Polarized Media, Polarized Audiences? News Sources and Illiberal Attitudes

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore the extent and impact of polarization in the media systems of our four Eastern European countries. First, we provide empirical evidence of media polarization, measured by ideological bias and political independence of a sample of the most relevant news brands in each country, which demonstrates that media landscapes display the highest level of polarization in Hungary and Serbia, corresponding with the more advanced state of the illiberal public sphere in these countries compared to the Czech Republic and Poland. Building on this data, we explore patterns of people’s news consumption habits, from the perspective of their political and ideological homogeneity or diversity, identifying five specific ‘media repertoires’ that characterize people’s news diets, which reveal different levels of audience polarization across out countries. Finally, we analyse the relationship between these patterns of news exposure and audiences’ attitudes to culturally and politically polarizing issues, revealing significant associations between political-ideological bias of people’s news sources and their political attitudes, as well as their voting behaviour.