Essays on social media and democracy

The three essays of this dissertation apply game-theoretical, experimental and empirical methods to study the role of social media in the democratic process. The first essay develops a theory about the influence of political interest groups on voting behavior through communication on social media platforms. The model framework allows a theory-based discussion of two policy proposals aimed to counteract election manipulation by disinformation: a ban on microtargeting and the implementation of measures that raise source salience. The second essay studies the effects of these policy interventions in a large-scale laboratory experiment. The third essay employs panel data from a representative survey of Dutch households to examine the relationship between news consumption through social media and political polarization in a multi-party system.