Fragmentation, polarization and democracy. The Catalan Parliament deputies and their news media use

Abstract

In many countries scholars have discussed about the danger for the democracy posed by the fragmentation of the use of news media. In their study of this phenomenon, they have focused their attention on the citizens, to the detriment of the members of the political class. Thanks to a survey of members of the Catalan Parliament we have seen that politicians also have a tendency to fragmentation, mainly due to an avoidance of information and ideologically driven media selection. Our research concludes that, as in the case of the population, fragmentation of media use can lead to polarization of political elites and therefore to a deterioration of the representative democratic system.