New Publication: Did COVID-19 Blur Partisan Boundaries?

The COVID-19 pandemic has been linked to the rise of anti-systemic, cross-partisan counter-publics in Europe, particularly around resistance to government restrictions. 

In the AlterPublics-team’s first full paper, “Did COVID-19 Blur Partisan Boundaries? A Comparison of Partisan Affinity and Source Heterophily in Online Alternative News-Sharing Networks Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Jakob Bæk Kristensen, Frederik Henriksen and Eva Mayerhöffer examine whether the pandemic fostered more cross-partisan news sharing in online communities built around alternative media content. 

Using network analysis of 30 million posts (January 2019–September 2021) across eight platforms (including Facebook, Twitter/X, Telegram, and YouTube) in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and Austria, we find only a slight increase in source heterophily during the pandemic—mainly driven by the expanded circulation of anti-system news. 

Overall, partisan divides largely persist, and beyond the initial outbreak period, COVID-19-related sharing tends to reinforce rather than reduce partisan separation. 

Link to article: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20563051231192963