Media Consumption, Social‐Media Political Tracking, and Vote Intention Across Four Back‐to‐Back Israeli Elections (2019–2022)

Vered Elishar, Dana Weimann‐Saks and Yaron Ariel

Social Science Quarterly, 2025, vol. 106, issue 4

Abstract: Objective This study examines how Israel's unprecedented political instability, characterized by five general elections between 2019 and 2022, impacted voter behavior, specifically patterns of media consumption, social media political engagement, and changes in vote intention across consecutive election cycles. Methods Survey data from 2000 Israeli respondents, collected across four election periods, assessed their consumption of traditional, digital, and social media, the frequency of their engagement with political figures online (political tracking) and their shifts in voting intention relative to previous elections. Logistic regression was employed to identify predictors of changes in voting preferences. Results Traditional media consumption peaked during the initial 2019 election and subsequently declined, while digital media use showed modest growth. Social media political tracking declined initially (2019–2021) but rebounded in 2022, with Facebook consistently emerging as the dominant platform. Logistic regression indicated that higher social media consumption correlated negatively with changes in vote intention, whereas actively tracking politicians across multiple platforms significantly increased the likelihood of changing electoral preferences. Conclusion Despite frequent electoral disruptions and political uncertainty, Israeli voters sustained robust political information‐seeking behaviors and exhibited considerable electoral stability. These findings underscore the evolving yet critical role of social media as a driver of voter engagement, decision‐making, and electoral volatility in fragmented parliamentary democracies.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.70068

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:socsci:v:106:y:2025:i:4:n:e70068

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0038-4941

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science Quarterly is currently edited by Robert L. Lineberry

More articles in Social Science Quarterly from Southwestern Social Science Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().