Ideological views, social media habits, and information literacy

Abstract

According to liberal political theory, democracy can flourish only to the extent to which its citizenry have free access to information, are able to reason well, and, consequently, are able to make reasonable choices. The advent of Web 2.0 had opened up new ways to access, share and publish information about politics. Hence, many have argued how Web 2.0 represents the ultimate realization of participatory democracy. On the other hand, new information technologies have enabled consumers to filter and select content they want to be exposed to, thus making it possible for people to deprive themselves of “cross cutting” content. This could lead to group fragmentation and political polarization which is in contradiction with the republican ideal of deliberative democracy. By conducting a survey on social media habits on Facebook, the author tested this thesis about polarization in the case of Croatian students.