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Social Media Use, Political Polarization, and Social Capital: Is Social Media Tearing the U.S. Apart?

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Social Computing and Social Media. Design, Ethics, User Behavior, and Social Network Analysis (HCII 2020)

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Abstract

While some polarization is potentially beneficial for democracy, hyper-polarization can lead to political gridlock, tribalism, and even physical violence. Given the gravity of these concerns, we use data from 1,424 residents of Virginia, USA to investigate if media exposure is related to polarization. We explore if getting news from traditional media (e.g. television, radio, newspapers) or social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, news aggregators) predicts the likelihood of being polarized. Results reveal stark differences between liberals and conservatives. Polarized conservatives use radio talk shows and television for their news while polarized liberals are likely to get their news from newspapers, television, and various social media outlets. We then investigate if polarization influences social capital. We find that polarized conservatives express low levels of bridging capital while polarized liberals are more likely to express high levels of bonding capital. Media consumption also influences bridging and bonding capital. We also find that while being polarized does not predict civic engagement, media consumption does. We consider these results disturbing. At least among the political extremes, conservatives and liberals are informed by different sources. This lack of a shared information results in competing worldviews while providing little opportunity for finding common ground. This combination of high bonding, low bridging capital can explain the recent increase in “lethal partisanship” where groups not only disagree but also accept or even wish harm to their political opponents.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA

    James Hawdon, Shyam Ranganathan, Scotland Leman, Shane Bookhultz & Tanushree Mitra

Authors
  1. James Hawdon
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  2. Shyam Ranganathan
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  3. Scotland Leman
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  4. Shane Bookhultz
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  5. Tanushree Mitra
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to James Hawdon .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Towson University, Towson, MD, USA

    Gabriele Meiselwitz

Appendix: Univariate Statistics

Appendix: Univariate Statistics

N = 1424

Minimum

Maximum

Mean

Standard deviation

Polarized liberal

0

1

0.25

0.44

Polarized conservative

0

1

0.09

0.28

Bridging capital

0

1

0.40

0.49

Bonding capital

4

16

12.4

2.42

Civic engagement

0

8

3.8

2.21

News from CNN

0

1

0.28

0.45

News from FOX

0

1

0.28

0.45

News from BBC

0

1

0.09

0.29

News from local station

0

1

0.22

0.42

News from radio talk show

0

1

0.13

0.33

News from local paper

0

1

0.25

0.43

News from New York Times

0

1

0.08

0.27

News from Washington Post

0

1

0.21

0.41

News from news aggregator

0

1

0.26

0.44

News from net (e.g. MSN)

0

1

0.35

0.48

News from Facebook

0

1

0.21

0.41

News from YouTube

0

1

0.08

0.28

News from Twitter

0

1

0.09

0.28

News from Reddit

0

1

0.04

0.23

White

0

1

0.72

0.45

U.S. Citizen

0

1

0.96

0.16

Male

0

1

0.48

0.50

Religiosity

0

5

2.2

1.89

Education

1

6

4.1

1.45

Enjoy discussing politics

1

4

2.4

0.94

Income

20,000

125,000

83,805

38,484

Age

18

90

52.02

17.74

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Hawdon, J., Ranganathan, S., Leman, S., Bookhultz, S., Mitra, T. (2020). Social Media Use, Political Polarization, and Social Capital: Is Social Media Tearing the U.S. Apart?. In: Meiselwitz, G. (eds) Social Computing and Social Media. Design, Ethics, User Behavior, and Social Network Analysis. HCII 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12194. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49570-1_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49570-1_17

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