3. Political Polarization and Social Media
The media bears a significant amount of responsibility for highlighting the most pressing concerns in society. People consider online media far more effective in this respect, and they prefer it over traditional media when it comes to following up on citizen rights concerns, as traditional media must follow a winning strategy and do more in this regard (
Aldamen 2017). Social media, particularly Twitter, has evolved from a mere communication tool to a crucial tool for information dissemination and aiding in identifying individuals in need. It has been widely used by official accounts, informational accounts, and citizens, aiding rescue and relief efforts during crises, demonstrating its transformative impact on individuals (
Aldamen and Hacimic 2023). There are complicated interactions between social media and traditional media. However, it is obvious that social media has evolved into a tool for traditional media reporting; just consider how frequently a tweet from @realDonaldTrump follows a news item about the president. At the same time, stories created by traditional news media sites make up a large portion of the political content shared on social media (
Tucker et al. 2018).
Media polarization is both a cause and an effect of political polarization. Individuals follow media outlets that represent their political ideas in this process. As a result, people have the opportunity to interpret the news through the lens of their worldview. Polarization in the media may reach a stage where people who have quite diverse perspectives on the world and find it impossible to grasp what others think surround followers of various political parties (
Erdoğan 2018). The inception of social media was attributed to political polarization, according to many researchers. They claim that social media creates “echo chambers” in which a consumer and his friends are not able to view material that does not comply with their point of view (see, for example,
Pariser 2011;
Sunstein 2009;
Mutz 2006;
Hindman 2008), and that social media practices encourage this situation (see, for example,
Sambrook 2016;
El-Bermawy 2016;
Allcott et al. 2019). More recent research claims that social media does not necessarily raise polarization (
Boxell et al. 2017), but rather can minimize it by introducing users to a variety of viewpoints and therefore lead to less narrow political views (
Dubois and Blank 2018;
Algan et al. 2019;
Barber’a 2015). This is because social media such as Twitter or Facebook spans a far bigger network than just direct connections, exposing individuals to other political perspectives through their weak ties and hence making them less likely to have extreme political views. Both points of view appear to be rational and have empirical backing (
Campbell et al. 2019).
In terms of its capability of increasing polarized ideas on the Internet, social media has received considerable interest in comparison with other media outlets due to its ability to create networks between people who share the same perspectives (
Hong and Kim 2016). Moreover, other researchers claim that the open structure of web 2.0 permits users to consume a diverse range of ideological perspectives, which was not available before the Internet (
Garrett et al. 2011;
Mutz and Mondak 2006;
Hong and Kim 2016).
Echo chambers had opposite effects than expected. Members in each group leaned toward the opinions of the other group. This unexpected result happened because the group that the study was conducted on was egalitarian; there were no influencers among them. Therefore, ideas were spread among the group based on their quality rather than the person holding them. Social media platforms are centralized, meaning that a small number of people or just one “influencer” at the center is connected to the majority of normal users at the “periphery”. Ideas are filtered through, or sometimes even blocked, by a powerful social influencer on centralized networks, like many social media sites. In a centralized echo chamber, even a modest amount of partisan bias displayed by the influencer can be magnified across the entire group (
Centola 2020).
Users may polarize over time if they are exposed to mostly attitudinal material because of their social and algorithmic recommendations. Online selective exposure, according to
Lelkes et al. (
2017), is a likely cause of their finding that broadband internet access is linked to increasing political and emotional polarization. However, among selective exposure researchers, there is still controversy and conflicting findings concerning the effect of social media on the media material people choose to consume (
Beam et al. 2018).
Growing political involvement caused by social media has indirectly contributed to political polarization, even though there are no direct effects of social media utilization (
Lee et al. 2018). Active social media users were more inclined to contribute to political processes, which resulted in them adopting more radical political beliefs over time than those who did not. Discussing political differences can widen the cleavage in the viewpoints of those participating in political debate and aggravate polarization, according to some studies (
Lee et al. 2018).
4. Echo Chambers and Polarization
The group polarization theory indicates the proclivity of a group to make decisions that are riskier than the average individual decisions made by members before the group meeting. Subsequent social psychology studies revealed that a similar tendency applies more broadly to changes in attitude and opinion following a debate (
Proietti 2017).
An echo chamber can operate as a mechanism to reinforce an existing view inside a group and, consequently, push the entire group toward more extreme perspectives. Echo chambers have been identified as a growing result of human characteristics such as selective exposure, contagion, and group polarization, according to certain research. However, the effects of echo chambers, as well as their very existence, have lately been called into doubt. Users can communicate in a variety of ways on different platforms, ranging from retweets and mentions on Twitter to likes and comments in groups on Facebook, resulting in quite varied social dynamics (
Cinelli et al. 2021).
The concepts of echo chambers and filter bubbles represent the widespread public apprehension that the use of social media will reduce the number of pieces of information users view or absorb online, blocking a common pattern of knowledge transfer. The concern is that social media algorithms, when paired with a desire to engage with like-minded individuals, will build an environment in which users will be exposed to pleasant, opinion-reinforcing material at the expense of more diverse, opinion-challenging information.
Researchers’ capacity to examine the presence or development of echo chambers and filter bubbles is hampered by a lack of consensus over their conception and quantification, despite decades of interest in the topic (
Kitchens et al. 2020). Indeed, there are elements of popular social media sites that may encourage information-limiting settings. People in online social networks, for example, communicate more frequently with like-minded people, just as they do in physical interactions.
Bakshy et al. (
2015) revealed that more than 80 percent of Facebook connections had the same party affiliation in a survey of 10.1 million U.S. Facebook users with self-reported ideological affiliation (
Kitchens et al. 2020). Individuals prefer to consume opinion-reinforcing news sources over opinion-challenging news sources, even within this already confined option set, according to selective exposure theory (
Frey 1986).
Garrett (
2009) found evidence for this trend in a field experiment with 727 online news consumers, who reported interest in reading online news items that they judged to be supportive of their current perspective and reluctance to read stories that challenged their existing opinion.
Scholars have long been concerned that algorithmic filtering might restrict the variety of information sources that people are exposed to, engage with, or consume. Social media networks have been found in several pieces of research to be information-expanding. Users can utilize social media to find new information sources, thus broadening the range of ideas, opinions, and information to which they are exposed (
Kitchens et al. 2020).
Because the majority of Turkish social media users who observe political headlines choose media and people who share their existing partisan beliefs, most of the Turkish audience members live in echo chambers, responding primarily to sources and individuals within their party groups. Confirmation bias is widespread among news consumers, which is worsened by partisanship and low-quality news production throughout the Turkish digital media industry (
Kirdemir 2020). This polarization is not curable with social media. A Twitter account is used by one third of all internet users. Only 15 percent of them routinely post political thoughts on Twitter, while almost half of all users never do so. Furthermore, 60 percent of Twitter users claim to follow individuals who share their viewpoints. The situation is no different for Facebook users, who account for 87 percent of all internet users. Only 7 percent of Facebook users express their political views, while 56 percent never do so. Two-thirds of Facebook users say their Facebook friends share their political viewpoints (
Erdoğan 2018). Online and offline echo chambers, as well as “selective exposure to information,” are blamed for the problem. People in divided cultures prefer to access information from sources they consider to be politically aligned with their views or from sources that give information they already believe to be trustworthy. The entire isolation of knowledge from the outside is the consequence of such a communal process. Because of the focus on echo chambers, it was assumed that exposure to other or opposing viewpoints would reduce polarization and foster more moderate views and compromise (
Kirdemir 2020).
Partisanship and polarization are interwoven with misinformation, fake news, and other types of lies across the Turkish digital news ecosystem. The overall reality is depicted either as a conflict between a prevailing and rising country and internal and external players who want to destroy it or as a total disaster in which an inept government conspires against its inhabitants. As a result, polarization, poisonous remarks, personal assaults, and organized campaigns target opposing individuals and political parties throughout online social networks (
Kirdemir 2020). It is more and more likely that one of the main objectives of internet propaganda, which is frequently spread by automated social media accounts known as “bots,” is to ensure that some traditional media news pieces are viewed more frequently than others (
Sanovich et al. 2018).
Most of the previous research regarding this topic is concentrated on the U.S. population, whereas this study uses a sample of Turkish students, which contributes an international perspective. This study has significant implications for the developing discipline of computational social science as well as continuing initiatives to minimize political division on the Internet.
However, several researchers have contradicted this viewpoint, claiming that exposure to sources from the opposite party may increase rather than decrease political and social division. Receiving a consistent message from the other side may have the unintended consequence of increasing division among politically active liberal and conservative groups in the United States. Although the topic has yet to be answered, it is reasonable to conclude that the free flow of information and competing viewpoints across political groups do not inevitably help reduce polarization (
Kirdemir 2020).
The perception that the opposition parties, which are the main elements of the structural opposition in democratic systems, do not have the potential to be an alternative to power in the eyes of society has paved the way for rapid tension and polarization in the political field in Türkiye (
Tuncel 2014).
5. Methodological Framework of the Study
The Turkish society is more technologically evolved than other societies; thus, Turkish students use numerous media tools for various gratifications, such as learning, education, work, and business, information access, cultural and social interests, connecting with networks and families, establishing friendships, learning new skills, self-expression, conducting business, and finding employment (
Aldamen 2023c).
Because Turkish students are skilled at using various technical tools prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the results produced by these tools for them were deemed superior to those produced by other students (
Mohammad and Aldamen 2023). Thus, the rising amount of usage of social media among students’ age groups dictated the decision to choose students for this study. In addition, this age group is eligible to vote, which means that their opinions will have a significant effect on any upcoming election, referendum, etc.
The gap that the study tries to cover is the lack of comparative research on social media, particularly in the area of news consumption and polarized political opinion from the perspective of students. Consequently, the study aims to know if using social media is linked to having a polarized political opinion. This will be achieved by examining to what extent social media is creating echo chambers among students.
As a result, it aims to shed light on how Turkish students deal with social media platforms and how they are affected by them in terms of political polarization.
Depending on that, the study hypothesized that social media has an effect on political polarization among Turkish students.
Depending on the above hypothesis, the study poses this main question:
Is there a link between social media platforms and political polarization in Türkiye among Turkish students?
The sub-questions are the following:
Is the use of social media linked to the level of political polarization among Turkish students?
Do the top four platforms used in Türkiye (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube) contribute differently to creating echo chambers?
Can social media be a solution to the spiral of silence for students? In other words, do they feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts about them?
Does social media have a polarizing or depolarizing effect? i.e., does it help users to be more open to the ideas of the supporters of their opposing party?
Do social media algorithms contribute to creating filter bubbles through the content they suggest to the user?
How much do Turkish students depend on social media to form their political news?
The study has the following limitations:
Spatial limits: The study includes all Turkish university students enrolled in the Republic of Türkiye, ages 18–50+, at the educational levels of undergraduate, Master’s, and PhD.
Time limits: Both quantitative and qualitative tools of the study were conducted between 26 April and 1 June 2022.
7. Discussion of the Results
The majority of the Turkish students expressed that they felt distant from their opposing party at a maximum level. The social distance that political party supporters feel toward “the most distant” political party followers is one of the most important indices of political division (
Erdoğan 2018). As the questionnaire’s data show, 38.9 percent of the participants had a high degree of disagreement with the party they felt was the furthest away. This gives us an indication that the more students used social media, the further they felt from their opposing party, thereby increasing the level of political polarization.
The results showed that Turkish students do not trust the news they see on social media. Regarding that issue, the participants in the focus group mainly stated three reasons for it. First, they believe that the news on social media focuses more on speed than credibility, as it does not specify a source, as it is understood from Extract 1. They also believe that social media is full of disinformation and that the news there is not objective. Social media is not solely used for keeping up with political developments; there can be other uses as well. When the participants were asked about the subjects they follow, their answers included subjects like music, food, fashion, sports, and entertainment, as the participant in Extract 2 stated. Moreover, the majority of the Turkish students conveyed that they follow news pages on social media that are compatible with their preexisting ideas, as 70.7 percent of the participants agreed to the statement “the news accounts or pages I follow are compatible with my political ideas” on different levels. That gives us an indication that social media in general creates echo chambers, meaning that they create environments where people around them reinforce their opinions and they do not have to face any different or challenging ones.
As well, most of the students said that they would not share their thoughts on a fake account. Extract 4 is an example from the focus group discussion when students were asked whether they use fake accounts or not. The quantitative results showed that about half of the Turkish students do not follow political leaders on social media, regardless of whether they are from the party they support or not. In order to explore that more, the students were asked: “If a celebrity and a political leader you liked were on a live broadcast at the same time, which would you watch and why?”.
The focus group discussion showed the same results: half of them said they would watch the celebrity, while the other half said they would watch the political leader, which was clearly stated in Extracts 5 and 6.
After the comparison among platforms, the results showed that Twitter is the one that contributes the most to creating echo chambers, with 51.7% of its users saying that the political views of the accounts they follow on Twitter are compatible with theirs on different levels. YouTube, on the other hand, is the least popular; most YouTube users either do not have an account on it or follow channels that hold different views from theirs. Instagram and Facebook came second and third place, respectively. The different nature of each platform justifies the result. However, all of the top four platforms used in Türkiye (YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook) had a low effect.
The questionnaire answers indicated that the vast majority of the Turkish students do not prefer to share their thoughts on social media, regardless of the platform. The focus group discussion showed that the main reason behind that is that they are afraid that their posts and comments are being censored, which can affect their future, as the participant in Extract 3 clarified.
According to the spiral of silence of
Noelle-Neumann (
1974), minority groups are not usually willing to speak out about their opinions because they are afraid of being isolated and cut off from their social connections. Individuals will rather agree with the consensus stated in their social surroundings than offer an opposing opinion or viewpoint. The spiral of silence theory states that people refrain from revealing their political views if they believe they are in the minority (
Erdoğan 2018).
The same thing applies to social media as well, in which minority groups, including vulnerable groups such as, for example, refugees, hide their opinions, views, and preferences when they think that they fall within a minority group. They fear social isolation through social media (
Aldamen 2023b). Individuals who adopt an opinion that is supported by the majority in a given environment feel entitled to express their opinions freely, whereas others who have the opinion of the minority refrain from doing so. Individuals feel pushed to observe their environment due to their fear of social isolation. The results of this study have shown that a number of students abstain from expressing their opinions on social media, as
Figure 1 shows.
Being in the minority makes it understandable that some people prefer to hide their opinions, views, and preferences. They prefer to be silent; maybe it is because they do not want to be attacked by the majority when their opinion does not fit public opinion. When people encounter aggressive comments, they prefer to keep silent and not be attacked by the majority when their opinion does not fit the public’s opinion. The silence deepened as the minority quieted down and the majority grew. This theory explains how public opinion is formed in a rapidly changing media environment. Therefore, the inclination of one group to express their opinion and the other does not generates a spiraling process where some opinions are heard and others are muted, irrespective of their representation in a community (
Matthes 2015). People with extreme beliefs won’t blend in with the political scene. These people have views that are wholly unrelated to the general consensus at the moment.
Web 2.0 offers more platforms and opportunities to express opinions that disagree with popular opinion, but it still has a role in telling what popular opinion is. Social media can also play a role in enforcing the majority’s opinion (
Aldamen 2023b).
Many people are exhausted by the amount of political content they have to face on social media, even though they appreciate its capacity for political information sharing and interaction. They feel uncomfortable when they argue about politics on social media with other users who do not hold the same views as theirs. When they are faced with a dispute and do not believe their friends or followers sympathize with them, Facebook and Twitter users are less likely to speak up (
Hampton et al. 2014).
The results have shown us that students are afraid that their posts and comments are being censored, which can affect their future, as participant 1 in Extract 3 stated. Hence, social media did not offer a platform for people to speak out. We saw this when participants were asked whether they felt more comfortable expressing their political thoughts on social media than face-to-face, and 106 participants (35.3 percent) were negative about it.
When the participants were asked about whether social media has helped them be more open to others’ ideas or agree with the ideas of the opposing party on some internal issues, their answers showed a medium tendency toward social media being helpful in that matter, yet the numbers are not high enough to consider social media as a solution to the polarization issue. This is a good indication that social media can have a positive contribution in making people more open to each other’s ideas in certain cases, but since the effect was only moderate, to solve the polarization situation, other social and political aspects should be taken into consideration.
It is noted that social media algorithms contribute to a medium degree to creating filter bubbles through the content they suggest to the user. Therefore, the algorithms of the social media platforms show users content that is compatible with their views, restraining them to a medium degree from being open to opposing ones.
Social media algorithms also play a role in this process, as they work on customizing the suggested posts based on the users’ prior searches and interests, which limits the viewpoints that a social media user can view. Social media can play a positive role in depolarizing users. As the participants showed, they can agree on some points with the supporters of their opposing party. Depending on the answers to the questionnaire, the majority of the sample of the Turkish students do not trust the news they see on social media, and they do not follow political leaders. The reasons behind that were that they believe that the news is full of disinformation, that many articles are presented without a trustworthy source, that they are not objective, and that the news on social media relies more on speed than credibility.
The results showed that Turkish students do not rely on social media platforms to obtain political news, and most of them do not follow political leaders on social media. When students were asked about their trust in the news on social media, the participant in Extract 1 stated that they do not.
The results show that 57.4 percent of Turkish students do not follow the accounts of the leaders of the party to which they feel closest, while 56.4 percent of the Turkish students do not follow the leaders of the party to which they feel furthest. This can be for several reasons, such as a lack of trust in political news on social media, political leaders not being successful in addressing the students on social media, and a lack of interest in politics on social media and using it for other causes.
Social media does have an effect on political polarization and can play a role in increasing it. Having said that, this effect is low to moderate. This can be due to several reasons, mainly the lack of trust in the media and politicians, as well as the alternative uses and contents of social media such as art, entertainment, and sports. The results approved the hypothesis that social media has an effect on political polarization among Turkish students even if that effect is low or moderate, which can be explained to several reasons, above all the lack of trust in the media and politicians, but also the alternative uses and contents of social media such as art, entertainment, and sports.
As the results show, all the samples use social media at a high level in terms of time spent on them and the number of checks. In addition, the majority feel very distant from their opposing party. Most of the students stated that they do not express their political opinions on any of the top four platforms. When discussed in the focus group, the participants explained that they do not want to face backlash or possible problems.