Media Diet on Facebook During a Political Crisis: The Case of Judicial System Reform in Poland in 2017

This article examines the media preferences of individuals on Facebook during a political crisis and tests a theoretical model, which explains their behavior. In 2017, the Polish Parliament passed three laws that reformed the judicial system, which according to critics violated the rule of independence of the judiciary from the government. In consequence, thousands of people were mobilized and protested in over two hundred and fifty places in Poland and abroad. We examined 1.8 million Facebook users, who were active on the Facebook pages of the most popular news media outlets, the largest political organizations, and their leaders during this period. Our findings indicate that users who liked posts related to the crisis were less likely to change their liking patterns than users who did not like such posts. These results are valid for users who liked posts published by politically biased sources as well as politically diversified ones. Furthermore, those who liked posts related to the crisis also liked those posts that were congruent with their previous liking patterns. We, therefore, find proof that social media users are relatively consistent in what they like, and that such consistency can be strengthened in situations of political crisis.