How Does Exposure to Diverse Political Perspectives Affect Partisan Views?

The next paper in this ICA 2018 session is Dam Hee Kim, whose focus is on what effects exposure to diverse political viewpoints has on partisan views. Such exposure has always been seen as important for a healthy democracy, but this poses two major challenges: audiences do not necessarily actively seek out diverse viewpoints, and such diverse exposure does not necessarily bring about the democratic benefits that theory would expect.

First, audiences tend to expose themselves to news that is in line with their established personal views. Today, they might see a variety of news also via Facebook and other social media, but at the same time even here there is a possibility that they will connect mainly with people who share their own views.

Second, even truly diverse exposure does not necessarily lead to informed and engaged citizenship. Exposure to divergent viewpoints might also simply serve to reinforce the users’ own partisan perspectives.

The present project explored these processes through a panel survey before the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. It measured participants’ exposure to diverse political media content on social media, through friends or through the news media they followed. Wanting diverse viewpoints predicted diverse exposure; party affiliation also played a role here. For partisan users, diverse exposure increased their own political participation. For non- and weak partisans, however, diverse exposure may in fact reduce their political participation – one explanation is that the diversity of viewpoints confuses and discourages them from greater political participation.