Review Article

Social media, fragmentation, and polarization in the platformized public sphere: Making the case for WhatsApp research

Javier Martín Merchán 1 * , Carlos Rico Motos 1
More Detail
1 Department of International Relations, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid, SPAIN* Corresponding Author
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 16(2), April 2026, e202612, https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/18142
Published: 16 March 2026
OPEN ACCESS   198 Views   57 Downloads
Download Full Text (PDF)

ABSTRACT

As digital platforms increasingly mediate public communication and access to information, they do not only redefine the structural makeup of the public sphere but also impact the practices and outcomes of political deliberation, often giving room to concerns about heightened fragmentation and polarization. This paper critically assesses the link of social media with these two phenomena, juxtaposing traditional social networks with the rising prominence of private social media. Drawing from an extensive literature review, we argue that existing research is primarily focused on two algorithm-led public social media, Twitter and Facebook, which possess pro-diversity, weak-tie, heterophilic affordances sometimes argued to counter segregation and polarization. Non-algorithm-led private social media, such as WhatsApp, rather have a strong-tie, privacy-securing, homophilic architecture that connects with individuals’ tribalist drives and could better facilitate sectarian interactions and polarizing outcomes. Moreover, they rank among the most utilized platforms worldwide and incarnate prominent spaces for engaging with politics. However, their relationship with political talk fragmentation and polarization is comparatively under-researched. Focusing on the paradigmatic WhatsApp, we re-scrutinize the scarce corresponding literature, identify certain issues of concern, and call for the strengthening of a nascent research agenda around this platform. Our reviewing exercise emphasizes the importance of diversifying research to encompass the entire spectrum of social media’s influence on democratic processes.
Keywords: fragmentation, platformization, polarization, social media, WhatsApp

CITATION (APA)

Martín Merchán, J., & Rico Motos, C. (2026). Social media, fragmentation, and polarization in the platformized public sphere: Making the case for WhatsApp research. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 16(2), e202612. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/18142

REFERENCES

  1. Achen, C. H., & Bartels, L. M. (2017). Democracy for realists. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvc7770q
  2. Alonso, M. A., Vilares, D., Gómez-Rodríguez, C., & Vilares, J. (2021). Sentiment analysis for fake news detection. Electronics, 10(11), 1348-1368. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10111348
  3. Bail, C. (2022). Breaking the social media prism: How to make our platforms less polarising. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2mgg2nm
  4. Banaji, S., & Bhat, R. (2020). WhatsApp vigilantes: An exploration of citizen reception and circulation of WhatsApp misinformation linked to mob violence in India. London School of Economics and Political Science.
  5. Barberá, P., Jost, J. T., Nagler, J., Tucker, J. A., & Bonneau, R. (2015). Tweeting from left to right: Is online political communication more than an echo chamber? Psychological Science, 26(10), 1531-1542. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615594620
  6. Basavaraj, K. (2022). Misinformation in India’s 2019 national election. Journal of Quantitative Description Digital Media, 2, 1-43. https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2022.021
  7. Baulch, E., Johns, A., & Matamoros-Fernández, A. (2024a). A critical review of media and communications scholarship on messaging apps. In M. M. Skoric, & N. Pang (Eds.), Research handbook on social media and society (pp. 270-286). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800377059.00031
  8. Baulch, E., Matamoros-Fernández, A., & Suwana, F. (2024b). Memetic persuasion and WhatsAppification in Indonesia’s 2019 presidential election. New Media & Society, 26(5), 2473-2491. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221088274
  9. Bayarri Toscano, G., & Fernández-Villanueva, C. (2025). “Funny weapons”: The norms of humour in the construction of far-right political polarisation. Social Inclusion, 13, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.10211
  10. Bayer, J. B., Ellison, N. B., Schoenebeck, S. Y., & Falk, E. B. (2016). Sharing the small moments: Ephemeral social interaction on Snapchat. Information, Communication & Society, 19(7), 956-977. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2015.1084349
  11. Beam, M. A., Hutchens, M. J., & Hmielowski, J. D. (2018). Facebook news and (de)polarization: Reinforcing spirals in the 2016 US election. Information, Communication & Society, 21(7), 940-958. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1444783
  12. Bhutani, B., Rastogi, N., Sehgal, P., & Purwar, A. (2019). Fake news detection using sentiment analysis. In Proceedings of the 2019 12th International Conference on Contemporary Computing (pp. 1-5). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/IC3.2019.8844880
  13. Boczkowski, P. J., Matassi, M., & Mitchelstein, E. (2018). How young users deal with multiple platforms: The role of meaning-making in social media repertoires. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 23(5), 245-259. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmy012
  14. Bossetta, M. (2018). The digital architectures of social media: Comparing political campaigning on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat in the 2016 US election. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 95(2), 471-496. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699018763307
  15. Bossetta, M. (2023). Social media digital architectures: A platform-first approach to political communication and participation. In S. Coleman, & L. Sorensen (Eds.), Handbook of digital politics (pp. 226-270). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800377585.00025
  16. Boulianne, S., Hoffmann, C. P., & Bossetta, M. (2024). Social media platforms for politics: A comparison of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. New Media & Society, 27(11), 6006-6037. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241262415
  17. Bozdag, C. (2020). Managing diverse online networks in the context of polarization: Understanding how we grow apart on and through social media. Social Media + Society, 6(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120975713
  18. Brenes Peralta, C. M., Sánchez, R. P., & González, I. S. (2022). Individual evaluation vs fact-checking in the recognition and willingness to share fake news about COVID-19 via WhatsApp. Journalism Studies, 23(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2021.1994446
  19. Brown, M. A., Bisbee, J., Lai, A., Bonneau, R., Nagler, J., & Tucker, J. A. (2022). Echo chambers, rabbit holes, and algorithmic bias: How YouTube recommends content to real users. SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4114905
  20. Bruns, A. (2022). Echo chambers? Filter bubbles? The misleading metaphors that obscure the real problem. In M. Pérez-Escolar, & J. M. Noguera-Vivo (Eds.), Hate speech and polarization in participatory society (pp. 33-48). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003109891-4
  21. Bursztyn, V. S., & Birnbaum, L. (2019). Thousands of small, constant rallies: A large-scale analysis of partisan WhatsApp groups. In Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE/ ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (pp. 484-488). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1145/3341161.3342905
  22. Caetano, J. A., de Oliveira, J. F., Lima, H. S., Marques-Neto, H. T., Magno, G., Meira Jr, W., & Almeida, V. A. (2018). Analysing and characterizing political discussions in WhatsApp public groups. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1804.00397
  23. Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., Miller, W. E., & Stokes, D. E. (1960). The American voter. Willey.
  24. Campbell, S., Kuru, O., Bayer, J., Baruh, L., & Ling, R. (2019). Beyond the forward: The social shaping of (mis)information through WhatsApp [Research project, University of Michigan].
  25. Cardoso, G., Sepúlveda, R., & Narciso, I. (2022). WhatsApp and audio misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Profesional de la Información, 31(3), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2022.may.21
  26. Cea, N., & Palomo, B. (2021). Disinformation matters: Analyzing the academic production. In G. López-García, D. Palau-Sampio, B. Palomo, E. Campos-Domínguez, & P. Masip (Eds.), Politics of disinformation: The influence of fake news on the public sphere (p. 5-22). John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119743347.ch1
  27. Chadwick, A., Hall, N. A., & Vaccari, C. (2023a). Misinformation rules!? Could “group rules” reduce misinformation in online personal messaging? New Media & Society, 27(1), 106-126. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231172964
  28. Chadwick, A., Vaccari, C., & Hall, N. A. (2023b). What explains the spread of misinformation in online personal messaging networks? Exploring the role of conflict avoidance. Digital Journalism, 12(5), 574-593. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2206038
  29. Chadwick, A., Vaccari, C., Hall, N. A., Akolgo, P., & Lawson, B. (2021). The everyday misinformation project [Research project, Loughborough University].
  30. Chagas, V. (2024). Far-right memespheres and platform affordances: The effects of environmental opacity on the spread of extremist memes on Twitter and WhatsApp. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 52(4), 517-533. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2024.2355114
  31. Cheeseman, N., Fisher, J., Hassan, I., & Hitchen, J. (2020). Nigeria’s WhatsApp politics. Journal of Democracy, 31, Article 145. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2020.0037
  32. Child, J. T., & Starcher, S. C. (2016). Fuzzy Facebook privacy boundaries: Exploring mediated lurking, vague-booking, and Facebook privacy management. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 483-490. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.08.035
  33. Cinelli, M., De Francisci Morales, G., Galeazzi, A., Quattrociocchi, W., & Starnini, M. (2021). The echo chamber effect on social media. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(9), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023301118
  34. Combs, A., Tierney, G., Guay, B., Merhout, F., Bail, C. A., Hillygus, D. S., & Volfovsky, A. (2023). Reducing political polarization in the United States with a mobile chat platform. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(9), 1454-1461. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01655-0
  35. Dahlgreen, P. (2005). The Internet, public spheres, and political communication: Dispersion and deliberation. Political Communication, 22(2), 147-162. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584600590933160
  36. Davidson, B., & Kobayashi, T. (2023). Did you hear? Rumour communication via instant messaging apps and its impact on affective polarisation. In C. Soon (Ed.), Mobile communication and online falsehoods in Asia: Trends, impact and practice (pp. 173-196). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2225-2_10
  37. De Blasio, E., Marianne, K., Wolf, S., & Sorice, M. (2020). The ongoing transformation of the digital public sphere: Basic considerations on a moving target. Media and Communication, 8(4), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i4.3639
  38. Elías, C., & Catalan-Matamoros, D. (2020). Coronavirus in Spain: Fear of ‘official’ fake news boosts WhatsApp and alternative sources. Media and Communication, 8(2), 462-466. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i2.3217
  39. Evangelista, R., & Bruno, F. (2019). WhatsApp and political instability in Brazil: targeted messages and political radicalization. Internet Policy Review, 8(4), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.14763/2019.4.1434
  40. Fletcher, R., Robertson, C. T., & Nielsen, R. K. (2021). How many people live in politically partisan online news echo chambers in different countries? Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media, 1. https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2021.020
  41. Garimella, K., & Eckles, D. (2020). Images and misinformation in political groups: Evidence from WhatsApp in India. The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 1(5). https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-030
  42. Garimella, K., & Tyson, G. (2018). WhatsApp doc? A first look at WhatsApp public group data. In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v12i1.14989
  43. Gil de Zúñiga, H., & Goyanes, M. (2021). Fuelling civil disobedience in democracy: WhatsApp news use, political knowledge, and illegal political protest. New Media & Society, 5(12), 3500-3520. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211047850
  44. Gil de Zúñiga, H., Ardèvol-Abreu, A., & Casero-Ripollés, A. (2021). WhatsApp political discussion, conventional participation and activism: Exploring direct, indirect and generational effects. Information, Communication & Society, 24(2), 201-218. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1642933
  45. Gillespie, T. (2018). Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media. Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300235029
  46. Goyanes, M., Jordá, B., & de Fuentes, J. M. (2025). From lack of concerns to complicity: How misinformation concerns influences fake news sharing on WhatsApp via the partisan legitimation of fake news. Social Science Quarterly, 106(4), Article e70039. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.70039
  47. Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380. https://doi.org/10.1086/225469
  48. Habermas, J. (1962). The structural transformation of the public sphere. Polity.
  49. Habermas, J. (2006). Political communication in media society: Does democracy still enjoy an epistemic dimension? The impact of normative theory on empirical research. Communication Theory, 16(4), 411-426. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2006.00280.x
  50. Habermas, J. (2022). Reflections and hypotheses on a further structural transformation of the political public sphere. Theory, Culture & Society, 39(4), 145-171. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764221112341
  51. Haim, M., Graefe, A., & Brosius, H. B. (2018). Burst of the filter bubble? Effects of personalization on the diversity of Google News. Digital Journalism, 6(3), 330-343. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1338145
  52. Hartmann, D., Wang, S. M., Pohlmann, L., & Berendt, B. (2025). A systematic review of echo chamber research: comparative analysis of conceptualizations, operationalizations, and varying outcomes. Journal of Computational Social Science, 8(2), Article 52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-025-00381-z
  53. Herrero-Diz, P., Conde-Jiménez, J., & Reyes de Cózar, S. (2020). Teens’ motivations to spread fake news on WhatsApp. Social Media + Society, 6(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120942879
  54. Kalogeropoulos, A. (2021). Who shares news on mobile messaging applications, why and in what ways? A cross-national analysis. Mobile Media & Communication, 9(2), 336-352. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157920958442
  55. Kalogeropoulos, A., & Rossini, P. (2025a). Don’t talk to strangers? The role of network composition, WhatsApp groups, and partisanship in explaining beliefs in misinformation about COVID-19 in Brazil. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 22(1), 113-130. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2023.2234902
  56. Kalogeropoulos, A., & Rossini, P. (2025b). Unraveling WhatsApp group dynamics to understand the threat of misinformation in messaging apps. New Media & Society, 27(3), 1625-1650. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231199247
  57. Kanthawala, S., & Maddox, J. (2022). Hiding in the echo chamber: Fact-Checking failures and individual tactics of accuracy determination on WhatsApp in India. Asian Journal of Communication, 32(2), 174-191. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2021.2023594
  58. Kibet, A., & Ward, S. (2018). Socially networked heterogeneity: The influence of WhatsApp as a social networking site on polarisation in Kenya. African Journalism Studies, 39(4), 42-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/23743670.2018.1537979
  59. Klein, O. (2025). Mobilising the mob: The multifaceted role of social media in the January 6th US capitol attack. Javnost-The Public, 32(1), 33-50. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2025.2469028
  60. Kligler-Vilenchik, N. (2021). Friendship and politics don’t mix? The role of sociability for online political talk. Information, Communication & Society, 24(1), 118-133. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1635185
  61. Kligler-Vilenchik, N. (2022). Collective social correction: Addressing misinformation through group practices of information verification on WhatsApp. Digital Journalism, 10(2), 300-318. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1972020
  62. Kligler-Vilenchik, N., Baden, C., & Yarchi, M. (2020). Interpretative polarization across platforms: How political disagreement develops over time on Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Social Media + Society, 6(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120944393
  63. Kothur, L., & Pandey, V. (2025). Role of social media news consumption in cultivating opinion polarization. Information Technology & People, 38(2), 757-786. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-12-2022-0942
  64. Kubin, E., & von Sikorski, C. (2021). The role of (social) media in political polarization: A systematic review. Annals of the International Communication Association, 45(3), 188-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2021.1976070
  65. Kuru, O., Campbell, S., Bayer, J., Baruh, L., & Ling, R. (2022). Encountering and correcting misinformation on WhatsApp: The roles of user motivations and trust in messaging group members. Disinformation in the Global South, 6, 88-107. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119714491.ch7
  66. Lawson, B. T., Chadwick, A., Hall, N. A., & Vaccari, C. (2025). The trustworthiness of peers and public discourse: Exploring how people navigate numerical dis/misinformation on personal messaging platforms. Information, Communication & Society, 28(4), 633-650. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2400141
  67. Lee, S., Rojas, H., & Yamamoto, M. (2021). Social media, messaging apps, and affective polarization in the United States and Japan. Mass Communication and Society, 25(5), 673-697. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2021.1953534
  68. Lorenz-Spreen, P., Oswald, L., Lewandowsky, S., & Hertwig, R. (2023). A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(1), 74-101. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01460-1
  69. Lottridge, D., & Bentley, F. R. (2018). Let’s hate together: How people share news in messaging, social, and public networks. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-13). https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173634
  70. Malhotra, P. (2024). Misinformation in WhatsApp family groups: Generational perceptions and correction considerations in a meso-news space. Digital Journalism, 12(5), 594-612. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2213731
  71. Masip, P., Suau, J., Ruiz-Caballero, C., Capilla, P., & Zilles, K. (2021). News engagement on closed platforms. Human factors and technological affordances influencing exposure to news on WhatsApp. Digital Journalism, 9(8), 1062-1084. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1927778
  72. McCay-Peet, L., & Quan-Haase, A. (2017). What is social media and what questions can social media research help us answer. In L. Sloan, & A. Quan-Haase (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social media research methods (pp. 35-51). SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473983847.n2
  73. McKay, S., & Tenove, C. (2021). Disinformation as a threat to deliberative democracy. Political Research Quarterly, 74(3), 703-717. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920938143
  74. Meng, X., & Wang, Y. (2024). To trust or not to trust? Exploring the roles of Facebook and WhatsApp use and network diversity. Mass Communication and Society, 27(6), 1366-1388. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2023.2248956
  75. Moura, M., & Michelson, M. R. (2017). WhatsApp in Brazil: Mobilising voters through door-to-door and personal messages. Internet Policy Review, 6(4), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.14763/2017.4.775
  76. Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Robertson, C., Eddy, K., & Nielsen, R. K. (2022). Reuters Institute digital news report 2022. University of Oxford.
  77. Neyazi, T. A., Kuru, O., & Mukerjee, S. (2025). The Influence of sexism and incivility in WhatsApp political discussions on affective polarization: Evidence from a 2022 multi-party election in India. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 30(3), 797-818. https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612241242431
  78. Ojo, O. A., Edwards, B. I., & Oyewole, J. A. (2025). Educational technology and digital democracy: A case study on social media’s influence on undergraduate political engagement in Nigeria. Environment and Social Psychology, 10(7), Article 3612. https://doi.org/10.59429/esp.v10i7.3612
  79. Persily, N., & Tucker, J. A. (Eds.). (2020). Social media and democracy: The state of the field, prospects for reform. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108890960
  80. Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), Article 751. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.751
  81. Pinheiro, D. A., De Araújo, M. G. L., De Souza, K. B., Campos, B. D. S., De Oliveira, E. M., Lima, R. S. M., & De Souza, G. B. (2020). Sharing fake news about health in the cross-platform messaging app WhatsApp during the COVID-19 pandemic: A pilot study. International Journal of Scientific Research and Management, 8, 403-410. https://doi.org/10.18535/ijsrm/v8i10.mp01
  82. Pont-Sorribes, C., Besalú, R., & Codina, L. (2020). WhatsApp como canal de información política en España: Credibilidad, perfil de usuarios y compartición de contenidos [WhatsApp as a channel for political information in Spain: Credibility, user profile and content sharing]. Profesional de la Información, 29(6). https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.nov.19
  83. Reiljan, A. (2020). ‘Fear and loathing across party lines’ (also) in Europe: Affective polarisation in European party systems. European Journal of Political Research, 59(2), 376-396. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12351
  84. Reis, J., Melo, P. D. F., Garimella, K., & Benevenuto, F. (2020). Can WhatsApp benefit from debunked fact-checked stories to reduce misinformation? The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 1(5). https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-035
  85. Rosa, H. (2022). Social media filters and resonances: Democracy and the contemporary public sphere. Theory, Culture & Society, 39(4), 17-35. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764221103520
  86. Rosenfeld, A., Sina, S., Sarne, D., Avidov, O., & Kraus, S. (2018). WhatsApp usage patterns and prediction of demographic characteristics without access to message content. Demographic Research, 39, 647-670. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2018.39.22
  87. Rossini, P., Baptista, É. A., de Oliveira, V. V., & Stromer-Galley, J. (2021a). Digital media landscape in Brazil: Political (mis)information and participation on Facebook and WhatsApp. Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media, 1. https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2021.015
  88. Rossini, P., Mont’Alverne, C., & Kalogeropoulos, A. (2023). Explaining beliefs in electoral misinformation in the 2022 Brazilian election: The role of ideology, political trust, social media, and messaging apps. The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 4(3). https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-15
  89. Rossini, P., Stromer-Galley, J., Baptista, E. A., & Veiga de Oliveira, V. (2021b). Dysfunctional information sharing on WhatsApp and Facebook: The role of political talk, cross-cutting exposure and social corrections. New Media & Society, 23(8), 2430-2451. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820928059
  90. Rossini, P., Stromer-Galley, J., Baptista, E. A., & Veiga de Oliveira, V. (2025). Discussions that divide: The interplay between experiencing uncivil conversations and politically motivated avoidance on WhatsApp and Facebook. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 69(4), 437-453. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2025.2519733
  91. Rowlett, J., & Harlow, S. (2018). Selfies and sensationalism on the campaign trail: A visual analysis of snapchat’s political coverage. Visual Communication Quarterly, 25(2), 82-92. https://doi.org/10.1080/15551393.2017.1388724
  92. Ruess, C., Hoffmann, C. P., & Boulianne, S. (2023) Online political participation: The evolution of a concept. Information, Communication & Society, 26(8), 1495-1512. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.2013919
  93. Santini, R. M., Tucci, G., Salles, D., & de Almeida, A. R. D. (2021). Do you believe in fake after all? WhatsApp disinformation campaign during the Brazilian 2018 presidential election. In G. López-García, D. Palau-Sampio, B. Palomo, E. Campos-Domínguez, & P. Masip (Eds.), Politics of disinformation: The influence of fake news on the public sphere (pp. 49-66). John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119743347.ch4
  94. Scherman, A., Etchegaray, N., Browne, M., Mazorra, D., & Rojas, H. (2022). WhatsApp, polarization, and non-conventional political participation: Chile and Colombia before the social outbursts of 2019. Media and Communication, 10(4), 77-93. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i4.5817
  95. Seeliger, M., & Sevignani, S. (2022). A new structural transformation of the public sphere? An introduction. Theory, Culture & Society, 39(4), 3-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764221109439
  96. Smith, M. M. (Ed.). (2025). Political marketing on social and mobile media: Remaking the paradigm? Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003533078
  97. Smyrnaios, N. (2015). Google and the algorithmic infomediation of news. Media Fields Journal, 10(10).
  98. Smyrnaios, N., & Baisnée, O. (2023). Critically understanding the platformization of the public sphere. European Journal of Communication, 38(5), 435-445. https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231189046
  99. Soares, F. B., Recuero, R., Volcan, T., Fagundes, G., & Sodré, G. (2021). Bolsonaro’s firehose: How COVID-19 disinformation on WhatsApp was used to fight a government political crisis in Brazil. The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 2(1).
  100. Stewart, E., & Hartmann, D. (2020). The new structural transformation of the public sphere. Sociological Theory, 38(2), 170-191. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120926205
  101. Sundar, S. S., & Vasanti, P. N. (2019). Seeing is believing: Is video modality more powerful in spreading fake news? [Research project, The Pennsylvania State University].
  102. Sundar, S. S., Molina, M. D., & Cho, E. (2021). Seeing is believing: Is video modality more powerful in spreading fake news via online messaging apps? Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 26(6), 301-319. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmab010
  103. Sunstein, C. R. (2018). #Republic: Divided democracy in the age of social media. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400890521
  104. Swart, J., Peters, C., & Broersma, M. (2018). Shedding light on the dark social: The connective role of news and journalism in social media communities. New Media & Society, 20(11), 4329-4345. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818772063
  105. Tandoc, E., Sian, L. C., & Joanna, S. S. C. (2019). Is correction fluid? How to make fact-checks on WhatsApp more effective [Research project, Nanyang Technological University].
  106. Terren, L., & Borge-Bravo, R. (2021). Echo chambers on social media: A systematic review of the literature. Review of Communication Research, 9, 99-118. https://doi.org/10.12840/ISSN.2255-4165.028
  107. Torcal, M., Martini, S., & Orriols, L. (2018). Deciding about the unknown: The effect of party and ideological cues on forming opinions about the European Union. European Union Politics, 19(3), 502-523. https://doi.org/10.1177/1465116518769754
  108. Tucker, J. A., Guess, A., Barberá, P., Vaccari, C., Siegel, A., Sanovich, S., Stukal, D., & Nyhan, B. (2018). Social media, political polarization, and political disinformation: A review of the scientific literature. Hewlett Foundation. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3144139
  109. Udupa, S., & Wasserman, H. (Eds.) (2025). WhatsApp in the world: Disinformation, encryption, and extreme speech. NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479833306.001.0001
  110. Vaccari, C., & Valeriani, A. (2018). Digital political talk and political participation: Comparing established and third wave democracies. SAGE Open, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018784986
  111. Vaccari, C., & Valeriani, A. (2021). Outside the bubble: Social media and political participation in Western democracies. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190858476.001.0001
  112. Valenzuela, S., Bachmann, I., & Bargsted, M. (2021). The personal is the political? What do WhatsApp users share and how it matters for news knowledge, polarization and participation in Chile. Digital Journalism, 9(2), 155-175. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2019.1693904
  113. Valenzuela, S., Muñiz, C., & Santos, M. (2024). Social media and belief in misinformation in Mexico: A case of maximal panic, minimal effects? The International Journal of Press/Politics, 29(3), 667-688. https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221088988
  114. Valeriani, A., & Vaccari, C. (2018). Political talk on mobile instant messaging services: A comparative analysis of Germany, Italy, and the UK. Information, Communication & Society, 21(11), 1715-1731. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1350730
  115. van Dyk, S. (2022). Post-truth, the future of democracy and the public sphere. Theory, Culture & Society, 39(4), 37-50. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764221103514
  116. Vermeer, S. A., Kruikemeier, S., Trilling, D., & de Vreese, C. H. (2021). WhatsApp with politics?! Examining the effects of interpersonal political discussion in instant messaging apps. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 26(2), 410-437. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161220925020
  117. Visani, C., Sorathiya, V., & Lavadiya, S. (2022). Fake news polarization for sentiment analysis. In S. Malik, R. Bansal, & A. Tyagi (Eds.), Impact and role of digital technologies in adolescent lives (pp. 255-263). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-8318-0.ch019
  118. Waller, I., & Anderson, A. (2021). Quantifying social organization and political polarization in online platforms. Nature, 600(7888), 264-268. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04167-x
  119. Wang, A. H. E., Yeh, Y. Y., Wu, C. K., & Chen, F. Y. (2022). Media literacy and partisan convergence across social network sites. The Social Science Journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/03623319.2022.2127174
  120. We Are Social & Meltwater. (2024). Digital 2024 April global statshot report. Meltwater-We Are Social. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-april-global-statshot
  121. Yamamoto, M., Kushin, M. J., & Dalisay, F. (2018). How informed are messaging app users about politics? A linkage of messaging app use and political knowledge and participation. Telematics and Informatics, 35(8), 2376-2386. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2018.10.008
  122. Yarchi, M., Baden, C., & Kligler-Vilenchik, N. (2021). Political polarization on the digital sphere: A cross-platform, over-time analysis of interactional, positional, and affective polarization on social media. Political Communication, 38(2), 98-139. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2020.1785067
  123. Zhu, Q., Esteve-Del-Valle, M., & Meyer, J. K. (2022). Safe spaces? Grounding political talk in WhatsApp groups. New Media & Society, 26(9), 5423-5444. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221136080
  124. Zumárraga-Espinosa, M. (2024). El rol despolarizador de la heterogeneidad de red y la discusión política diversa en medios sociales: Un análisis de las plataformas Facebook, Twitter y WhatsApp en las elecciones de Ecuador 2021 [The depolarizing role of network heterogeneity and diverse political discussion in social media: An analysis of the Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp platforms in the 2021 Ecuador elections]. Redes: Revista Hispana para el Análisis de Redes Sociales, 35(2), 165-183. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/redes.1024