A Thriving Digital Public Sphere: The Overlooked, Yet Critical Role of Political Parties and Politicians

As important as a focus on tech platforms is, there is growing and persuasive empirical evidence that political parties and politicians themselves and their behavior online play an even greater role for a healthy public sphere. While platforms can dramatically amplify bad dynamics of online misinformation and uncivil political discourse, it is politicians and parties that are instrumental in creating these bad dynamics in the first place.