Red and Blue in the News: Polarization and the Politics of (Non)Partisan Identity

Abstract

News coverage of partisan conflict suggests to the public that U.S. politics is fundamentally polarized along party lines. But not everyone responds to polarization in the same way, and the way in which they do so has important consequences for how they orient themselves toward politics. Drawing together research on news effects, social identity, and perceived polarization, I derive a novel theoretical account explaining why media spends so much time covering polarization, how this coverage shapes the public’s perceptions of politics, and what this means for their political beliefs and attitudes. I focus particularly on how partisans and non-partisans respond to media coverage of partisan polarization. I argue that, for people with strong partisan identity, news coverage of polarization makes that identity salient, promoting extremity and combative partisanship. For people with weak or no partisan identity, however, coverage of polarization paints partisanship and political involvement in a negative light, leading to moderation and disengagement. Neither group, however, likes polarization; as a result, both strong and weak partisans become more cynical about politicians and government when they perceive politics as polarized.

To test my theory, I use a series of four original survey experiments and one study based on secondary survey data. Across the studies, I find that news is an important factor shaping the public’s perceptions of political polarization. Indeed, news exposure promotes broad, undifferentiated perceptions of polarization through a process I term ‘perceptual spillover’: people correctly believe that elites are polarized, but news stories about elite polarization also affect perceptions of party voters and the mass public. Accordingly, people see voters and the public as intensely polarized even though they are only moderately so in reality. However, I find only limited evidence that coverage of polarization has negative consequences for democracy in the U.S. Exposure to polarization may promote political cynicism and distrust toward government. However, it does not appear to activate strong partisans or alienate weak partisans. Moreover, despite the fact that coverage of elite polarization shapes perceptions of the public, it makes people feel no more hostile or distrustful toward other ordinary people.

In sum, media coverage of political polarization powerfully shapes the ways the U.S. public perceives politics and other people, but not generally how the public feels about either subject. In other words, the negative political consequences of perceived polarization appear limited, and media coverage of political conflict is probably not an immediate threat to democracy. The strength of these conclusions, however, is constrained by complexities of intergroup dynamics in polarized contexts and by serious methodological challenges posed by the contemporary political information environment. While further research is ultimately necessary to resolve some of these challenges, this dissertation takes an important step forward in theorizing and testing the complex dynamics linking news coverage, perceptions of political reality, and social identity.