Does Disagreement Mitigate Polarization? How Selective Exposure and Disagreement Affect Political Polarization

Abstract

This study examines how selective exposure and interpersonal political disagreement influence political polarization. Using data sets from two countries, the United States and South Korea, this study investigates the association between individuals' selective exposure and attitude polarization and proposes that disagreement in political discussion networks can be a potential moderating variable attenuating the association between selective exposure and polarization. Results across the two nations confirm that individuals' selective likeminded media use is associated with greater polarized attitudes. Findings further show that encountering dissimilar opinions through interpersonal discussion networks generally weakens the association between selective exposure and political polarization, despite some evidence indicating that disagreement leads to more polarized attitudes rather than attenuating polarization. The implications of the findings are discussed.A close relation between people's likeminded media use and political polarization has been demonstrated in the literature-that is, people's consumption of media outlets that share their own political dispositions may lead them to develop more polarized attitudes toward certain issues and political figures (Slater, 2007;Stroud, 2010). Less is known, however, about what factors might attenuate this political polarization process. Although

Dynamic Spirals Put to Test: An Agent-Based Model of Reinforcing Spirals Between Selective Exposure, Interpersonal Networks, and Attitude Polarization

“…Our study not only corroborates such findings, but also suggests that, if anything, individual‐level attitudinal compositions of interpersonal environments and various contextual factors also may critically moderate the spiral process between exposure and its attitudinal effect. Indeed, several prior studies, although anecdotally, suggest that exposure to disagreement within interpersonal political discussion networks is likely to be a key moderating mechanism that limits or enhances persuasive (or counterpersuasive) effects of partisan exposure on one's attitudes (e.g., Kim, ; Neiheisel & Niebler, ), which lends considerable support to the results of our study. To be sure, the system‐level generative consequences such as increasing polarization patterns critically depend on the specific distribution of such factors—which we believe, ultimately, would be an empirical question that requires large‐scale, detailed real‐world data.…”

Reinforcing spirals of political discussion and affective polarization

“…The primary test of our hypotheses, in addition to our alternative test separating out similar and dissimilar discussion, suggests that increases in similar discussion, rather than changes to discussion with dissimilar others is responsible for the observed relationships with affective polarization. This is worth further exploration as some prior scholarship has determined that dissimilar discussion can drive these relationships (Bello & Rolfe, 2014;Hutchens, Hmielowski, & Beam, 2015;Kim, 2015). There are several potential explanations for the lack of relationships between polarization and dissimilar discussion over time.…”

Emerging Adults’ Views on Masspersonal Self-Disclosure and their Bridging Social Capital on Facebook

“…Previous research has highlighted the importance of ethnic/racial diversity in adolescents' and emerging adults' schools and social networks for fostering greater generalized trust (Stolle & Harell, 2013) and positive intergroup attitudes (Graham, 2018). There is also evidence that active SNS use increases users' exposure to dissimilar political views (Bakshy, Messing, & Adamic, 2015;Kim, 2011) and that political disagreements on SNS can actually reduce associations between selective likeminded media use and political polarization (Kim, 2015).…”