Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-kw2vx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T07:14:32.847Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

32 - Opinion Formation and Polarisation in the News Feed Era

Effects from Digital, Social, and Mobile Media

from Part III - Contemporary Challenges to Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2022

By
Johanna Dunaway  and
Jaime Settle
Edited by
Danny Osborne  and
Chris G. Sibley
Danny Osborne
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
Chris G. Sibley
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
Get access

Summary

Today’s information environment is drastically different from the heyday of print and broadcast, but these changes exceed the scope of researchers’ agendas. More is known now than when these technologies were in their infancy, yet efforts to understand the implications of changing communication technology for media effects have produced mixed findings, limiting progress towards cohesive and generalisable theoretical explanations. A literature review suggests one reason for this is that media effects scholarship has often neglected insights from political psychology and information processing, contributing to a lack of theoretical coherence across these bodies of work. Though research thoroughly examines directional motivations dictating media choice and exposure, it does not equally consider other cognitive biases driving choice, exposure, and processing, which can offset effects from the structural aspects of digital media. Given ample evidence that communication technology influences information processing, any viable, contemporary explanation of media effects must reconcile with these literatures.

Keywords

Digital mediaInformation processingMedia effectsOpinion formationPolarisation
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Political Psychology , pp. 508 - 525
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramowitz, A. I., & Saunders, K. L. (2008). Is polarization a myth?. The Journal of Politics, 70(2), 542–555.Google Scholar
Adamic, L. A., & Glance, N. (2005, August). The political blogosphere and the 2004 US election: Divided they blog. Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Link Discovery, 36–43.Google Scholar
Arceneaux, K. (2012). Cognitive biases and the strength of political arguments. American Journal of Political Science, 56(2), 271–285.Google Scholar
Arceneaux, K., & Johnson, M. (2013). Changing minds or changing channels?: Partisan news in an age of choice. The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Arceneaux, K., & Johnson, P. M. (2015). How does media choice affect hostile media perceptions? Evidence from participant preference experiments. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 2(1), 12–25.Google Scholar
Arceneaux, K., Johnson, M., & Cryderman, J. (2013). Communication, persuasion, and the conditioning value of selective exposure: Like minds may unite and divide but they mostly tune out. Political Communication, 30(2), 213–231.Google Scholar
Arceneaux, K., & Vander Wielen, R. J. (2013). The effects of need for cognition and need for affect on partisan evaluations. Political Psychology, 34(1), 23–42.Google Scholar
Atkeson, L. R., & Maestas, C. D. (2012). Catastrophic politics: How extraordinary events redefine perceptions of government. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bail, C. A., Argyle, L. P., Brown, T. W., et al. (2018). Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(37), 9216–9221.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bakshy, E., Messing, S., & Adamic, L. A. (2015). Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook. Science, 348(6239), 1130–1132.Google Scholar
Baum, M. (2003). Soft news goes to war: Public opinion and American foreign policy in the new media age. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, W. L., & Iyengar, S. (2008). A new era of minimal effects? The changing foundations of political communication. Journal of Communication, 58(4), 707–731.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bode, L. (2016). Political news in the news feed: Learning politics from social media. Mass Communication and Society, 19(1), 24–48.Google Scholar
Bode, L., & Vraga, E. K. (2015). In related news, that was wrong: The correction of misinformation through related stories functionality in social media. Journal of Communication, 65(4), 619–638.Google Scholar
Bolsen, T., Druckman, J. N., & Cook, F. L. (2014). The influence of partisan motivated reasoning on public opinion. Political Behavior, 36(2), 235–262.Google Scholar
Boxell, L., Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J. M. (2020). Cross-country trends in affective polarization [No. w26669]. National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brader, T. (2006). Campaigning for hearts and minds: How emotional appeals in political ads work. The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Converse, P. E. (1964). The nature of belief systems in mass publics: Ideology and discontent. In Apter, D. E. (Ed.), Ideology and discontent (pp. 206–261). The Free Press of Glencoe.Google Scholar
De Benedictis-Kessner, J., Baum, M. A., Berinsky, A. J., & Yamamoto, T. (2019). Persuading the enemy: Estimating the persuasive effects of partisan media with the preference-incorporating choice and assignment design. American Political Science Review, 113(4), 902–916.Google Scholar
Detenber, B., & Reeves, B. (1996). A bio-informational theory of emotion: Motion and image size effects on viewers. Journal of Communication, 46(3), 66–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Druckman, J. N. (2001). On the limits of framing effects: Who can frame?. Journal of Politics, 63(4), 1041–1066.Google Scholar
Druckman, J. N., Peterson, E., & Slothuus, R. (2013). How elite partisan polarization affects public opinion formation. American Political Science Review, 107(1), 57–79.Google Scholar
Dunaway, J., & Searles, K. (2021). News and democratic citizens in the mobile era. Oxford University Press [Manuscript submitted].Google Scholar
Dunaway, J., Searles, K., Sui, M., & Paul, N. (2018). News attention in a mobile era. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 23(2), 107–124.Google Scholar
Dunaway, J., & Soroka, S. (2021). Smartphone-size screens constrain cognitive access to video news stories. Information, Communication & Society, 24(1), 69–84.Google Scholar
Feezell, J. T. (2018). Agenda setting through social media: The importance of incidental news exposure and social filtering in the digital era. Political Research Quarterly, 71(2), 482–494.Google Scholar
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, M. P., Abrams, S. A., & Pope, J. C. (2008). Polarization in the American public: Misconceptions and misreadings. Journal of Politics, 70(2), 556–560.Google Scholar
Flaxman, S., Goel, S., & Rao, J. M. (2016). Filter bubbles, echo chambers, and online news consumption. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(S1), 298–320.Google Scholar
Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J. M. (2011). Ideological segregation online and offline. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(4), 1799–1839.Google Scholar
Goel, S., Hofman, J. M., Lahaie, S., Pennock, D. M., & Watts, D. J. (2010). Predicting consumer behavior with Web search. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(41), 17486–17490.Google Scholar
Grabe, M. E., Lombard, M., Reich, R. D., Capanella Bracken, C., & Ditton, T. B. (2000). The role of screen size in viewer experiences of media content. Visual Communication Quarterly, 6(2), 4–9.Google Scholar
Hetherington, M. J. (2001). Resurgent mass partisanship: The role of elite polarization. American Political Science Review, 95(3), 619–631.Google Scholar
Hindman, M. (2018). The internet trap: How the digital economy builds monopolies and undermines democracy. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Huddy, L., Mason, L., & Aarøe, L. (2015). Expressive partisanship: Campaign involvement, political emotion, and partisan identity. American Political Science Review, 109(1), 1–17.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S. (1991). Is anyone responsible? How television frames political issues. The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S. (2017). A typology of media effects. In Kenski, K. & Jamieson, K. H. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political communication (pp. 59–68).Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S., & Kinder, D. R. (1987). News that matters: Television and American opinion. The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S., & Krupenkin, M. (2018). The strengthening of partisan affect. Political Psychology, 39(1), 201–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, S., Sood, G., & Lelkes, Y. (2012). Affect, not ideology: A social identity perspective on polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 76(3), 405–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, S., & Westwood, S. J. (2015). Fear and loathing across party lines: New evidence on group polarization. American Journal of Political Science, 59(3), 690–707.Google Scholar
Jamieson, K. H. (2017). Creating the hybrid field of political communication: A five-decade long evolution of the concepts of effects. In Kenski, K. & Jamieson, K. H. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political communication (pp. 15–45). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jurkowitz, M., & Mitchell, A. (2020). An oasis of bipartisanship: Republicans and Democrats distrust social media sites for political and election news. https://www.journalism.org/2020/01/29/an-oasis-of-bipartisanship-republicans-and-democrats-distrust-social-media-sites-for-political-and-election-news/Google Scholar
Katz, E., & Lazarsfeld, P. (1955). Personal influence: The part played by people in the flow of mass communication. Transaction.Google Scholar
Kim, Y. M., Hsu, J., Neiman, D., et al. (2018). The stealth media? Groups and targets behind divisive issue campaigns on Facebook. Political Communication, 35(4), 515–541.Google Scholar
Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480–498.Google Scholar
Ladd, J. M., & Podkul, A. R. (2020). Sowing distrust of the news media as an electoral strategy. In Grofman, B., Suhay, L., & Trechsel, A. (Eds.), Oxford handbook of electoral persuasion (pp. 427–454). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lang, A. (2000). The limited capacity model of mediated message processing. Journal of Communication, 50(1), 46–70.Google Scholar
Lang, A., Potter, D., & Grabe, M. E. (2003). Making news memorable: Applying theory to the production of local television news. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 47(1), 113–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lau, R. R., & Redlawsk, D. P. (2006). How voters decide: Information processing in election campaigns. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Layman, G. C., & Carsey, T. M. (2002). Party polarization and ‘conflict extension’ in the American electorate. American Journal of Political Science, 46(4), 786–802.Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, P. F., Berelson, B. R., & Gaudet, H. (1948). The people’s choice. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lelkes, Y., Sood, G., & Iyengar, S. (2017). The hostile audience: The effect of access to broadband internet on partisan affect. American Journal of Political Science, 61(1), 5–20.Google Scholar
Levendusky, M. (2009). The partisan sort: How liberals became Democrats and conservatives became Republicans. The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Levendusky, M. S. (2013a). Why do partisan media polarize viewers?. American Journal of Political Science, 57(3), 611–623.Google Scholar
Levendusky, M. S. (2013b). How partisan media polarize America. The University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lodge, M., & Taber, C. S. (2013). The rationalizing voter. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lombard, M., Ditton, T. B., Grabe, M. E., & Reich, R. D. (1997). The role of screen size in viewer responses to television fare. Communication Reports, 10(1), 95–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lupia, A., & McCubbins, M. D. (1998). The democratic dilemma: Can citizens learn what they need to know?. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mason, L. (2016). A cross-cutting calm: How social sorting drives affective polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(S1), 351–377.Google Scholar
Mason, L. (2018). Uncivil agreement: How politics became our identity. The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mason, L., & Wronski, J. (2018). One tribe to bind them all: How our social group attachments strengthen partisanship. Political Psychology, 39(2), 257–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messing, S., & Westwood, S. J. (2014). Selective exposure in the age of social media: Endorsements trump partisan source affiliation when selecting news online. Communication Research, 41(8), 1042–1063.Google Scholar
Molyneux, L. (2017). Mobile news consumption. Digital Journalism, 6(5), 634–650.Google Scholar
Munger, K., Gopal, I., Nagler, J., & Tucker, J. (2021). Accessibility and generalizability: Are social media effects moderated by age or digital literacy?. Research & Politics, 8(2).Google Scholar
Nelson, J. L., & Webster, J. G. (2017). The myth of partisan selective exposure: A portrait of the online political news audience. Social Media+ Society, 3(3).Google Scholar
Nir, L. (2011). Motivated reasoning and public opinion perception. Public Opinion Quarterly, 75(3), 504–532.Google Scholar
Pariser, E. (2011). The filter bubble: How the new personalized web is changing what we read and how we think. Penguin.Google Scholar
Pennycook, G., Cannon, T. D., & Rand, D. G. (2018). Prior exposure increases perceived accuracy of fake news. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147(12), 1865–1880.Google Scholar
Peterson, E., Goel, S., & Iyengar, S. (2018). Echo chambers and partisan polarization: Evidence from the 2016 presidential campaign [Unpublished manuscript]. https://5harad.com/papers/selective-exposure.pdfGoogle Scholar
Prior, M. (2007). Post-broadcast democracy: How media choice increases inequality in political involvement and polarizes elections. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Prior, M. (2013). Media and political polarization. Annual Review of Political Science, 16(1), 101–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redlawsk, D. P. (2002). Hot cognition or cool consideration? Testing the effects of motivated reasoning on political decision making. The Journal of Politics, 64(4), 1021–1044.Google Scholar
Reeves, B., Lang, A., Kim, E. Y., & Tatar, D. (1999). The effects of screen size and message content on attention and arousal. Media Psychology, 1(1), 49–67.Google Scholar
Settle, J. E. (2018). Frenemies: How social media polarizes America. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Settle, J. E. (2020). Moving beyond sentiment analysis: Social media and emotions in political communication. In Welles, B. F. & González-Bailón, S. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of networked communication (pp. 350–377). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shin, J., Jian, L., Driscoll, K., & Bar, F. (2017). Political rumoring on Twitter during the 2012 US presidential election: Rumor diffusion and correction. New Media & Society, 19(8), 1214–1235.Google Scholar
Soroka, S. N. (2014). Negativity in democratic politics: Causes and consequences. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stroud, N. J. (2011). Niche news. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stroud, N. J. (2017). Selective exposure theories. In Kenski, K. & Jamieson, K. H. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political communication (pp. 531–548). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. (2017). #Republic: Divided democracy in the age of social media. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Taber, C. (2003). Information processing and public opinion. In Sears, D. O., Huddy, L., & Jervis, R. (Eds.), Handbook of political psychology (pp. 433–476). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weaver, K., Garcia, S. M., Schwarz, N., & Miller, D. T. (2007). Inferring the popularity of an opinion from its familiarity: A repetitive voice can sound like a chorus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 821–833.Google Scholar
Weeks, B. E. (2015). Emotions, partisanship, and misperceptions: How anger and anxiety moderate the effect of partisan bias on susceptibility to political misinformation. Journal of Communication, 65(4), 699–719.Google Scholar
Weeks, B. E., Lane, D. S., Kim, D. H., Lee, S. S., & Kwak, N. (2017). Incidental exposure, selective exposure, and political information sharing: Integrating online exposure patterns and expression on social media. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 22(6), 363–379.Google Scholar
Zaller, J. R. (1992). The nature and origins of mass opinion. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zaller, J., & Feldman, S. (1992). A simple theory of the survey response: Answering questions versus revealing preferences. American Journal of Political Science, 36, 579–616.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×