Correlations between Mass and Elite Polarisation in Turkey

And the final speaker in this session at the Social Media & Society 2024 conference is Doruk Şen, whose interest is in examining elite and mass polarisation from a multi-polar, network perspective. The focus here is especially on Turkey, which at present is dominated by the autocratic AK Parti.

Elite and mass polarisation have similar dynamics, and may be related to each other; mass polarisation is often measured on a simple left-right political scale, but in multiparty systems can be better assessed within a cognitive political network framework, where respondents assess the interrelationships between the various parties and thereby produce a matrix of affinities.

Elite polarisation is often assessed by analysing parliamentary voting patterns, but such MP-level data are not available in Turkey; rather, this study assessed elite polarisation by examining their mutual following patterns on Twitter, and found predominantly homophilic networking practices based on party membership.

These patterns of mass and elite polarisation are strongly correlated. It will be interesting to see whether these patterns persist in the newly formed parliament.