Status Quo or Change: Digital campaigns and the 2024 Gender and Family Referendums

Referendums are a majoritarian device and it is often argued that this makes them a conservative mechanism in that they are more likely to preserve the status quo. For low salience, low information referendums, this dynamic can be exacerbated further by second-order effects, where voters use a ‘no’ vote in the referendum as an opportunity to punish the government of the day. The emergence of hybrid media systems has the potential to amplify these referendum features. The low cost of manipulation and the algorithmic affordances of the platforms heighten the potential for domestic and transnational political interference exacerbating polarisation, especially in the context of 'culture war' issues. Focusing on individual opinion formation in the digital domain, this paper will test whether second order or cleavage effects are more prevalent in an Irish referendum on gender issues (women in the home clause) in March 2024. The paper will use data on (social) media use, trust and influence from three survey waves taken during and after the campaign. It will document the impact of social media use on voting behaviour and will locate its analysis within the wider question of whether social media campaigning favours the status quo or constitutional change.