TY - JOUR
T1 - How do healthy political discussions invigorate online participation? Evidence from 17 European countries
AU - Castro, Laia
AU - Theocharis, Yannis
AU - Stępińska, Agnieszka
AU - Hopmann, David Nicolas
AU - Schemer, Christian
AU - Aalberg, Toril
AU - Cardenal, Ana S.
AU - Corbu, Nicoleta
AU - de Vreese, Claes
AU - Esser, Frank
AU - Koc-Michalska, Karolina
AU - Matthes, Jörg
AU - Sheafer, Tamir
AU - Splendore, Sergio
AU - Stanyer, James
AU - Strömbäck, Jesper
AU - Stetka, Václav
AU - van Aelst, Peter
AU - Zoizner, Alon
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
PY - 2025/10
Y1 - 2025/10
N2 - Social media provide unprecedented opportunities for public deliberation. However, a growing number of users perceive negativity in political debate taking place in those venues and are increasingly frustrated when discussing politics with those they disagree with. In this article, we test the proposition that perceiving online discussions as healthier (i.e. more polite and civil) than offline discussions invigorates online political participation. We rely on an online survey fielded in 17 European countries on more than 28,000 individuals. Our findings indicate that being embedded in healthier discussions on social media is more of an important predictor of online participation for those respondents reporting higher political discussion fatigue and less so for those perceiving online discussions as fun. Overall, our study offers cross-national evidence of why and for whom exposure to healthy political discussions online might be mobilizing.
AB - Social media provide unprecedented opportunities for public deliberation. However, a growing number of users perceive negativity in political debate taking place in those venues and are increasingly frustrated when discussing politics with those they disagree with. In this article, we test the proposition that perceiving online discussions as healthier (i.e. more polite and civil) than offline discussions invigorates online political participation. We rely on an online survey fielded in 17 European countries on more than 28,000 individuals. Our findings indicate that being embedded in healthier discussions on social media is more of an important predictor of online participation for those respondents reporting higher political discussion fatigue and less so for those perceiving online discussions as fun. Overall, our study offers cross-national evidence of why and for whom exposure to healthy political discussions online might be mobilizing.
KW - cross-national
KW - online incivility
KW - political discussions
KW - political participation
KW - social media
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105026217492
U2 - 10.1177/20563051251350978
DO - 10.1177/20563051251350978
M3 - Article
SN - 2056-3051
VL - 11
JO - Social Media + Society
JF - Social Media + Society
IS - 4
ER -