Seeking and sharing political information on Quora – the case of US presidential election 2024

Interest in political information seeking and sharing tends to be heightened before significant political events such as elections (Hoewe and Parrott, 2019). Due to the role of the USA as the dominant economic and military power, US presidential election 2024 has elicited exceptionally strong global interest because the world is experiencing a period of profound turbulence and economic and political restructuring (Carmody and Ciccantell, 2024). Therefore, the elected US president will face a number of critical issues of both foreign and domestic policy. Wars are raging in Ukraine and the Middle East and large flows of migrants are heading from southern Mexico towards the US' southern border. The voting result was also awaited with great interest because the presidential candidates, that is, Kamala Harris (The Democratic Party) and Donald Trump (The Republican Party) pursued starkly different political visions. For example, in taxation policy Harris has pledged to cut taxes for tens of millions of middle- and low-income families, while supporting tax breaks for entrepreneurs and small business owners. In contrast, Trump has vowed to extend and expand a suite of tax cuts he signed into law in 2017, while pledging to cut the corporate tax rate to 15% from 21% for companies that make their products in the USA (Gambino, 2024). Katz (2024, p. 32) predicted that if Harris is elected as president, “the substance and tone of American foreign policy can be expected to remain much the same as it has been during President Joseph Biden’s term. But if former President Donald Trump is elected, the tone of American foreign policy will undoubtedly change back to the belligerent ‘America First’ theme he adopted during his first term”. Given the candidates’ conflicting political agendas, it was expected that the result of the election would give rise to both hopes and fears among US citizens, as well as people around the world.

Since the 1990s, networked sources have offered a growing amount of political information. Social media forums such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter and online discussion forums have enriched the repertoire of sources of political information (Lee and Xenos, 2019). So far, however, there is a paucity of empirical knowledge about how online discussion forums are used to seek political information and share it with fellow citizens (Chen et al., 2019; Lu and Lee, 2022). Given the tense setting of the US presidential election, it was to be expected that uncertainty dealing with the election result would drive people to ask questions and share their opinions about the candidates in online platforms such as social Q&A websites. As social media primarily offer user-generated content, people may be able to encounter ideas and opinions that are not well represented in traditional news media, which likely increases their interest in further political information seeking (Kushin and Yamamoto, 2010, p. 611–614).

The present study fills gaps in information behaviour research by examining how people seek and share political information on social Q&A platforms in times preceding significant political events. To this end, a sample of 1909 posts submitted to 25 Quora discussion threads focusing on the US presidential election 2024 was analysed. More specifically, the analysis was focused on the posts submitted to the discussion threads within the period of 21 July – 14 September 2024 – an initial stage of the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris. She represents a new type of presidential candidate in US political history because, in this position, Harris is the first woman of Black and South Asian heritage. Therefore, it was expected that her presidential campaign and struggle against Trump for the presidency would give rise to a heightened interest in information seeking and sharing in Q&A platforms such as Quora. The findings deepen our understanding of the nature of political information, as well as the ways in which such information is sought and shared in the context of polarised political debate dealing with perhaps the most consequential presidential election in decades.

The article proceeds as follows. Firstly, in order to create the background, issues related to political information seeking and sharing are reviewed, followed by the explication of the research framework, research questions and the empirical research setting. Thereafter, the findings of the empirical analysis will be reported. The last sections discuss the research results and reflect their significance.

As politics is a multi-faceted and semantically open concept, there is no generally accepted definition of the term political. For the understanding of political in the context of online debates, Chantal Mouffe´s (2016) agonistic approach is particularly relevant because, from her viewpoint, political is understood as a sphere characterized by power and conflict. It is acknowledged that political adversaries such as Democrats and Republicans in the USA struggle for power and draw on the “we/they” distinction. Viewed from the agonistic perspective, political online debates are not purely rational and objective, but the discourse often incorporates non-rational and subjective elements (Larsson, 2014, p. 42). Similar to the concepts of politics and political, there is no generally accepted definition of the constructs of political knowledge and political information. For example, Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996, p. 10) defined political knowledge as “the range of factual information about politics that is stored in long-term memory”. As personal opinions about political issues can also be elements of an individual´s political knowledge, the above definition may be too restrictive because all political knowledge is not necessarily factual in nature. The characterization of the related concept of political information is rendered more difficult in that information about political issues circulating on social media is often unverified and inaccurate, thereby questioning the assumption that political information seeking would be limited to the acquisition of facts. Given this ambiguity, political information is understood in the present study broadly as a mixture of factual statements and personal opinions about political issues and events. It is assumed that people can experience and express needs for information of this type and that such needs may trigger the seeking for political information from diverse sources. Furthermore, it is assumed that people may share political information in diverse forums, for example, social Q&A platforms.

Researchers have developed diverse theoretical approaches to explain why people seek political information. The Information Utility model identifies information needs indicative of reasons that can drive communication behaviours, including information seeking (Atkin, 1973; Hmielowski et al., 2020). One of the information needs deals with cognitive adaptation, which focuses on the goal of having a certain level of understanding of topics that could affect an individual. The need for cognitive adaption can result in attempts to seek surveillance information about the ongoing presidential campaigns. For example, another type of information needs concerns affective adaptation, which focuses on forming an opinion or evaluation of an object. For example, people may realize that they do not know enough about a candidate’s political agenda. This can trigger uncertainty and a need for guidance information. Furthermore, there is an information need dealing with defensive adaptation. It results in a need for reinforcing information. For example, highly engaged partisans who already know a lot about the candidates could need reinforcing information to resolve conflicting attitudes or cognitive dissonance (Garrett, 2009).

The reasons for seeking political information can also be approached from the viewpoint of partisan selective exposure to information. This approach proposes that people’s drive for consistency leads them to seek information congruent with their beliefs (Garrett, 2009). A more specific term for this pattern is confirmation bias (Taber and Lodge, 2006). Especially in times leading up to elections, the confirmation bias may be emphasized in political discussions in the USA because it has a clear-cut and stable two-party political system. This can facilitate partisan selective exposure, as voters have a higher chance to recognize and select information congruent with their viewpoints (Knobloch-Westerwick et al., 2015). On the other hand, people may also seek counter-attitudinal information to resolve their attitudinal uncertainty about political candidates so that they can cast a vote in an upcoming election (Hmielowski et al., 2017, pp. 340–341). The seeking of opposing information can be useful particularly for those who might prefer a candidate but may hold conflicting attitudes relative to the choice they need to make.

Researchers have also explained why people share political information (or misinformation) in online forums and how they expose themselves to political information shared by others (Weeks et al., 2017; Weismueller et al., 2022). For the context of the present study, the findings of Kim et al. (2021) are most relevant. Applying the theoretical framework of uses and gratifications, they identified the major motivations for political information sharing on social media during the US 2018 midterm elections. The findings indicate that social media users share political information primarily to socialize with and inform others or to criticize viewpoints that they oppose. Interestingly, social media users shared political information not primarily to express their political view per se, but to disapprove of the political views they do not agree with. Therefore, political information sharing during an election campaign, in which winning parties and losing parties are determined eventually, appears to be driven by the need to attack the opposing side or potentially shield one’s own side from the arguments and viewpoints of the other side (Kim et al., 2021, pp. 1133–1134). Overall, their findings suggest that individuals are more likely to share political information when they are exposed to information that is disagreeable.

Since the 1990s, there are a few empirical studies examining how people seek and share political information in online discussion forums. In an early investigation, Wilhelm (1998) analysed a sample of posts submitted to Usenet newsgroups discussing political issues. The results showed that the bulk of the postings were expressions of opinions, while the share of posts indicative of attempts to seek information was relatively low, about 30% (Wilhelm, 1998, p. 328). Jansen and Koop (2005) examined the nature of online discussion during British Columbia’s 2001 provincial election. It appeared that the discussion was dominated by a relatively small number of amateur pundits who spent much of the time commenting on parties, leaders and media coverage of the election. The findings also suggest that the opening post in a discussion thread plays an important agenda-setting function besides determining the topic of the discussion. The ideological standpoint of the initial post and its reasonableness helped to determine whether a topic would spark a lengthy discussion, or whether it would die out.

In an empirical study of citizens' online discussions prior to the Finnish parliamentary elections, Strandberg (2008) found that a large share of the posts was negative in nature. Opinions dominated over facts. Very few posts included any validations, neither internal (e.g. argumentation based on previous posts) nor external (e.g. links to facts or articles). More recently, Chen et al. (2019) analysed online discussions in times of the 2016 US presidential election. The findings revealed that many of the participants were challenging the veracity of the election, even though their candidate had won. Impoliteness was quite frequent. In a related study, using a national survey conducted during the 2016 US presidential election campaign, Lu and Lee (2022) investigated the effects of social endorsements on exposure to and engagement with political disagreement on social networking sites. The study found that the experiences of political disagreement encourage people to search for more information about the counter-attitudinal posts, especially when the encountered disagreement is perceived to have good arguments and rationales. In these cases, social media users may be motivated to find more information about oppositional viewpoints to make a more informed decision about a political issue or candidate. Taken as a whole, however, the findings of studies examining political online discourses suggest that they tend to be messy, marred by profanity and even incivility. As Zheng and Shahin (2020, p. 354) have pointed out, instead of rational deliberation, political online discussions tend to be characterised by “a cacophony of voices that speak but do not listen”.

The literature review suggests that the seeking and sharing of political information seeking is a context-sensitive phenomenon that occurs particularly in times of significant political events such as elections. For the development of the research framework of the present study, two theoretical approaches discussed in the literature review were particularly relevant. Firstly, the Information Utility model made it understandable why people seek political information about the US presidential election 2024 by submitting questions to social Q&A platforms. The above model suggests that the need for cognitive adaptation results in the seeking of surveillance information which may deal, for example, the ways in which a candidate clarifies his or her political agenda during the presidential campaign. Moreover, the need for affective adaptation may trigger information seeking about the potential threats arising from the election result, for example. Furthermore, the need dealing with defensive adaptation can result, for example, in attempts to seek reinforcing information about the competence of a candidate. Secondly, the research approach to partisan selective exposure to political information explains how confirmation bias leads people to seek and share information congruent with their viewpoints. Therefore, we may expect that the confirmation bias is reflected in the questions and answers presented in social Q&A platforms. Especially in times leading up to elections, the confirmation bias tends to be emphasized in political discussions in the USA because it has a clear-cut two-party political system. The importance of the confirmation bias was demonstrated in the empirical findings of Kim et al. (2021). They found that during intense election campaign periods, political information is not primarily shared to express one´s political view per se, but to disapprove the political views that an individual does not agree with.

The above studies primarily explain why people seek and share political information in online discussion forums. Thus far, there is a paucity of empirical knowledge about how political information is sought and shared in social Q&A platforms. Therefore, the research framework was substantiated by making use of the question-and-answer types identified by Westbrook (2015) and Savolainen (2023). In the above studies, three types of questions indicative of information needs triggering information seeking were identified: fact question, advice question and opinion question. Of these, however, only the category opinion question appeared to be relevant for the present investigation. Opinion questions deal with other people´s personal views on an issue by asking, for example, “is Senator Kamala Harris a good candidate for president?” As to the answer types indicative of information sharing, the present study employed five categories identified by Westbrook (2015) and Savolainen (2023). Fact answers provide information about the objective states of affairs, while explanation answers offer clarifications and reasons. Thus, they provide information about why and how certain things happen. Moreover, action directive answers offer guiding information about how to act in certain situations, while prediction answers inform about what is likely to happen in the future. Finally, a new answer type, that is, comparison answer was identified from the empirical material of the present study. Comparison answers offer information about the similarities and dissimilarities between the objects, for example, political goals of the candidates.

Even though the above studies focus on different issues discussed in social Q&A platforms, that is, intimate partner violence (Westbrook, 2015) and the threat of nuclear war (Savolainen, 2023), the question type (opinion question) and the five answer types are applicable for the analysis of information seeking and sharing dealing with the US presidential election, too. This is because the question and answer types are generic in nature and thus can be used to examine information seeking and sharing about diverse topics. The applicability of the typology is enhanced by that similar to the present investigation, Westbrook (2015) and Savolainen (2023) examined information seeking and sharing occurring in social Q&A platforms. As indicated above, the present study focuses on the analysis of questions and answers submitted to Quora – a major Q&A platform. Based on the above specifications, the research framework of the present study is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 suggests that in Quora discussion threads, the participants present opening questions to seek information about diverse political issues, ranging from the perceived qualifications of the candidates to the expected result of the election. Information sharing occurs when fellow contributors offer answers to the opening questions. As illustrated by the examples taken from the empirical data of the present investigation, the answers can include personal opinions, facts, comparisons, explanations, predictions and suggestions for action. It is possible that the answers give rise to further questions which in turn elicit additional responses, as the online discussion goes on. However, for the sake of simplicity, the analysis of additional (specifying) questions presented by the answerers is excluded from the present investigation because it does not examine the dialogue between information seekers and sharers – a topic of a separate study.

Drawing on the framework depicted in Figure 1, the present study seeks answers to the following research questions.

For empirical research, the analysis of online discussions has high potential. Data are easily accessible in digital form and allow for unobtrusive gathering of people’s political opinions in the context of national elections, for example (Vergeer and Hermans, 2008, p. 51). To answer the above research questions, the empirical data were gathered from Quora – a major Q&A platform founded in 2009 (https://www.quora.com/). As of October 2024, Quora was visited monthly by over 400 million active users (Kumar, 2024). Quora relies on user reporting, but sometimes the content posted by users is checked by human moderators.

There are several hundreds of Quora discussion threads dealing with the US presidential election 2024. The topics of these threads vary widely, ranging from the candidates’ personal characteristics to the speculations about whether and why Harris or Trump would win the election. To strengthen the focus of the study, it was necessary to limit the repertoire of discussion topics, as well as the number of discussion threads to be examined in the present investigation. As one of the most interesting issues of the election dealt with Kamala Harris´s possibilities to challenge Donald Trump, the topics of discussion threads potentially relevant for the empirical analysis were predefined accordingly. Using the search term Kamala Harris, altogether 82 potentially relevant discussion threads were identified from Quora at the beginning of September 2024. Of these threads, 14 were excluded because they contained only the opening post. The remaining 68 threads were read tentatively to obtain an overview of the questions and answers submitted by the contributors. 12 threads out of 68 were short, containing 1–10 posts concentrating on a specific issue, for example, the question of whether Harris is “a lightweight”. Therefore, a decision was made to exclude the shortest threads and focus on threads with 10+ posts because they offer a more versatile picture of the issues directly related Harris´s presidential candidacy and campaign. Finally, by the above criteria, 25 threads out of 56 were chosen for analysis. The length of the threads varied from 11 to 174 posts; on average, a thread contained 75 posts. The sample of 25 threads contained altogether 1909 posts. Of them, 25 were opening questions, while 1884 posts offered answers to them. The sample of 25 threads appeared to be sufficient for the needs of the present study because the data became saturated. It became evident that the inclusion of additional threads would not have essentially changed the quantitative and qualitative picture of the questions and answers indicative of political information seeking and sharing related to Harris´s candidacy.

Altogether 950 individual participants contributed to the discussion threads within the period of 21 July – 14 September 2024. July 21 was chosen as the start date of the period because on that day Harris launched her campaign for president, after incumbent President Joe Biden withdrew his bid for re-election and endorsed her earlier the same day. It was decided that 14 September 2014 is a relevant end date of the research period because by that time, enough material had been obtained on the initial stage of Harris’s campaign, including the Quora participants comments on the ABC News Presidential Debate between Harris and Trump on 10 September 2014.

There were a few active participants; of them, the most frequent contributor submitted 25 posts. On the other hand, the majority of the participants, that is, 572 contributors wrote only one post. Although the discussion topics attracted a relatively large number of participants, most of them were occasional contributors who did not delve into the discussion in more detail. The coding of the empirical data was an iterative process in which the downloaded discussion threads were scrutinized several times by the present author. In the first phase of the coding, the topics of the 25 opening questions and the 1884 answers were inductively identified from the empirical material. As noted above, all of the opening posts represented opinion questions, for example, “What is your reason for voting for Kamala Harris?” and “Do you think that Kamala is scared to debate Trump on September fourth?” The answers offered by the participants were coded by making use of the answer types referred to in Figure 1. During the coding, the coding process was kept open so that new categories emerging from the data were allowed. As a result, a new answer type, that is, comparison answer was identified. The coding categories of answers are specified in Table 1.

An answer was coded only once for a criterion category, for example, a comparison answer once it was identified for the first time in the post. In long posts, the same category, for example, opinion answer was often identified in several segments of the same post when the answerer offered information about more than one topic, for example, the candidate´s personal characteristics and his or her competence. In these cases, the category of opinion answers was coded separately for each topic. Typically, however, an answer is concentrated on one topic within a post. This is mainly due to the fact that most answers were relatively short, containing 1–4 sentences per post. If an answer incorporated elements characteristic of several answer types, multiple codes were allowed. For example, a prediction of a candidate’s possibility to lose the election may overlap with the reasoning of why he or she may fail in the presidential campaign. For example, one of the answerers asserted in discussion thread 1 that “Trump will lose because he did not pick a woman for Vice President”. In this case, the answer was assigned with two codes: prediction answer and explanation answer because the first part of the sentence refers to the expected result of the election, while the latter part of the sentence offers an explanation.

To strengthen the reliability of the coding, the initial coding was refined by repeated reading of the data. During this process, the methodological recommendation of Miles and Huberman (1994, p. 65) was followed: the careful checking of the codes is a useful method for the lone researcher if the code-recode consistencies reach at least 90%. Following this advice, the coding was refined until it was found that the codes appropriately describe the data and that there are no anomalies.

In order to examine the relative share of the coding categories, their percentage distributions were calculated. Thereafter, the data were scrutinized by means of qualitative content analysis (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, pp. 339–344). To this end, the constant comparative method was employed to capture the variety of articulations of the answers presented by the participants. More specifically, this was achieved by identifying similarities and differences in the ways in which the Quora contributors presented answers of various types. Thereafter, similar and different articulations per answer type were systematically examined within each discussion topic. This approach enabled a detailed analysis of how the participants articulated, for example, opinion answers dealing with the competence of the candidates and how they put into words the prediction answers characterizing the threats arising from the election result. The empirical data were analysed and the findings section was finalised before Election Day, that is, 5 November 2024. This was done in order to ascertain that information about the actual winner and loser of the election would not affect the analysis of questions and answers presented during the initial stage of Harris´s campaign.

Since the posts submitted to Quora are freely accessible to anyone interested, they can be seen as contributions which are intended to elicit public interest in the US presidential election in 2024. Due to their public nature, the posts can also be utilized for research purposes, provided that the identity of an individual contributor is protected. To achieve this, the posts were equipped with technical codes. For example, in the code P882-T18, P882 refers to the 882nd poster in the alphabetical list of the 950 contributors, while T18 refers to discussion thread 18. Finally, to anonymise the data, all information dealing with the nicknames of the online contributors and the submission dates for the posts were deleted from the illustrative quotes presented in the findings section of this study.

Of the 950 Quora contributors, 26 participants (2.7%) explicitly indicated that they are registered voters of the Democratic Party or will vote for Kamala Harris. Almost an equal share, that is, 25 contributors (2.6%) declared that they will vote for Donald Trump. The majority of the participants, that is, 899 contributors (94.7%) did not disclose their political stance. This suggests that most Quora contributors tend to avoid an explicit partisan identity. Nevertheless, as the qualitative findings below indicate, many of the opening questions and answers to them reflected the political divide between the supporters of Harris and Trump. The 25 opening questions are indicative of attempts to seek political information focused on six topics specified in Table 2.

Table 2 demonstrates that the majority of the questions dealt with the reasons for which people would vote Harris or Trump. Examples of such questions include “What is your reason for voting for Kamala Harris?” (T18) and “Last week I was planning to vote for Kamala Harris, but now I realize she would make for a terrible President, so I changed my mind, and I will vote for Trump. Who else changed their mind about Kamala Harris?” (T2). Moreover, the opening questions often dealt with the perceived competence and capabilities of the candidates, for example, “Is Senator Kamala Harris a good candidate for president?” (T22) and the expected results of the election, for example, “How could Kamala Harris lose to Donald Trump in November?” (T11). The questions seldom focused on the prior political achievements of the candidates (e.g. “What have been some of Kamala Harris´s major accomplishments thus far in her capacity as U.S. Vice President?” (T21), the political goals of the candidates (e.g. “Does Kamala Harris plan to confiscate all Americans' guns?” (T15) and the nature of presidential campaigns (e.g. “Do you think that Kamala is scared to debate Trump on September fourth?” (T10).

The 25 opening questions attracted altogether 1884 answers from the contributors. The percentage distribution of the 2,205 codes assigned to the topics of the answers is presented in Table 3.

As specified in Table 3, the answers were scattered into a broad area containing 14 topics. Similar to the opening questions, the most frequent answers dealt with the reasons for voting. Quite often, the answers also focused on the personal characteristics and issues of the candidates, and US political issues such as migration and taxation. The contributors were also active in discussing the political goals of the candidates, as well as their competence. Similarly, attention was devoted to the candidates’ prior political achievements and failures. Many of the answerers were worried about the threats arising from the election result, while less attention was devoted to the opportunities opened up by the victory of Harris or Trump. Finally, some attention was directed to the candidates’ communication abilities, as well as the role of media in presidential campaigns.

The quantitative picture can be elaborated further by reviewing the distribution of answer types (see Table 4).

An overwhelming majority of the codes assigned to answers, that is, 80.9% dealt with opinions articulated by the participants. The role of answers of other types remained quite marginal. 6.1% of the coded answers offered predictive information and 4.9% comparative information. In a few cases, the answers also incorporated factual information, explanations and action directives, for example, a recommendation to vote for a candidate.

The quantitative findings can be elaborated by analysing the qualitative features of the answers offered by the participants. Table 4 indicates that four out of five codes assigned to the answers dealt with opinion answers depicting the personal views of an individual contributor. The opinion answers were scattered into a broad area, covering all the topics specified in Table 3. Although all of the 25 opening questions dealt with Harris´s candidacy, the opinion answers did not solely focus on it. Many of the opinion answers reflected Harris’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to her rival, Donald Trump. In the following, the opinion answers will be reviewed by starting from the issues related to the potential of the candidates, e.g. their prior political achievements and perceived competence for the presidency, then proceeding to the reasons for voting and ending with the opportunities and threats arising from the election result. While assessing the competence and abilities of the candidates, the answerers often emphasized the merits of Kamala Harris.

However, more commonly, the participants disagreed about the candidates’ achievements and emphasized their failures in politics. Answers of this type reflect the negative tone characteristic of many online discussions (Strandberg, 2008).

Reflecting the strong polarization of the US political culture, most answers evaluating the candidates’ political values were divided and negatively coloured, suggesting that potential voters are suspicious of the political agenda of the future president. It was suspected that Harris is a “Marxist” (P775-T1) or “woke and liberal” (P322-T21), thus casting doubt on her radical goals.

Compared to the critique addressed towards Harris’s goals, Trump’s political agenda was assessed even more negatively. In particular, doubts were expressed about whether he would endorse the radical ideas of Project 2025. It is a political initiative published by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation in 2022. Project 2025 aims to promote conservative and right-wing policies to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power, under the premise that Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.

The participants also assessed the competence and leadership capabilities of the candidates. Again, the opinions were divided. The positive assessments mainly dealt with Harris´s merits.

Reflecting the critical tone of the online discussion, however, most of the opinions about the candidates’ capabilities were negative. It was suspected, for example, that Harris was chosen as the presidential candidate “only because of her skin color” (P677-T19). Outspoken expressions were common, particularly when assessing the candidates’ campaign speeches and televised debates.

Closely related, the opinions about the candidates’ personal characteristics and issues were strongly divided. Harris was praised for her joyful, energetic and engaging stage presence, while no positive assessments were presented about Trump as a person. The judgments were harsh, particularly if they dealt with his lawsuits.

Table 3 indicated that most of the answers dealt with the reasons for voting. The contributors presented a wide variety of arguments by which they (or other people) would vote for either Harris or Trump. Many of the arguments preferring Harris were simply based on the blunt statement that “she is not Trump” (P493-T19). However, positive reasons for voting were presented, suggesting that many of the answerers had already made the voting decision.

The polarised setting of the election was reflected most visibly in the answers dealing with the opportunities and threats arising from the victory of Harris or Trump. Almost without exception, opportunities and hopeful statements were associated with Harris presidency. It was believed that as the first female president representing an ethnic minority, she would bring something really new to the US political culture. Hopes were also directed to that in contrast to Trump, Harris would base her decisions on the views of her advisors.

Interestingly, the threats arising from the election result were associated almost equally with Harris and Trump. Answers of this type reflected the perceived weaknesses of the candidates. One of the perceived threats was based on the belief that Harris as a newly elected president would not be a credible political actor in the international fora, particularly when negotiating with authoritarian leaders such as Russian and North Korean presidents. Closely related to this, worries were expressed about the growing risk of the third world war and Harris’s ability to make decisions in the event of an armed attack against the United States. On the other hand, it was doubted whether Trump would be able to defend US interests, due to his close relationships with “dictators” such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

Finally, opinion answers dealt with the ways in which legacy media influences the presidential campaigns, as well as the views of potential voters. Almost without exceptions, answers on this topic were coloured negatively, suggesting that the views presented in newspaper articles and television programmes are biased, favouring either Harris or Trump.

In contrast to the popularity of the opinion answers, the participants seldom offered factual information. Many of the fact answers focused on the achievements of the candidates. In itself, answers of this kind did not offer nothing radically new because such facts can be found in Wikipedia entries, for example. Nevertheless, basic facts can offer useful background information about the candidates. As the opening questions focused on the achievements of Kamala Harris, it was unsurprising that many of the fact answers focused on her merits. Fact answers depicted Harris’s educational merits as suggestive of a potentially competent leader of the USA. In contrast, the participants presented no fact answers depicting the positive achievements of their rival. Instead, references were made to Trump’s numerous lawsuits.

Another recurrent topic of fact answers was the depiction of the popularity of the candidates measured by polls.

Table 4 indicated that 4.9% of the codes assigned to answers of various types dealt with comparison answers. Although their share was quite small, comparison answers nevertheless exemplify contributions in which the participants made use of a more analytical approach by relating two or more factors. Similar to the opinion answers reviewed above, the comparison answers focused on a variety of topics, ranging from the perceived capabilities of the candidates to the opportunities arising from the election result. Many of the comparison answers evaluated the competence of the candidates. Compared to Trump, Harris was more strongly praised for her capabilities.

Characteristic of the predominantly negative tone of the answers, the participants were more active in expressing doubts about the candidates’ capabilities. Once again, this suggests that the polarisation of assessments is a pervasive feature in online debates about US political issues.

Comparison answers also dealt with the reasons for voting Harris or Trump. Almost without exception, the comments presented by the participants favoured the former candidate.

Similar to comparison answers, the Quora contributors seldom offered explanations making it understandable why people should vote for Harris or Trump. A major identifier of the explanation answers is the use of the words “because” or “if … then” Many of the answers of this type focused on the reasons for voting.

Explanation answers did not always appear in a pure form because sometimes they incorporated comparative elements. It is evident that the combination of explanatory and comparative elements can enhance the persuasive power of an answer.

Finally, explanation answers were also made it understandable why a candidate could win or lose the election.

Given the great majority of opinion answers, prediction answers were relatively popular among the rest of the comments offered by the Quora contributors. Many of the prediction answers dealt with the nature of debates between the candidates during the presidential campaigns. Again, the participants were divided regarding their predictions about the winners and losers of the forthcoming debates.

However, the participants were more active in predicting the result of the election. Answers of this kind varied from general-level guesses to more sophisticated forecasts, incorporating facts presented in recent polls.

Finally, prediction answers focused on the threats arising from the result of the election. It was feared that the decisions made by the elected president would cause substantial risks concerning international security and the well-being of individual citizens.

Quora online discussion threads on political issues provide opportunities to persuade fellow participants, as well as other people reading the posts. The analysis of the answers indicated, however, that the answerers seldom made use of this opportunity. As expected, action directive answers mostly dealt with the recommendations to vote for a candidate. In this regard, they resemble political slogans.

More sophisticated action directive answers offered grounds explaining why people should prefer a candidate. Thereby, elements of explanation answers were incorporated into the action directives.

Action directive answers were not always partisan in nature. Some contributors made attempts to present an impartial plea in order to emphasize that voting is vital to fostering democracy.

The present study elaborated the picture of the ways in which people seek and share political information in social Q&A platforms in a particular context, in this case, the US presidential election 2024. Drawing on the ideas of the Information Utility model and studies on partisan selective exposure to political information, the present investigation sought answers to two research questions. The first question dealt with the political information needs triggering information seeking about diverse topics, as articulated in the opening questions submitted to Quora. The findings revealed a wide variety of topics of information needs, ranging from the candidates’ political agendas to the expected result of the election. The topics of questions and answers matched best regarding the reasons for voting because it was the most popular topic in the online discussion. The match of questions and answers was weaker in other topics because the answers were scattered into a relatively broad area. Moreover, many of the topics discussed by the answerers were not included in the opening questions, for example, US political issues such as migration. Overall, the findings suggest that people seeking political information from Quora discussion threads can obtain fairly focused answers to their questions. On the other hand, the answerers also generate content that is not directly related to the topic of the opening question, thus sometimes resulting in “a cacophony of voices that speak but do not listen” (Zheng and Shahin, 2020, p. 354).

The second research question dealt with the sharing of political information, as indicated by the answers submitted to Quora. Even though the number of contributors explicitly supporting the Democratic Party or the Republican Party was small, the Quora answers taken as a whole reflect the deep political polarisation in the USA. The political divide was particularly visible in the opinion answers, resulting in either positive or negative assessments of the candidates. To compare, the share of answers based on more analytical approaches, that is, comparison, explanation and prediction were less frequent. A minority of the answers also incorporated basic facts about the candidates, as well as action directives dealing with voting recommendations. Considered as a whole, the Quora answers did not offer anything radically new about the candidates and their campaigns, as compared to political information available from television programs and newspapers, for example. It is evident that much of the answers offered by Quora participants are based on the personal interpretation of political information obtained from the media, simply because in practice it is difficult for ordinary people to acquire information by contacting the busy presidential candidates. However, Quora answerers can offer political information that complements the material available in the media. The added value of the user-generated content is based on the personal interpretation by which ordinary people evaluate political issues and events. It is possible that user-generated content of this kind can be found more credible among social media users than political information interpreted and filtered by reporters working in legacy media, for example. Political information available on Quora can be found trustworthy because it reflects the views of like-minded ordinary people presenting outspoken assessments about the candidates.

The novelty value of the findings can be reflected by making comparisons with related studies. In general, the results of the present investigation lend support to the observations of prior studies on political information-seeking and sharing occurring in social media forums. Similar to Wilhelm’s (1998) and Strandberg’s (2008) observations, opinion answers were dominant in Quora´s discussion threads. The findings of the present investigation also confirm the conclusion drawn by Jansen and Koop (2005) about the significant function of the opening post as an agenda setter of the discussion. The ideological standpoint of the initial post and its reasonableness largely determines how the answerers approach the discussion topic and interpret their answers. In particular, provocative opening questions such as “Do you think that Kamala is scared to debate Trump on September fourth?” generated answers in which the participants communicated their disagreement with the above assumption, thus supporting the conclusion drawn by Kim et al. (2021). They found that individuals are more likely to share political information when they are exposed to information that is disagreeable. Finally, similar to the observations made by Chen et al. (2019), the findings demonstrate that online discourse on presidential elections tend to be messy and sometimes marred by offending expressions.

Different from the results of Lu and Lee (2022) who in the context of the 2016 US presidential election campaign investigated the engagement with political disagreement on social networking sites, the findings of the present study suggest that experiences of political disagreement do not necessarily encourage people to search for more information about the counter-attitudinal posts. In Quora discussions, most of the answers were suggestive of the power of confirmation bias definitely supporting or resisting the election of Harris or Trump, thus reflecting the political gaps between the supporters of the Democratic and Republican parties. Moreover, different from the findings of Lu and Lee (2022), there were very few attempts to rise above the ideological gap and take a non-partisan approach to weigh the pros and cons of the candidates. Therefore, Quora discussions may not offer much informational support for potential voters still considering their decision because the action directive answers tend to be quite categorical.

The findings can also be compared to Savolainen´s (2023) study where he examined information seeking and sharing among Quora participants discussing the threat of nuclear war. In his investigation, 58% of the codes assigned to the answers of diverse types dealt with opinion answers, while in the present study, the share of opinions answers was about 81%. This difference may be mainly due to the nature of the discussion topic. The US presidential election 2024 is more a matter of personal opinion because it deals with an individual’s value-based choice between two opposite candidates, while the threat of nuclear war is a more abstract issue that may (or may not) materialise in the future. It is more difficult to articulate opinions about such issues than to present a personal view on concrete persons such as Harris or Trump. Similar to Quora discussion about the presidential election, prediction answers were second most popular (13%) in Savolainen’s study (2023). Both the presidential election in 2024 and the threat of nuclear war in times of conflict raging in Ukraine tend to generate statements about what is expected to happen in the future. Similar to the present investigation, Savolainen (2023) found that Quora contributors were also interested in developing explanations. Well-reasoned explanations are important because they can deepen user´s knowledge about the causes and consequences of people’s choices, for example, voting decisions. Finally, the present study supports Savolainen´s (2023) observation about the marginal role of fact answers and action-directive answers. Independent of discussion topics, social Q&A platforms are arenas for presenting opinions rather than offering facts or answers based on logical argumentation. The findings of the present investigation suggest that this is particularly characteristic of discussion threads focusing on the seeking and sharing of political information.

Focusing on the US presidential election 2024, the present study elaborated on the contextual picture of political information seeking and sharing occurring in social Q&A platforms. The findings highlight that the participants of online discussions primarily seek and share opinions about political issues in order to seek support for their own views and to express disagreement with opposing ideas. The user-generated content covers a broad area but taken as a whole, political information available in Q&A threads is not particularly deep. Nevertheless, the discussion threads can offer political information that complements the material generated by newspapers and television programmes, as well as social media forums of another type. The added value of user-generated content is based on the ways in which ordinary citizens personally interpret political issues.

As the present study focused on a sample of Quora discussion threads dealing with the US presidential election 2024, the findings cannot be generalized to concern the seeking and sharing of political information in other contexts. Therefore, comparative research is required to elaborate the picture of political information seeking and sharing in other countries with different political cultures.

Moreover, there is a need to examine whether and how political information seeking and sharing differs in social media forums of other types. For example, digital newspapers’ comments sections hold a good potential for empirical research because they offer a rich variety of readers’ views on current political issues and events.