Does Cross-Cutting Media Exposure Reduce Polarisation?

The final speaker in this ECREA PolCom 2023 conference session is Jihye Park, whose interest is in the role of media trust in reducing affective polarisation. Exposure to cross-cutting media has been recognised in the research as reducing polarisation, but what leads users to expose themselves to such cross-cutting media? Jihye suggests that media trust is critical to such media selection choices.

Her focus here is on affective polarisation – the emotional gap between in- and out-groups. This gap has been shown to grow in countries like the US and South Korea, for partisans of the dominant left and right parties. Partisan selective exposure can increase such polarisation, while exposure to balanced or counter-ideological media can reduce such polarisation by exposing audiences to alternative and more diverse views.

If exposure to cross-cutting media can depolarise, then, what would encourage such exposure? Media trust is likely to play a role here: media trust is determined by audiences expecting that interactions with news media will lead to gains rather than losses in situations of uncertainty; such gains may stem from information utility and the obtainment of accurate information.

Are high levels of media trust associated with more cross-cutting media use, then? And are people with greater partisan identities less likely to engage in such cross-cutting media uses? This study conducted online survey in the US and South Korea in March 2022 to explore these and related questions. It evaluated political partisans’ level of hostility towards other parties, as well as their levels of trust in the media, and also assessed their use of politically aligned, opposed, and mainstream media.

Preliminary results from this study show that low levels of media trust are not associated with a focus on party-aligned media use; however, high levels of media trust are associated with cross-cutting as well as mainstream media use. Mainstream media use did not appear to have any impact on affective polarisation, but cross-cutting media use did. Media trust may also lead to cross-cutting media use, which in turn also leads to less hostility towards out-groups.