Effects of Social Media Use on Political Polarization

21st century political science has seen a growing field of research focused around the idea of political polarization. While authors like Fiorina and Abramowitz have been debating the existence of such polarization, the literature has come to understand that perhaps the root of the issue lies in differing definitions. The never-ending quest for clarity has produced a variety of measures of polarization and, subsequently, theories on why 21st century Americans may be experiencing such polarization. Unsurprisingly, as political science questions what may be causing various trends in 21st century voter behaviors and attitudes, the Internet is often mentioned. With the Internet being a clearly powerful tool for political mobilization, whether or not it is divisive among the public could have politically consequential implications.

Because of its interactive nature, it is difficult to evaluate a person's social media use. This study uses a unique survey to evaluate a respondent's general social media and internet use, as well as measures of political polarization. Using this information, along with analysis of the 2016 ANES, I am able to make associations of various levels of social media activity and political polarization. Using means comparison and multivariate regression, I am able to evaluate social media use controlling for effects of age and other confounding variables and how it relates to measures of political polarization.

The survey results ultimately provide some evidence for the claim that increasing social media use is associated with higher levels of political polarization. Additionally, in an OLS regression model testing the effects of different sources of political news, increases in internet use are highly correlated with an increase in political polarization.