The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics

The social media platforms Facebook and Twitter include political areas, for example presentations of political parties or elected representatives, or political hashtags linking tweets to specific political public spheres. In a sense, such areas might not be considered as third spaces because they are explicitly political. This chapter argues that everyday political talk—particularly in third spaces—has the potential to overcome many of the identified issues with online deliberation, including political polarisation and the avoidance of political talk. Content analysis of political, and particularly partisan-framed online groups, has also found polarization. One of the most prominent debates, to date, has been whether the Internet will become polarized, with like-minded people flocking together, enabling them to ignore alternative viewpoints. Moreover, as the use and understanding of the Internet as a space for political debate expanded, this was accompanied by more refined theorizing of the Internet as a public sphere and space for deliberation.