Twitter, the Digital Public Sphere, and New Political Participation

*Originally submitted January, 2025 for the Communication: Cultures and Approaches course in fulfillment of the MSc Media and Communications program at the London School of Economics.

Introduction

The emergence of social media as a new “digital public sphere” has greatly impacted citizen political participation and the formation of public opinion. In a modern democratic society, where citizen deliberation is crucial to the presence of a functioning political system and public sphere, social media platforms have impacted the speed, accessibility, and content of such deliberation. When mobile phones are factored into the equation, citizens effectively have the ability to say whatever they like to anybody else online, across the globe, at any time of day. While this may initially have seemed like a massive step in the right direction for increasing political participation, over time, drawbacks of these platforms have emerged as potentially threatening to both political participation and the maintenance of an ideal democratic society. Today, social media platforms such as Twitter greatly undermine political participation through user behavior, content messaging, and platform architecture itself. 

Political Participation

To examine how Twitter undermines political participation, we must first define and understand political participation. Political participation, while crucial to a democratic society, has to be an elective process–citizens must be motivated to be involved and believe they are able to enact change (Dahlgren, 2009). In some democratic models, such as the elite democratic model, lesser citizen participation is seen as a sign of a healthy and functioning system, wherein individuals trust politicians to handle politics on their behalf. In a representative democracy, however, mobilized citizen involvement in the political sphere is encouraged and expected (Dahlgren, 2009). Activities constituting political participation include voting, party participation, canvassing and petitioning, citizen contact, protesting and even consumer behavior (Theocharis et al., 2023). In today’s mediated society, political participation has expanded to online participation as well. Social media and digital tools have both made some of this activity easier and faster, as well as created new methods of participation that do not exist offline (Theocharis et al., 2023). Theocharis (2015) defines digitally networked participation as “a networked media-based personalized action that is carried out by individual citizens with the intent to display their own mobilization and activate their social networks in order to raise awareness about, or exert social and political pressures for the solution of a social or political problem,” (p. 6).

Modern democracies such as the United States have long debated how to increase citizen political participation, with individuals most citing feelings of powerlessness and cynicism and persistent social and economic inequalities as reasons for not participating (Dahlgren, 2009). Further, cultural norms may limit political discussion, especially in the middle class, where such topics can be viewed as disruptive or inappropriate. This is coupled with a decline in formal institutions and third spaces outside of the home to carry out such activity–partially driven by an increase in time spent online (Dahlgren, 2009). When social media platforms emerged, there was a sense of hope that this online space would emerge as a new public sphere, where such conversations could take place.

The Digital Public Sphere

Habermas (2006) identified three elements needed for modern democracy: the private autonomy of citizens, democratic citizenship, and an independent public sphere. Habermas’s public sphere is a space for free and open expression of opinion and exchange of information and ideas, independent from institutional or economic influence, central to upholding democratic society (Kruse et al., 2018; Smith & Niker, 2021). In democratic society, open deliberation is necessary to reach informed conclusions and formulate political opinions, as well as to form public opinion and give political elites guide rails for what will be deemed as acceptable action (Habermas, 2006). All of these conditions considered, many scholars believed that social media would provide us with a digital public sphere where open and accessible political deliberation could finally take place (Kruse et al., 2018; Smith & Niker, 2021). When faced with this prospect in 2006, Habermas wrote, “mediated political communication in the public sphere can facilitate deliberate legitimation processes in complex societies only if a self-regulating media system gains independence from its social environments” and if “anonymous audiences grant feedback between an informed elite discourse and a responsive civil society” (pp. 411-412). Twitter, while once seen as the potential facilitator of a new digital public sphere, falls short of these expectations. 

Platform Affordances

I am specifically using Twitter (now rebranded as X) to illustrate social media’s impact on political participation, as the architecture and affordances of the platform make it particularly suited for open communication and deliberation. Social media emerged as the most advanced form of one-to-many communication, and Twitter pushed this even further towards many-to-many communication (Mounk, 2018). In 2024, 59% of Twitter users reported that they used the platform to keep up with politics or political issues, and 65% of users reported using the platform to get news (Gelles-Watnick et al., 2024). In the same study, 74% of users reported that “at least some” of the content they encountered on the platform was political, and an equal number reported posting political content on Twitter because they felt it was “something they should do,” with 67% of platform users reporting that politics “belong” on Twitter (Gelles-Watnick et al., 2024). At the end of 2023, Twitter reported roughly 421 million monthly active users.

Twitter’s platform affordances, defined as possibilities for action through a technology (Kim & Ellison, 2022), are summarized by Theocharis et al. (2023) as “designed in such a way as to facilitate the formation and maintenance of networks based on shared interests or thin ties, without the need for mutual consent to establish a connection between people” (p. 793). Twitter’s text-based platform allows users to observe the political activity of others without requiring users to “friend” one another or limiting visibility (Kim & Ellison, 2022). This theoretically allows users to observe and learn proper political expression from one another. Coupled with platform affordances is a platform’s specific architecture, which shapes and upholds its affordances and user behaviors (Bossetta, 2018). Bossetta (2018) identifies the four elements of platform architecture as network structure (how users connect with one another), functionality (how content is accessed and distributed), algorithmic filtering (how content is prioritized for and seen by users), and datafication (how data is collected and used by platform owners). Twitter’s high searchability and default open privacy structure makes it more utilized by politicians (Theocharis et al., 2023), it is accessible across multiple devices, allows for editable content, the feed is not limited to connections or “friends,” features such as hashtags and retweets increase opportunities for organic reach, and Twitter data is used by politicians to mobilize and persuade users, as well as inform future campaigns (Bossetta, 2018). In theory, Twitter was expected to provide a low barrier to entry for citizens to access a breadth of opinions, untethered from space and time, which would give equal opportunity to historically marginalized voices and increase opportunities for mobilization and visibility (Shafique, 2024). In practice, however, the platform falls short of expectations.

Celebrity Politics

As previously stated, political participation and the public sphere require an independent media elite to provide checks on political figures, as well as independence from political and economic institutions. By democratizing access to this new digital public sphere, Twitter has given rise to the celebritization of contemporary politicians, both by users and politicians themselves. Where we once relied on the news media to facilitate access to political figures and political inner-workings, Twitter allows politicians to perform a highly-mediated image of themselves online directly to millions of users (Ekman & Widholm, 2014; McDonnell & Wheeler, 2019). This allows politicians to circumvent the traditional media system and utilize Twitter as a publicity-focused platform to increase political capital (Ekman & Widholm, 2014; McDonnell & Wheeler, 2019).

In a 2019 study, McDonnell & Wheeler analyzed the 35,244 tweets published by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. While the volume of messages itself is staggering, the authors discovered what they termed a constant performance of “charismatic authority.” This referenced Trump’s established strategy of “undercutting” his political opponents to boost his own authority and authenticity, contributing to a new mediated political landscape wherein a candidate’s “political persona” may hold more weight than one’s experience or ability. Going directly to Twitter also allowed Trump to broadcast hatred and falsehoods to a global audience where previously, a media elite would have been able to control the accessibility and spread of these messages (Ekman & Widholm, 2014; Mounk, 2018). This use of Twitter by politicians decidedly moves away from deliberation and citizen engagement and towards “branding and marketing of personalized political identities” (Ekman & Widholm, 2014). Trump’s successful celebritization, coupled with his hateful and deceitful messages and amplified by a network of bad actors, successfully managed to shape public opinion (Mounk, 2018). 

Opinion Leaders

The formation of public opinion is an essential outcome of political deliberation in the public sphere, which then informs political participation. At the center of Habermas’s political public sphere are journalists and politicians; peripherally included are thought and opinion leaders such as advocates, experts, moral entrepreneurs and intellections (Habermas, 2006). These thought leaders typically hold higher socioeconomic status, are more outgoing, better connected socially, and have higher levels of news exposure. This makes them uniquely positioned to impact public opinion efficiently and consistently–none of this is necessary to become a thought leader on Twitter (Park, 2013). By democratizing access to power, Twitter has contributed to a loss of control over the spread of ideas. Mounk (2018) identifies this as the defining feature of social media: its ability to level the playing field between insiders and outsiders and reshape “the standards of acceptable political discourse” (p. 146). 

Content on social media is contributed by everyday users who are not unbiased, fact-checked, or always acting in good faith (Kruse et al., 2018). In a 2013 study on thought leadership on Twitter, Park found that the most important factor was online network size–users just needed to provide enough noteworthy content or information to attract attention. The study concluded that thought leaders on Twitter were exposed to more media, but using the Internet as a “supplement to traditional news sources” and were highly motivated by public expression, which successfully predicted higher political participation. On Twitter, where anyone has the ability to become an “opinion-shaper,” both “epistemically powerful agents” and “non-epistemically powerful agents” have the same ability to amplify their messaging to larger and larger audiences, as well as the same ability to cause harm through the scale of social networks (Smith & Niker, 2021). These new digital opinion shapers have unprecedented capacity for spreading hatred and misinformation, the latter of which has been found to “distort political knowledge, reinforce biases, and lead to ill-informed decision making among the public” (Shafique, 2024, p. 142). 

Political Polarization and Echo Chambers

Many assumed that, with Twitter’s unrestricted access to millions of user’s opinions from across the globe, there would be increased political deliberation across parties and therefore improved political participation. As Habermas (2006) asserts, the aim of deliberation is to use informed debate to reach reasonable conclusions on relevant issues, “to ensure the formation of a plurality of considered public opinions” (p. 418). In reality, political polarization and the formation of echo chambers run rampant on Twitter, despite unprecedented access to differing viewpoints and opinions (Mounk, 2018). Many scholars have studied these phenomena and their associations to political participation.

A 2011 study by Conover et al. identified that, in the run-up to the U.S. 2010 congressional midterm, users engaging with politics on Twitter formed vast retweet networks that could be highly classified as left or right-leaning. Their findings supported their claim that those who participate in politics online tend to fall into echo chambers with similarly politically oriented users, leading to extremism when shielded from opposing views. They also found that when individual users interacted with other users through mention networks, they were more likely to encounter political messages they may not otherwise be exposed to across party lines–I will return to this idea in the next section.

Leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Kim & Ellison (2022) found a strong positive association between political observation and political activity on social media, but that the strength of this association decreased as network similarity and political homogeneity decreased. The more often users observed others in their network engaging in political activity, the more likely they were to engage themselves, confirming stronger positive relationships in politically homogeneous networks. This contributed to the formation of echo chambers and resistance to opposing views. The more users were exposed to different viewpoints, the weaker their potential for political activity. Kruse et al. (2018) found that this behavior was sometimes intentional, with users self-restricting content they have access to and to only see content from like-minded users, especially among older users who wanted to feel safer online. Polarization online not only furthers division and makes open-minded debate and exchange of information more difficult, it can also create distrust and dislike of others outside of your echo chamber (Shafique, 2024). 

Uncivil Behavior and Online Backlash

Social learning theory suggests that we can learn by observing the behaviors of others, rather than just through our own actions (Kim & Ellison, 2022, p. 2615). Platforms such as Twitter have expanded our capacity for social learning by exposing us to the actions and behaviors of others online, and younger people on social media are more likely to reproduce the political activities of their peers online (Kim & Ellison, 2022). The nature of much of this behavior, however, is uncivil and impolite. Referring back to the Conover et al. (2011) study, instances of increased heterogeneity in mention networks was not necessarily a positive finding. Combined with hashtag networks, they found that users deployed and co-opted hashtags across political parties, affiliations, and issues to deliberately expose that party to differing views as a form of “rage bait,” rather than information sharing across political divides. As the authors noted, “Many messages contain sentiments more extreme than you would expect to encounter in face-to-face interactions, and the content is frequently disparaging of the identities and views associated with users across the partisan divide” (Conover et al., 2011, p. 95). 

Habermas (2006) referenced numerous offline studies that documented the positive impact of face-to-face deliberation resulting in informed public opinion and shared ideas–mediated political communication does not produce the same outcomes. The absence of face-to-face interaction and lack of reciprocity between the roles of speakers and addressees on social media does not foster the same kind of deliberation necessary for a public sphere or political participation (Habermas, 2006). Rather, it leads to increasingly uncivil behavior. Scholars have identified contributing factors based on platform affordances, such as the ability for state, institutional, or even network surveillance online, an absence of social cues, and the ability to remain anonymous online, leading users to believe they may behave however they want with no consequences (Groshek & Cutino, 2016; Kruse et al., 2018). 

This “lack of respectful discourse, especially regarding politics” on Twitter ends up preventing many users from feeling safe to engage with politics online, with Krause et al. (2018) finding fear of online harassment and workplace surveillance as two of the most-cited reasons for Gen X and Millennial users. This mediated environment frequently produces heated exchange with either side trying to “win,” rather than the respectful debate or exchange of ideas necessary for political participation. Groshek & Cutino (2016) measured instances of incivility and impoliteness in political tweets across mobile and desktop, looking at topics such as gay marriage, genetically modified organisms, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Both incivility and impoliteness have been defined as behaviors that threaten democracy and create “unwillingness to agree or acquiesce for the sake of avoiding hurt feelings” (Groshek & Cutino, 2016, p. 2). Groshek & Cutino (2016) found that 39% of mobile tweets included “at least one indicator of incivility” compared to web, and 69.3% of mobile tweets had “at least one indicator of being impolite” (p. 6). This is especially significant when we consider that 80% of Twitter’s 421 million users access the platform on mobile devices, allowing them to be always connected and making it easier for users to act on impulsive behaviors (Business of Apps, 2024; Groshek & Cutino, 2016).

Platform Ownership, Algorithms, Datafication and (Lack of) Regulation

This uncivil and impolite behavior online is worsened by a lack of regulation by platform owners for their own gain, reinforced through algorithms and datafication. Many societal factors such as consumerism and nichification, propelled by new media and advertising and a rise in individualism in Western society, make it harder for everyone to agree. Under these conditions, consumers and market participation are valued over citizens and civic participation (Dahlgren, 2009). Again, media power in the public sphere is dependent on the channel, format, and medium, but must be self regulating; i.e. politically and economically independent in order to not abuse that power or cross over into the political sphere (Habermas, 2006). 

As a business, Twitter generated $3.4 Billion in revenue in 2023, 75% of which came from advertising (Business of Apps, 2024). Further, Twitter was purchased by Elon Musk in 2022. Following Donald Trump’s win in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Trump named Musk to lead his newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (Trotta & Beech, 2024). On Musk’s Twitter, algorithms favor sensational and highly emotional content, as it is more likely to go viral and maximize potential for reach and engagement, regardless of quality of information (Puschmann & Burgess, 2013). As a result, misinformation spreads “six times faster than factual news on social media” (Shafique, 2024, p. 145). Users are quick to contribute to the spread of misinformation online due to echo chambers and a desire to confirm or reinforce their own beliefs, with the prevalence of misinformation on Twitter believed to be around 25% (Shafique, 2024). When the “distribution and visibility of content is decided by algorithmic ranking, the coded operations implemented by developers have the power to shape users’ shared perceptions of culture, news, and politics” (Bossetta, 2018, p. 477).

Beyond algorithmically prioritizing sensationalized content, Twitter relies on the commodification of user data to increase the ad revenue on which it relies. Data is highly valuable to political and corporate actors, with the users producing it maintaining the least control over it (Puschmann & Burgess, 2013). Platform owners and developers deliberately alter platform architecture to further serve corporate interest, namely the selling of user data to corporate and political advertisers who can use the information to target messaging, persuade and mobilize users into political action, and inform future campaigns with both online and offline implications (Bossetta, 2018; Puschmann & Burgess, 2013). When economic factors are prioritized over the democratic, “corporate values such as winning, efficiency, calculability, and profitability are supplanting democratic values in ways that erode civic vitality” (Dahlgren, 2009, p. 20). A lack of regulation in favor of economic gain is distinctly at odds with Habermas’s conception of the public sphere. Social media have effectively expanded the scope of the public sphere, and democratic states have knowingly outsourced the conditions needed for a public sphere to social media companies. Just as the state has systems in place to protect and enable citizens’ rights and ability to participate in the public sphere, the same has to be true for social media companies and the digital public sphere (Smith & Niker, 2021). 

Conclusion

While there were high hopes that Twitter and other social media platforms could produce near-ideal conditions for the establishment of a digital public sphere, it is clear that this has not been the case. Twitter does allow everyday citizens to engage with one another across space and time and to share ideas, but more often than not, this ends up leading to polarization, echo chambers, and uncivil behavior. The situation is not helped by platform owners and political elites who take advantage of Twitter and its users’ data for corporate interest and financial gain, pushing politics further into the realms of entertainment and capitalism. Moving forward, state actors and social media companies must find a way to regulate these platforms in a way that fosters positive political participation without contributing to the spreading of misinformation, hatred, and political division. As cautioned by Mounk (2018), “in empowering outsiders, digital technology destabilizes governing elites all over the world and speeds up the pace of change. The effects are likely to stay with us for a long time” (p. 149). 

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