The Consequences of Cross-Cutting Networks for Political Participation

“Exposure to contrasting perspectives also increases familiarity with the rationales that motivate opposing views, which can in turn foster political tolerance (Mutz, 2002; Price, Cappella, & Nir, 2002).”

“People are more likely to be exposed to dissimilar political views when they consume news (Mutz, 2002).”

“The assumption is that individuals who discuss politics frequently are exposed to a wider range of political perspectives, and this exposure increases their interest in politics, their opinion quality, and their social tolerance (Mutz, 2002a).”

“Since other evidence suggests that friendship ties expose people to more heterogeneous political ideas and promote political tolerance (Huckfeldt 2001; Mutz 2002b; Grannovetter 1973), it is encouraging to see that those conversations also make participation more likely.”

“Moreover, there is some evidence that diversity of social networks prompts a more deliberative frame of mind (Mutz 2002a,b; Mutz & Martin 2001).”

“This tolerance then spreads to people who are not members of the group (see Mutz 2002b for an excellent overview of cross-cutting networks and tolerance).”

“If we understand political participation to be at the heart of a healthy and well-functioning democracy (e.g., Davis, 1999; Mutz, 2002), our findings indicate that as the number of blog readers increases, and given they remain as politically active as this study shows, they may help encourage a…”

“We thank T. K. Ahn, John Aldrich, Robert Bates, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Nicholas Christakis, Gary Cox, Eric Dickson, Jeff Gill, Don Green, Zoli Hajnal, Ben Highton, Robert Huckfeldt, Kosuke Imai, Gary Jacobson, Cindy Kam, Sam Kernell, Gary King, Thad Kousser, Michael Laver, Arend Lijphart, Peter Loewen, Gerry Mackie,…”

“…large-scale studies of social networks and their implications for political behavior rely on some form of self-report for their operationalizations of network structures and characteristics (see, for example, Huckfeldt & Sprague, 1995; McLeod, Scheufele, Moy, Horowitz, et al., 1999; Mutz, 2002).”

“And consistent with earlier work on cross pressures (e.g., Mutz, 2002, 2006), more contact with opponents tends to lead to more moderate views.”

“Although cross-cutting talk makes people more tolerant and cognizant of others’ political positions (Barabas 2004; Mutz 2002b; Price, Cappella, and Nir 2002), it depresses participation in politics (Mutz 2002a).”

“Several studies [11, 42] argue that a democracy needs deliberation, and polarization enables such a deliberation to happen in the public, to a certain extent, thus informing people about the issues and arguments from different sides.”

“Avoidance is one mechanism that may increase affective polarization and ultimately yield out-group derogation, as homogeneous networks tend to yield lower levels of tolerance (Mutz 2002).”

“Based on the previous literature, such negative interactions between supporters of different parties have shown to reduce enthusiasm about political campaigns in general, and make people less certain about their political beliefs and even postpone the decision to vote (e.g., Hopmann, 2012; McClurg, 2006; Mutz, 2002).”

“…the original data used by Lazarsfeld et al. and the 1956 national election study, Horan (1971) showed the earlier studies ‘‘unintentionally confounded the direct effects of membership in social categories with the effects of being linked to conflicting social categories’’ (Mutz, 2002a, p. 839).”

“…2007), group consciousness (Miller, Gurin, and Gurin 1981), socialization (Cho 1999), the status of neighbors (Huckfeldt 1979), political disagreement (Mutz 2002), and social capital (Lake and Huckfeldt 1998); and institutional factors (Jackman and Miller 1995) like closeness of the election…”

“The observed selective intake may indeed play a large role for increased polarization in the electorate and reduced mutual acceptance of political views in an era of unprecedented media outlets quantity (e.g., Mutz, 2002; Prior, 2007; Sunstein, 2001).”

“Tolerance of and preference for interpersonal conflict, in particular, relates to political behavior as political deliberation often involves unpleasant and conflict-oriented discussions (Mansbridge, 1983; Mutz, 2002; Ulbig & Funk, 1999; Wojcieszak, 2011).”

“Also, evidence from social network self-reports with follow-up confirmations by discussion partners shows that such reports tend to be accurate (see Mutz, 2002b).”

“While Mutz (2002; 2006) argues that disagreement leads to decreased participation (through mechanisms of ambivalence and social accountability), we find no evidence of such a relationship after accounting for the factors that potentially select people into certain types of micro-social environments.”

“Research has also tackled whether certain types of political discussion affect political participation more so than others (Mutz, 2002; Nir, 2011), as well as whether online and offline discussion have different participatory effects (Baek et al., 2012).”

“Recently, and more relevant to this study, there has been an increase in scholarly interest in the influence of opinion climates on political participation in its many forms (Huckfeldt et al., 2004; Mutz, 2002; Nir, 2005).”

“While some studies find that bipartisan communication networks can enhance both political participation and the quality of deliberation (18, 21, 23, 24), other studies show that they can backfire by causing people to reinforce their existing political biases (19, 20, 25, 26).”

“such measures can only be understood in terms of how people receive and process information from their peers (Huckfeldt, 2001; Knoke, 1990; Lake & Huckfeldt, 1998; Leighley, 1990; McClurg, 2003, 2006; Mutz, 2002a, 2002b ).”

“…on its own, considerable research has been applied to understanding how the makeup of an individual’s social network affects political participation (Eveland and Hively 2009; Huckfeldt, Johnson, and Sprague 2004; Huckfeldt, Mendez, and Osborn 2004; McClurg 2006; Mutz 2002; Scheufele et al. 2004).”

“To the extent that it mirrors the effects of personal networks, it may be a deterrent to participation while simultaneously serving as a boon to tolerance for differing political perspectives (Mutz, 2002a, 2002b).”

“If one discusses issues with those of an opposing view, they are more likely to be aware of their own position, and more likely to understand the counter viewpoint (Mutz, 2002; Rojas and Gil de Zúñiga, 2010).”

“2006), but it can also strengthen feelings of ambivalence and consequently promote apathy rather than engagement with the political process (Mutz 2002), or even create more conflict.”

“Accordingly, political talk also enhances the value of mass-mediated news and information (Scheufele, 2000, 2002).”

“Living in diverse political environments may inhibit people from participating in politics in order to avoid offending one’s neighbors (Mutz, 2002a).”

“Increasingly, it is becoming apparent that political ideology also has a ‘‘core’’ element that is rooted in innate predispositions, personality, and ‘‘motivated social cognition’’ (Jost et al. 2003).”

“For example, people whose networks involve greater political disagreement are less likely to participate in politics, yet these kinds of networks enhance political tolerance (Mutz 2002a, 2002b).”

“controversy on social media [21, 22] by connecting social media users with content outside their own bubbles. Finally, polarization by itself may not be a wholly negative phenomenon. Several studies [11, 42] argue that a democracy needs deliberation, and polarization enable such a deliberation to happen in the public,…”

“Empirical research assessing the consequences of networks for political participation is far from conclusive (Mutz, 2002; Klofstad, 2007).”

“Indeed, the features of political discussion analyzed are quite diverse, ranging from size of discussion network (Mutz, 2002), to frequency of political talk (Scheufele, 2002), and to heterogeneity of discussion partners (Huckfeldt, Johnson, & Sprague, 2002).”

“Some previous researchers have offered evidence for this line of reasoning (Blais & Labbé-St-Vincent, 2011; Mutz, 2002; Ulbig & Funk, 1999).”

“Research on interpersonal networks suggests that exposure to political views that complement one's own is positively related to political involvement ( Huckfeldt et al, 2004 ; Mutz, 2002b ).”

“, working to support a candidate; (Mutz, 2002b; Pattie & Johnston, 2009).”

“Past research has shown that the amount of discussion—a function of network size and discussion frequency—is consistent in having a positive impact on political participation (Mutz, 2002; Scheufele, 2002).”

“Indeed, individuals embedded in attitudinally heterogeneous networks are more aware of opposing arguments (Huckfeldt et al. 2004b; Mutz 2002b).”

“Political talk is traditionally an important predictor of political engagement, affecting policy opinions (Barabas, 2004), tolerance (Mutz, 2002), and participation in electoral politics (McClurg, 2006).”

“2 Though others have countered that too much cross ideological exposure can lead to political ambivalence, and hence at least a certain amount of fragmentation is necessary for political action (Dahlberg, 2007; Mutz, 2002).”

“At the contextual level evidence suggests that social capital depends on the level of ethnic, religious and socio-economic homogeneity of communities (Coleman 1990; Glaeser et al. 2000; Alesina and La Ferrara 2000, 2002; Mutz 2002; Costa and Kahn 2003; Putnam 2007; Borgonovi 2008).”

“, from clergy, family, friends, and coworkers) whose content is ultimately influenced by news media content (e.g., Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955; Mutz, 2002).”

“For this effect, the homogeneity of the group matters: voters typically participate more when surrounded by others who are similar to them (Giles and Dantico 1982; Mutz 2002).”

“Research on interpersonal discussion networks has examined various attributes of discussion such as discussion network size, discussion frequency, network heterogeneity, and network expertise (e.g., McClurg, 2006; Mutz, 2002a; Scheufele et al., 2004).”

“To the degree that heightened attitudinal ambivalence is related to decreased levels of participation,(35) such a phenomenon also has consequences for democratic decision making regarding the NBAF specifically, as well as for the implementation of risk-related policies more generally.”

“In their analyses of American voters, Mutz and Nir rephrased the notion of crosspressure in terms of ambivalence.(23)According to their findings, electors tend to decide rather late if they are affected by internal (i.”