Between civic virtue and vice: Self-censorship of political views on social media among Norwegian young adults

Abstract

While small groups leverage disproportionate visibility online, oftentimes resorting to hostile language, the use of social media for political expression by the majority of Norwegian users has been theorised in terms of lurking, inhibition, and self-restraint. Drawing from qualitative in-depth interviews with young adults of different political orientations and ethnic-cultural backgrounds in Oslo, Norway, I take an abductivehermeneutic approach to analyse their rationale for self-censorship. The findings reveal shared frustrations and risks that explain the prevalence of lurking yet point to different coping mechanisms and expression strategies adopted by the respondents. While progressives tend to internalise their reactions by withdrawing and avoiding confrontations, conservatives more often appeal to self-censorship on the presumption of actual censorship. Different styles of media use call into question divergent ideals of democratic theory, setting self-expressive rationality at odds with deliberative norms of citizenship. I argue that this can help explain increasing perceived political polarisation and disconnection tendencies.

Keywords

• self-censorship
• social media
• political expression
• civic virtues
• digital public sphere