Voting in the Echo Chamber? Patterns of Political Online Activities and Voting Behavior in Switzerland

Ackermann, Kathrin; Stadelmann-Steffen, Isabelle (2022). Voting in the Echo Chamber? Patterns of Political Online Activities and Voting Behavior in Switzerland. Swiss political science review, 28(2), pp. 377-400. Wiley 10.1111/spsr.12498

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Understanding the political consequences of digitalization is among the key challenges for modern societies. A pressing issue is the question whether political online activities make individuals more close-minded and less willing to consider alternative arguments. We examine this question using a peculiarity of the Swiss electoral system – the possibility to split votes – as a behavioral outcome measure. We argue that political online activities might either make individuals less likely to split votes (“echo chamber”-argument) or more likely to spread their votes across parties (“deliberation”-argument). Empirically, we use data from the Swiss Election Study Selects 2019 to test these arguments. The results of a hierarchical logistic regression analysis do not support any of the conflicting arguments. Yet, additional analyses suggest that political interest moderates the relationship between online activities and vote splitting: political interest makes online activists more likely to split votes.

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