Centrist Voices Online: Political Engagement and Polarization in the European Digital Sphere

Abstract

The choice of topic was dictated by the specificity of contemporary communication and political realities. In an era of significant and continuously growing presence of social media in social life, political debate is increasingly taking place via the Internet. At the same time, we are witnessing intensified phenomena of polarization, the brutalization of political discourse, and the spread of politically motivated hate speech. In such a context, the question of who actually sets the tone of today’s political debate becomes particularly important: are these voices of reason, or rather radical, emotional messages that more easily break through in an algorithmically determined information environment? The aim of this article is to identify which group within the political spectrum is most active in political debate conducted online, especially on social media. An additional point of interest is how engagement in the digital dimension of political debate correlates with electoral participation. Selected variables from the ESS 11 study, completed in November 2024, are used to answer these questions. This article is also motivated by a desire to identify the segment of moderate voters and their role in the digital sphere of public debate. In a sense, it represents an attempt to locate the centrist voter – one who declares moderate political views – in an era dominated by narratives of the prevalence of extreme positions.