Media and Political Polarization
Abstract
This article examines if the emergence of more partisan media has contributed to political polarization and led Americans to support more partisan policies and candidates. Congress and some newer media outlets have added more partisan messages to a continuing supply of mostly centrist news. Although political attitudes of most Americans have remained fairly moderate, evidence points to some polarization among the politically involved. Proliferation of media choices lowered the share of less interested, less partisan voters and thereby made elections more partisan. But evidence for a causal link between more partisan messages and changing attitudes or behaviors is mixed at best. Measurement problems hold back research on partisan selective exposure and its consequences. Ideologically one-sided news exposure may be largely confined to a small, but highly involved and influential, segment of the population. There is no firm evidence that partisan media are making ordinary Americans more partisan.
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Other factors related to polarization include intensified media partisanship and stronger ideological sorting of voters by party.
“Other factors related to polarization include intensified media partisanship (DellaVigna and Kaplan 2007; Levendusky 2013; Prior 2013) and stronger ideological sorting of voters by party(Levendusky 2009).”
From Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure (2020) · cites this paper as Prior 2013
The extent of selective exposure remains unclear since it requires direct observation of people's media choices.
“The extent of selective exposure remains unclear since it requires direct observation of people's media choices (Prior, 2013).”
From How to study democratic backsliding (2024) · cites this paper as Prior, 2013
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“…a las tendencias en las formas y contenidos de la comunicación política contemporánea, especialmente en relación con las estrategias, el tono agre-sivo e incivil de las campañas electorales y los efectos de las dinámicas de consumo informativo de las audiencias (Iyengar et al. , 2019; Prior, 2013).”
- Authors
- Prior, M.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Prior, Markus
- ORCID
- Prior, Markus
- Venue
- Annual Review of Political Science
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2013-05-11
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 101-127
- ISSN
- 1094-2939 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-1577
- OpenAlex
- W2102968466
- Cited by
- 1,125
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 61 · 2025: 68 · 2024: 78 · 2023: 90 · 2022: 125 · 2021: 123 · 2020: 158 · 2019: 107 · 2018: 113 · 2017: 61 · 2016: 56 · 2015: 48 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 24.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annual Review of Political Science (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media Studies and Communication
- Keywords
- partisan media, political polarization, selective exposure, partisan news, media influence, voter turnout, political attitudes, media selection
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