The role of (social) media in political polarization: A systematic review
Open accessAbstract
Rising political polarization is, in part, attributed to the fragmentation of news media and the spread of misinformation on social media. Previous reviews have yet to assess the full breadth of research on media and polarization. We systematically examine 94 articles (121 studies) that assess the role of (social) media in shaping political polarization. Using quantitative and qualitative approaches, we find an increase in research over the past 10 years and consistently find that pro-attitudinal media exacerbates polarization. We find a hyperfocus on analyses of Twitter and American samples and a lack of research exploring ways (social) media can depolarize. Additionally, we find ideological and affective polarization are not clearly defined, nor consistently measured. Recommendations for future research are provided.
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The large majority of published research has focused on North American and European issues and samples.
“The large majority of published research has focused on North American and European issues and samples.”
From Social Media and Morality. (2024) · cites this paper as Kubin & von Sikorski 2021
The Results section lists a “Country of sample” heading, and the appendix codebook lists “Country of sample” and “Political topic,” but the available passages give no findings under those headings. Searches for North American and European issues and samples, and for the distribution of sample countries, found no passage establishing where the large majority of research was focused. (LLM, conf=0.70)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured86% of the research on social media and polarization is from the United States.
“For instance, 86% of the research on social media and polarization is from the United States (Kubin & von Sikorski 2021).”
From Social Media and Morality. (2024) · cites this paper as Kubin & von Sikorski 2021
The available Results passage lists a “Country of sample” section but contains no findings or percentages. Searches for “86%” and the share of studies using U.S. samples returned no passage establishing the claimed figure; the available copy appears to contain headings and links rather than the relevant body text. (LLM, conf=0.72)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredMost polarization studies do not actually study media content.
“Surprisingly, most polarization studies do not actually study media content (Kubin & Sikorski, 2021;Wojcieszak et al., 2018).”
From When debates break apart: discursive polarization as a multi-dimensional divergence emerging in and through communication (2023) · cites this paper as Kubin & Sikorski, 2021
The available Results passage (page unavailable) lists a “Media contents” section but gives no finding about how many polarization studies examine media content. Searches for studies analyzing media content and for content-analysis frequency returned only headings, not evidence for the claim. (LLM, conf=0.72)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThere are comparatively few studies exploring how polarization evolves in media content, particularly with regards to news media.
“Among the wealth of research on polarization, there are comparatively few studies which explore how polarization evolves in media content, particularly with regards to news media (Kubin & Sikorski, 2021;Wojcieszak et al., 2018).”
From When debates break apart: discursive polarization as a multi-dimensional divergence emerging in and through communication (2023) · cites this paper as Kubin & Sikorski, 2021
The Results passage lists “Media contents” as a topic, but it does not say how many studies examine polarization in media content or news media. Searches for the claimed scarcity and for “Media contents” found no passage in our copy that establishes the comparison. (LLM, conf=0.72)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
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References 82 · Cited by 610
- Authors
- Kubin, E., & von Sikorski, C.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Department of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Landau, Germany
- ORCID
- Kubin, Emily
- Venue
- Annals of the International Communication Association
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2021-07-03
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 188-206
- ISSN
- 2380-8977 (ISSN-L)
- 2380-8985
- OpenAlex
- W3199505005
- Cited by
- 610
- References
- 82
- Citations by year
- 2026: 120 · 2025: 177 · 2024: 151 · 2023: 120 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 3 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 17.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Annals of the International Communication Association (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Keywords
- political polarization, social media, misinformation, depolarization, ideological polarization, affective polarization, polarimetry, Twitter
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