interplay between social media and political polarization. Few studies have analyzed how social media are affecting communication in parliamentary networks This is especially relevant in highly fragmented political systems in which collaboration between political parties is crucial to win support in parliament. Few studies have analyzed how social media are affecting communication in parliamentary networks (Borge Bravo & Esteve Del Valle, 2017; Hong & Sung, 2016) This is especially relevant that highly fragmented party systems become increasingly dominant in Europe. To understand how social media afford public debate in fragmented party systems, we study Dutch parliamentarians’ use of Twitter, asking how they form communication ties in and between political parties and whether this results in party polarization. This conceptualization of polarization differs from other political polarization constructs (e.g., party fragmentation) in its consideration of both the number of parties and the relations—in our case study, the mentions—between these parties as being potential explanatory factors of political polarization
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