Polarization as a Function of Citizen Predispositions and Exposure to News on the Internet

Abstract

Observers of democratic polities decry a seeming increase in social and political polarization. This article outlines the conditions under which Internet-based news exposure can facilitate polarization. Analyses of data from a nationally representative United States panel study reveal that frequency of news consumption over the Internet can widen disagreements between Democrats and Republicans over a wide range of social and political issues. The results reveal few signs of a similar Internet news exposure effect for disagreement linked to race and income. These findings point to some possible mechanisms of, and limitations to, processes driving social and political polarization.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the American National Election Studies for providing access to their survey data. The authors are responsible for all analyses and interpretations of the data.

Notes

Notes

¹ See the ANES methodology reports for a full breakdown of the studies' panelist recruiting procedures at http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/download/datacenter_all.htm.

² Our data are drawn from the waves in which relevant measures are available. Those waves are 1 (January 2008), 2 (February 2008), 9 (September 2008), 10 (October 2008), 11 (November 2008), 19 (July 2009), and the re-contact wave (June 2010).

³ Lower valid response rates in some analyses are largely due to item non-response (e.g., for income questions), our omission of respondents who switched political parties from one wave to the next, and the fact that when criterion variables had available prior wave controls there were respondents who did not participate in all waves and were, therefore, excluded.

⁴ The macro used to decompose the interactions comes from the Web site of Andrew Hayes, “My Macros and Code for SPSS and SAS” at http://afhayes.com/spss-sas-and-mplus-macros-and-code.html.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Tewksbury

David Tewksbury (Ph.D., University of Michigan) is a professor of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests are in political communication, news consumption, and information processing.

Julius Matthew Riles

Julius Matthew Riles (M.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is a doctoral candidate in Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include examining the influence of new media on public perceptions and assessing the social implications of media consumption.