American media, Scandinavian audiences: Contextual fragmentation and polarisation among Swedes and Norwegians engaging with American politics
This article explores the contextual nature of fragmentation and polarisation – subjects that have attracted significant concern in the age of social media. I investigate the media sharing practices of Scandinavian Twitter users discussing the 2020 American presidential election, an event that attra...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Sciendo
2024-03-01
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| Series: | Nordicom Review |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2024-0010 |
| _version_ | 1797258271024742400 |
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| author | Robinson Jessica Yarin |
| author_facet | Robinson Jessica Yarin |
| author_sort | Robinson Jessica Yarin |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article explores the contextual nature of fragmentation and polarisation – subjects that have attracted significant concern in the age of social media. I investigate the media sharing practices of Scandinavian Twitter users discussing the 2020 American presidential election, an event that attracted international attention. Using links in tweets, I map the media networks of users in Sweden and Norway in their national languages and in English. This intranational approach provides a view into whether fragmentation and polarisation are characteristic of the audience or the media milieu. The findings show Scandinavian users exhibit low audience polarisation within their national languages, but they display polarisation similar to American users when engaging with English-language media. At the same time, media fragmentation is higher in the Norwegian language than in any other sphere. This article sheds light on the relationship between the sometimes-conflated concepts of fragmentation and polarisation and provides a discussion of the implications of political information sharing on transnational digital platforms. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T22:50:53Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-112dfcbdc4ec4a21a8071579b8428c08 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2001-5119 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T22:50:53Z |
| publishDate | 2024-03-01 |
| publisher | Sciendo |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Nordicom Review |
| spelling | doaj.art-112dfcbdc4ec4a21a8071579b8428c082024-03-18T10:29:25ZengSciendoNordicom Review2001-51192024-03-0145s112015110.2478/nor-2024-0010American media, Scandinavian audiences: Contextual fragmentation and polarisation among Swedes and Norwegians engaging with American politicsRobinson Jessica Yarin0Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo, NorwayThis article explores the contextual nature of fragmentation and polarisation – subjects that have attracted significant concern in the age of social media. I investigate the media sharing practices of Scandinavian Twitter users discussing the 2020 American presidential election, an event that attracted international attention. Using links in tweets, I map the media networks of users in Sweden and Norway in their national languages and in English. This intranational approach provides a view into whether fragmentation and polarisation are characteristic of the audience or the media milieu. The findings show Scandinavian users exhibit low audience polarisation within their national languages, but they display polarisation similar to American users when engaging with English-language media. At the same time, media fragmentation is higher in the Norwegian language than in any other sphere. This article sheds light on the relationship between the sometimes-conflated concepts of fragmentation and polarisation and provides a discussion of the implications of political information sharing on transnational digital platforms.https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2024-0010media fragmentationaudience polarisationtransnationalismnews sharingtwitterx |
| spellingShingle | Robinson Jessica Yarin American media, Scandinavian audiences: Contextual fragmentation and polarisation among Swedes and Norwegians engaging with American politics Nordicom Review media fragmentation audience polarisation transnationalism news sharing x |
| title | American media, Scandinavian audiences: Contextual fragmentation and polarisation among Swedes and Norwegians engaging with American politics |
| title_full | American media, Scandinavian audiences: Contextual fragmentation and polarisation among Swedes and Norwegians engaging with American politics |
| title_fullStr | American media, Scandinavian audiences: Contextual fragmentation and polarisation among Swedes and Norwegians engaging with American politics |
| title_full_unstemmed | American media, Scandinavian audiences: Contextual fragmentation and polarisation among Swedes and Norwegians engaging with American politics |
| title_short | American media, Scandinavian audiences: Contextual fragmentation and polarisation among Swedes and Norwegians engaging with American politics |
| title_sort | american media scandinavian audiences contextual fragmentation and polarisation among swedes and norwegians engaging with american politics |
| topic | media fragmentation audience polarisation transnationalism news sharing x |
| url | https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2024-0010 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT robinsonjessicayarin americanmediascandinavianaudiencescontextualfragmentationandpolarisationamongswedesandnorwegiansengagingwithamericanpolitics |