The Effects of Social Media, Elites, and Political Polarization on Civil Conflict

Lance Y. Hunter and Glen Biglaiser

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 2025, vol. 48, issue 10, 1127-1164

Abstract: Although prior research has investigated how social, economic, and political factors affect civil conflict, empirical scholarship has yet to consider how social media impacts civil conflict. Using cross-national research for up to 157 states from 2000–2019, this study examines the effect social media has on civil conflict. We find that more time spent on social media, greater social media penetration (i.e. the number of users), and the specific manner elites use social media are associated with an increased number and severity of civil conflicts. We also carry out mediation analysis and see that elite use of social media to organize offline political activities, government elites’ dissemination of false information, and political party elites’ dissemination of disinformation are all correlated with an increase in political polarization, and polarization raises the likelihood of civil conflict. Our results indicate the ways social media affects political violence, showing how different communication technologies can serve to exacerbate civil conflict under certain conditions.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1057610X.2022.2163461 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:uterxx:v:48:y:2025:i:10:p:1127-1164

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/uter20

DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2022.2163461

Access Statistics for this article

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism is currently edited by Bruce Hoffman

More articles in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().