Back WhatsApp as a political information tool. Unequal practices between men and women in the digital space

WhatsApp as a political information tool. Unequal practices between men and women in the digital space

New academic article published in the journal Comunicació de la Societat Catalana de Comunicació based on Chair's research.
22.12.2020

 

Societat Catalana de Comunicació, in issue 37 of the magazine Comunicació. Revista de Recerca i Anàlisi, includes the article 'WhatsApp as a political information tool. Unequal practices between men and women in the digital space ', written by Metzeri Sánchez, Reinald Besalú and Carles Pont-Sorribes.

The article is born from the research carried out by the Chair “The use of WhatsApp as a tool of political information”, in which through the collaboration with the company YouGov Spain, a demographic study was carried out of 1,664 individuals to know to what extent Spanish citizens are willing to share information of political content through WhatsApp and what is the level of credibility granted to this information. This study showed that the political information transmitted by WhatsApp was perceived as less credible compared to other applications such as Facebook or different formats, such as the digital written press or television. However, the study also certified the huge extent of WhatsApp as a tool for transmitting policy-related information.
 


Portada de la revista Comunicació.

This article analyzes the results of the research from a gender perspective, looking at whether there are significant differences in the use of WhatsApp to share gender-sensitive political content information. The article by Sánchez-Meza, Besalú and Pont-Sorribes confirms that there is also a digital divide: men are 9 percentage points above when receiving political information.


Gráfica 1. Rep informació política o no.

As we can see in these graphs, if we compare graph 1 with 2, we can see that when the results are divided according to the variable Sex, they intensify and confirm the digital divide between the sexes in the use of WhatsApp as political information tool.


Gráfica 2. Rep informació política o no, segons sexe.

Aquesta diferència s’intensifica en el segment d’edat d’entre 18 i 34 anys, en que es mostren 19 punts percentuals els homes que les dones.

També s’arriba a la conclusió que tan els homes com les dones, dubten de forma similar de la credibilitat de la informació de WhatsApp, sense mostrar unes diferencies clares. En un aspecte en el que si que difereixen és la voluntat de comentar política a través de la plataforma WhatsApp, en que els homes tenen una major participació, corroborant així una posició hegemònica de l’home en el debat polític, també en l’entorn de WhatsApp. Finalment, es conclou que la polarització derivada de la discussió política en l’entorn de WhatsApp no es mostra tan present en les dones.

This difference intensifies in the 18 to 34 age group, which shows 19 percentage points for men and women.
 
It is also concluded that both men and women similarly doubt the credibility of WhatsApp information, without showing clear differences. In an aspect in which they do differ is the desire to comment on politics through the WhatsApp platform, in which men have a greater participation, thus corroborating a hegemonic position of man in the political debate, also in the environment of WhatsApp. Finally, it is concluded that polarization resulting from the political discussion in the WhatsApp environment is not so present in women.
 

 

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