Polarization, Political

Abstract

Polarization has been studied in three different forms: on a social, group, and individual level. This entry first focuses on the undisputed phenomenon of elite polarization (i.e., increasing adherence of policy positions among the elites) and also outlines different approaches to assessing mass polarization (i.e., political positions among the public, differences between issue preferences of supporters of the major parties, and partisan sorting or the alignment of partisan and ideological identities). Second, group polarization and attitude polarization, most often studied in social psychology, are outlined, with the focus on how both have been empirically tested. Group polarization typically refers to the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of individual members, whereas attitude polarization is usually detected when an individual's own attitude following media exposure or political talk becomes more extreme but in the same direction as their pretest attitude.

Navigating Political Polarization in News Production: The Case of Italy

“…At the societal level, political polarization entails the increased distance in policy preferences between opposing partisans or the dislike that those partisans feel for each other. As suggested by Wojcieszak (2016), societal-level polarization may unfold at the elite or mass level (Fiorina & Abrams, 2012). Specifically, elite polarization reflects the increasing adherence to policy positions by political elites, which become more ideologically distinct from one another and more internally homogeneous.…”

Seven years of studying the associations between political polarization and problematic information: a literature review

“…Regarding political polarization (Wojcieszak, 2015), there are at least four distinct forms: divergence, consistency, affective, and perceived (Lelkes, 2016). Polarization, or the state of being divided into two extreme poles, happens when opinions about political parties, ideologies, and specific issues become concentrated around those poles (Fiorina et al, 2005;Fiorina and Abrams, 2008).…”

“…Based on literature about political polarization (Wojcieszak, 2015;Lelkes, 2016) and problematic information (Jack, 2017;Marwick and Lewis, 2017;Wardle and Derakhshan, 2017), we selected keywords for the search. Although we did not include "political" in our query (Table 1), studies in social and psychological sciences only consider political polarization's relationship with problematic information.…”

‘In times of crisis, followers of one true god unite’

“…When young individuals who have experienced situations of polarization participate in this hypermedia reality, the blatancy of the visual cues and vivid images invokes in them strong emotional and psychological responses as well as violent reactions. Also, the affordances of social networking platforms such as anonymity, unparalleled reach, unmonitored exchange and consumption of information, and intractability, among other things allow young individuals to freely articulate and express the radical ideas which are considered unacceptable in offline spaces inhabited by multiple and diverse voices (Weimann, 2010).…”