Why are “others" so polarized? Perceived political polarization and media use in 10 countries

Yang, J; Rojas, H; Wojcieszak, M; Aalberg, T; Coen, S; Curran, J; Iyengar, S; Hayashi, K; Jones, PK; Mazzoleni, G; Papathanassopoulos, S; Rhee, JW; Rowe, D; Soroka, S; Tiffen, R

Abstract

This study tests the associations between news media use and perceived political polarization,
conceptualized as citizens’ beliefs about partisan divides among major political parties. Relying
on representative surveys in Canada, Colombia, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea,
Norway, United Kingdom and United States, we test whether perceived polarization is related to
the use of television news, newspaper, radio news, and online news media. Data show that online
news consumption is systematically and consistently related to perceived polarization, but not to
attitude polarization, understood as individual attitude extremity. In contrast, the relationships
between traditional media use and perceived and attitude polarization is mostly country
dependent. An explanation of these findings based on exemplification is proposed and tested in
an experimental design.

Citation

Yang, J., Rojas, H., Wojcieszak, M., Aalberg, T., Coen, S., Curran, J., …Tiffen, R. (2016). Why are “others" so polarized? Perceived political polarization and media use in 10 countries. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 21(5), 349-367. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12166

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 28, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Sep 13, 2016
• Publication Date: Sep 13, 2016
• Deposit Date: Oct 6, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 6, 2016
• Journal: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
• Electronic ISSN: 1083-6101
• Publisher: Wiley
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 349-367
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12166
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12166
• Related Public URLs: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1083-6101/
• Additional Information: Projects : Media System, Political Context and Informed Citizenship: A Comparative Study (UK)