Papers by Ilona Grzywinska
Both political parties and voters increased their use of Internet, particularly social media. Pol... more Both political parties and voters increased their use of Internet, particularly social media. Politicians adopted social media channels such as social networking sites, blogs and microblogs in order to communicate with voters, engage them into discussions on current problems and sustain or increase their electorate base. Voters use different social media to express their support for politicians, relate to them but also present their point of view or ask questions. In this paper the author examines the relationship between voters and political parties within two Facebook pages owned by major parties in Poland -Civic Platform, the ruling party and Law and Justice, its opposition. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether the mentioned parties build the political dialogue with their voters and therefore whether Facebook can be perceived as an implementation of public sphere concept developed by Jurgen Habermas. examine whether the political dialogue existing on the Internet is the contemporary form of Habermas' public sphere and whether it gives the opportunity for rational decision making based on the conversations between political actors and voters. This issue is being analyzed using the case study of discussions held on the Facebook pages of two major Polish political parties -Civic Platform and Law and Justice.
Looking at the growing usage of social media in the world it is necessary to notice its influence... more Looking at the growing usage of social media in the world it is necessary to notice its influence on public perception of different issues and problems. Social media is not only employed as a place for discussions and content sharing but also as a tool for social activism in the offline world which may be illustrated by recent events in Egypt or Tunisia known as Arab Spring or started in July 2011 in USA Occupy Wall Street movement. This study focuses on the impact of social media on agenda building and agenda setting in traditional media by examining the case study of Occupy Wall Street movement where social media was used as the most important tool for communication. It also discusses the implication of social media coverage on the theory of issue-salience cycle.
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Papers by Ilona Grzywinska