The Impact of Social Media on Political Polarization and Public Opinion in Democratic Societies

Abstract

The research discusses the contribution of social media in democratic societies in polarizing politics and shaping the opinion of the people on a mixed-method experimental design that incorporates both a quantitative and a qualitative study. A randomized controlled experiment was carried out to investigate the effects of exposure to ideologically homogeneous, ideologically heterogeneous and ideologically neutral political content on ideological extremism, emotional polarization, and trust in democratic institutions. The quantitative findings indicate that homogeneous political news can have a substantial impact on enhancing polarization and strong partisan beliefs whereas heterogeneous exposure can have depolarizing effects of small scale, which depend on ideological affiliation of previous and media literacy. Further qualitative data indicates that algorithmic curation and emotionally attractive narratives do influence the perception of political material among users and tends to justify in-group identity and breed out-group hate. All of the findings support the idea that social media sites lead to the heightening of political polarization through their capacity to enhance selective exposure and emotional involvement, and moderate opinion formation through a set of conditions. This empirical research demonstrates that the digital age causes political polarization which is brought by the structural platform factors and people thinking and social processes. The consequences of this research to democratic governance are gigantic, and in order to build healthier political discussions and healthier democratic situations, platform responsibility, information ecosystems that are more inclusive, and media literacy initiatives must be developed.