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. / Master of Arts / Since the 2016 US Presidential election, there have been increasing concerns over how divided the country is getting. Part of the reason why people feel so polarized is likely being exaggerated by social media and breaking news headlines. While Americans may be closer on the issues than they care to believe, the perception of a divided country may be just as consequential. It is difficult to say to what degree our country is truly polarized, if at all. What we can be sure of is that political activists are able to be heard much louder given the platform of the internet. What motivates people to spend hours of their day scrolling through platforms like Facebook is an individual preference, but it is clear that these companies can directly profit from click-bait news headlines.
In order to explore the degree to which different groups are polarized in America, I used an online survey asking respondents about their internet use and political leanings. Using this information, I am able to see what associations might exist between things such as amount of time spent on social media per day and how committed one is to their ideology. These measures themselves are widely debated in political science, so the study also aims to examine in what ways different measures of polarization may be used effectively.
The results of the study do find some evidence that increased social media use is correlated with an increase in political polarization. However, other measures of political activity on the internet are seen to be highly correlated with an increase in political polarization.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/99081 |
| Date | 22 June 2020 |
| Creators | Kansco, Jacob Anthony |
| Contributors | Political Science, Kitchens, Karin E., Brantly, Aaron F., Jardine, Eric |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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