Building Blocks: Online Political Promiscuity in Times of Polarization in Spain

Abstract

The exceptional levels of political polarization, party system fragmentation, and electoral volatility that Spain is currently experiencing, all recommend analysing the origins of these patterns. We employ a unique combination of individual-level survey and Twitter activity data pertaining to a sample of users of the Voting Advice Application we launched during the transformative 2015 Spanish general elections campaign to investigate the ideological determinants of individuals' online network building. Our results demonstrate that, among those following online parties/candidates' profiles, political promiscuity is the most common behaviour, though this behaviour depends heavily on users' broader online and offline political attitudes.