In the APSA Public Scholarship Program, graduate students in political science produce summaries of new research in the American Political Science Review. This piece, written by Dirck de Kleer, covers the new article by Sara B. Hobolt, Katharina Lawall, and James Tilley, “The Polarizing Effect of Partisan Echo Chambers”.
What happens in the course of a 30-minute discussion about politics with strangers over Zoom? In a new APSR article, Sara Hobolt, Katharina Lawall, and James Tilley show that those who discuss politics in partisan echo chambers become more polarized than people who see and hear those on the other side.
A well-functioning democracy needs citizens and politicians to engage respectfully with each other. This becomes more difficult when groups of citizens are seriously divided. A popular concern, amplified by social media, is that echo chambers, contexts where we surround ourselves with like-minded people and views, polarize us. This might be because echo chambers make it easy to conform to what everyone else in the group thinks and difficult to get any perspective on the views and opinions from “the other side.”
This polarization generally comes in two flavors. On the one hand, people can become more divided over specific political issues. For example, Democrats becoming more supportive of immigration while Republicans become less supportive of immigration. This can be thought as ideological polarization. A second divide is more emotional: people can show a greater liking for those on their side and a stronger dislike of those who are not on their side. A good example is that Americans are becoming more averse to the idea that their child might marry someone who supports the opposite party. This is known as affective polarization.
But do echo chambers really polarize us? And, if so, in which flavor does that polarization come? Current evidence is not clear-cut. The authors therefore put this idea to the test in the United Kingdom. They conducted an online experiment with British citizens who identify with the center-left Labor Party or the center-right Conservative Party. In the experiment, participants discussed a new, stricter immigration policy in the UK in small groups of 6-8 people. Some participants were put in echo chambers in which all people supported the same party creating an environment of like-minded views. Thus, some of these echo-chambers contained all Labor partisans and others had all Conservative partisans. Other participants were put in mixed discussion groups with an even balance between Labor and Conservative partisans.
“We see heightened partisan divisions in many democracies around the world. This study helps us better understand how echo chambers can exacerbate these divisions. “ The authors found that echo chambers polarized, and that polarization came in both flavors. First, participants in the echo chambers became more polarized over the UK immigration policy than those in the mixed discussion groups. Labor partisans in echo chambers became less supportive of the policy than Labor partisans in mixed discussion groups, but Conservative partisans in echo chambers became more supportive of the policy than Conservative partisans in mixed discussion groups. In that sense, echo chambers produced ideological polarization.
Second, participants in echo chambers became more positive toward people on their own side and more negative toward people on the other side compared to those in the mixed discussion groups. Or, to put it another way, echo chambers produced affective polarization. Interestingly, this was more obvious for Labor partisans, and the authors speculate that this may be due to the Labor party currently being in opposition.
We see heightened partisan divisions in many democracies around the world. This study helps us better understand how echo chambers can exacerbate these divisions. But there is also a silver lining: engaging with different views and opinions can make us less divided. This means that institutions and interventions that encourage wider debate across divides can potentially play an important role in reducing animosity between groups of citizens.
- Dirck de Kleer is a PhD student in Social and Political Science at Bocconi University (Italy), where he studies political behavior and public opinion. His research focuses on understanding how citizens and politicians navigate the boundaries between moderate and extreme political attitudes and behaviors. In other work, he explores the implications of far-right parties in government. He holds an MA from Duke University, where he was a Fulbright Graduate Student (2018-2020).
- Article details: HOBOLT, SARA B., KATHARINA LAWALL, and JAMES TILLEY. 2023. “The Polarizing Effect of Partisan Echo Chambers.“ American Political Science Review, 1-15.
- About the APSA Public Scholarship Program.
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