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Saturday, December 17th, 2022

Social Media Seen as Mostly Good for Democracy Across Many Nations, But U.S. is a Major Outlier

Author:     RICHARD WIKE, LAURA SILVER, JANELL FETTEROLF, CHRISTINE HUANG, SARAH AUSTIN, LAURA CLANCY AND SNEHA GUBBALA
Source:     Pew Research Center
Publication Date:     DECEMBER 6, 2022
 Link: Social Media Seen as Mostly Good for Democracy Across Many Nations, But U.S. is a Major Outlier
Stephan:   Social media, as this data-based report from Pew Research Center makes clear is fundamentally changing the culture of societies. But not in the same way. Here is the data, and here are the facts. Once again the U.S. is an outlier because as a society we have no sense of ethics, which is why disinformation is such an issue. We are in a fear fugue over truth.

As people across the globe have increasingly turned to Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other platforms to get their news and express their opinions, the sphere of social media has become a new public space for discussing – and often arguing bitterly – about political and social issues. And in the mind of many analysts, social media is one of the major reasons for the declining health of democracy in nations around the world.

However, as a new Pew Research Center survey of 19 advanced economies shows, ordinary citizens see social media as both a constructive and destructive component of political life, and overall most believe it has actually had a positive impact on democracy. Across the countries polled, a median of 57% say social media has been more of a good thing for their democracy, with 35% saying it has been a bad thing.

There are substantial cross-national differences on this question, however, and the United States is a clear outlier: Just 34% of U.S. adults think social media has been good for democracy, while 64% say it has […]

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