Facebook as a source of political information in Poland

The aim of the paper is to study the role of Facebook as a source of political information for Polish media users. The study combines a survey, a content analysis of Polish-language news items disseminated through Facebook, and computational methods. Findings revealed that Facebook has already gained a position as a crucial agent of political communication across generations in Poland. Most Poles use social media for acquisition of information about politics at least once a day and Facebook is the most popular source among them, what is especially apparent among young people (18–25 years old). Friends and family play also an important role in this process as either gatekeepers or opinion leaders. Additionally, our study revealed that topic (politics) and context (elections) matter when it comes to news consumption and news sharing on social media.