research-article

Social media supporting political deliberation across multiple public spheres: towards depolarization

Authors:

Bryan C. Semaan,

Scott P. Robertson,

Misa MaruyamaAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '14: Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing

Pages 1409 - 1421

https://doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531605

Published: 15 February 2014 Publication History

Abstract

This paper reports on a qualitative study of social media use for political deliberation by 21 U.S. citizens. In observing people's interactions in the "sprawling public sphere" across multiple social media tools in both political and non-political spaces, we found that social media supported the interactional dimensions of deliberative democracy--the interaction with media and the interaction between people. People used multiple tools through which they: were serendipitously exposed to diverse political information, constructed diverse information feeds, disseminated diverse information, and engaged in respectful and reasoned political discussions with diverse audiences. When people's civic agency was inhibited when using a tool, they often adopted, or switched to, alternative media that could afford what they were trying to achieve. Contrary to the polarization perspective, we find that people were purposefully seeking diverse information and discussants. Some individuals altered their views as a result of the interactions they were having in the online public sphere.

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Index Terms

Social media supporting political deliberation across multiple public spheres: towards depolarization
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing and business

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cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '14: Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing

February 2014

1600 pages

ISBN:9781450325400

DOI:10.1145/2531602

General Chairs:
Susan Fussell
Cornell University
,
Wayne Lutters
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
,
Program Chairs:
Meredith Ringel Morris
Microsoft Research
,
Madhu Reddy
Penn State University

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Published: 15 February 2014

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CSCW '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 134 of 497 submissions, 27%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

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Rifat MDas DPoddar AJannat MSoden RSemaan BAhmed S(2024)The Politics of Fear and the Experience of Bangladeshi Religious Minority Communities Using Social Media PlatformsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869268:CSCW2(1-32)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
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