Social Media and Political participation: Shaping democratic discourse in the digital age

Pradeep Nair^1*Tobias Eberwein²Cassian Scruggs Sparkes-Vian³

• ¹Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamsala, India
• ²Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
• ³University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom

media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and Instagram has not only allowed people to participate in real-time discussions and debates but have also given them an edge to share and consume political content across time and geographical boundaries [1]. It further empowered the marginalized communities by allowing them to speak their opinions and interact with others who share their perspective without any compulsions [2].Despite the increasing role of social media in active political governance and policy domain, its socio-political consequences remain less explored. There is no doubt that in recent times, social media has become a crucial force in contemporary political world with more insights on how people access and engage with political information in their day-to-day life [3]. A large number of people worldwide have their dependency on social media for access to news and information. This overwhelming response to social media as the most preferred platform for communication has spurred considerable scholarly interest in defining the role of social media in modern democracy [4]. This research topic collection provides a body of research having new insights on how social media proves itself as an effective tool for accomplishing political goals by raising public awareness, changing people's minds about issues, getting elected officials to pay attention to issues influencing policy decisions [5]. The published topic collection has studies having a diverse and vast coverage. The research article "Informing vs. promotingthe use of TikTok on France TV, BBC, and SVT" by Gonzales et al. intends to understand the use of TikTok by public broadcasters -France TV, BBC, and SVT to measure its informational and promotional relevance on the platform, and to identify the types of videos that generate the highest levels of engagement among users. The study examines the news profile associated with the information and the corporate profile of each of the selected broadcasters. The findings of the study revealed an interest in both promotional and informational content shared by the platform on the TikTok. In the case of SVT, higher levels of engagement were observed in comparison to BBC and France TV profiles. We hope that this research topic collection will prove its worth for the readers by giving them some new insights on the opportunities and challenges of social media communication in political discourse. In this age of digital communication, we must acknowledge that the social media has proved its relevance in engaging a large number of people in political discourse by allowing marginalized voices to be heard. Due to its hyper-interactive nature, social media has the potential to draw attention of people to a large number of issues which were less reported and represented in mainstream commercial media [8]. The variety and inclusiveness of political discourse on social media has given a larger representation of diverse view-points to be heard and contested. But at the same time, social media has also posed new challenges to political dialogues in terms of conspiracy theories, fake news, propagandas [6]. The correspondence of users' pre-existing ideas with social media algorithms results in frequent emphasis of issues resulting in echo-chambers further dividing and polarizing diverse dialogues and views [7]. Despite these challenges, social media is till date the most preferred platform for political communication, participation and discourse, giving everyone a space