Consumo de conteúdo político nas redes sociais e polarização política dos jovens portugueses

Abstract

Political polarization in the digital sphere is a topic of increasing mediatic prevalence. This relatively recent topic has received some attention in the literature that presented a big empirical scarcity 10 years ago, however, there are a few problems with it. “Political polarization” is a nebulous term that refers to any of three different concepts that only recently began being treated as separate: interactional polarization (tendency toward homophilic interactions), positional polarization (adopting increasingly extreme political positions) and affective polarization (negative attitudes and emotions toward political opposition). In addition, studies are almost exclusively quantitative and focused on X/Twitter. 10 semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to understand the internal processes and mechanisms in play during social media use of the Portuguese youth that culminate in different aspects of polarization (or lack thereof). The results show social media may contribute to an increase or decrease in all dimensions of polarization depending on the individual (likely due to the family or school environment they were socialized in). Heterophilic interactions may increase or decrease. Although interaction on social media trends toward homophily it includes, almost necessarily, some exposure to heterophilic content, except a minority of ideologies that are considered not just divergent but also dangerous or bigoted, these ideologies are filtered out or actively discredited making exposure to them inexistent or irrelevant. Consequently, affective polarization levels are also selectively low, with the exception being individuals who adhere to these dangerous ideologies, with whom interaction and friendship is undesirable. Political positions moderated or grew extreme depending on the individual, the study of this dimension was, however, the least successful. The exploratory nature of the study revealed a lot of relevant factors that are rare or absent in the literature which lead to suggestions on how to improve future analysis. The internship occurred in TVI’s Social Media Lab between the 6th of February and the 6th of June, however, because of this date, the topic and research had to be relatively independent.

Date of Award	11 Jul 2024
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rita Figueiras (Supervisor)