Like-minded and cross-cutting talk, network characteristics, and political participation online and offline: A panel study

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We test the role of like-minded and cross-cutting political discussion as a facilitator of online and offline political participation and examine the role of strong versus weak network ties. Most prior research on the topic has employed cross-sectional designs that may lead to spurious relationships due to the lack of controlled variables. The findings of a two-wave panel survey controlling the autoregressive effects suggest that cross-cutting talk with weak ties significantly dampens online but not offline political participation. However, no such effects were detectable for cross-cutting talk with strong ties. In addition, we found no effect of discussions involving like-minded individuals in either weak or strong network connections on online and offline forms of political engagement. Implications are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
JournalCommunications
Volume46
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)113-126
ISSN0341-2059
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • disagreement, like-minded and cross-cutting political discussion, political participation

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