Media Consumption, Social-Media Political Tracking, and Vote Intention Across Four Back-to-Back Israeli Elections (2019–2022)

Objective: This study examines how Israel's unprecedented political instability, characterized by five general elections between 2019 and 2022, impacted voter behavior, specifically patterns of media consumption, social media political engagement, and changes in vote intention across consecutive election cycles. Methods: Survey data from 2000 Israeli respondents, collected across four election periods, assessed their consumption of traditional, digital, and social media, the frequency of their engagement with political figures online (political tracking) and their shifts in voting intention relative to previous elections. Logistic regression was employed to identify predictors of changes in voting preferences. Results: Traditional media consumption peaked during the initial 2019 election and subsequently declined, while digital media use showed modest growth. Social media political tracking declined initially (2019–2021) but rebounded in 2022, with Facebook consistently emerging as the dominant platform. Logistic regression indicated that higher social media consumption correlated negatively with changes in vote intention, whereas actively tracking politicians across multiple platforms significantly increased the likelihood of changing electoral preferences. Conclusion: Despite frequent electoral disruptions and political uncertainty, Israeli voters sustained robust political information-seeking behaviors and exhibited considerable electoral stability. These findings underscore the evolving yet critical role of social media as a driver of voter engagement, decision-making, and electoral volatility in fragmented parliamentary democracies.