Media & Polarization

A bit more of an academic approach to electoral politics and news.

This week, we will take a semi-academic approach to a phenomenon many know exists but might not know how to explain. During my senior year of college, my capstone class was Political Communication, taught by Professor Alexander Garlick, who now teaches at the University of Vermont. While I could go on and on about how great Dr. Garlick was, one book in particular he introduced to us was quite fascinating to me (honestly, it deserves a reread). I want to explain how it relates to polarization and the previous election. The book Post Broadcast Democracy by Professor Markus Prior of Princeton University examines the history of media in our politics and how greater media choice has, in effect, caused polarization.

While nothing can do justice to Dr. Prior’s original text, let me explain the theory.

Polarization, in essence, is the continual furthering away of the two sides of the political spectrum (left v right) so that the average American of both perspectives is more different now than they were before. How would media choice affect this?

Think back to when there were only a few network broadcast TV channels, where people mainly got their news from the same source as each other. They all had to watch network TV news; there were basically no alternatives, so the entire electorate was before the news media. So, the media has a broad audience of all views, and all people are forced to contend with politics. Then, as media evolves and we have mass multi-media, we have cable, dozens, hundreds, thousands of channels, sports, entertainment, music, and a wide array of news stations. The median voter is no longer forced to contend with politics on the daily news; they can choose to disconnect from politics entirely. Who is left paying consistent attention to political news from then on? Those who would be most opinionated and likely to seek out such content from the beginning. Those people then watch even more news than previously, as there are now more news channels. Said channels begin to reflect their more hyper-interested audience, thus reflecting what audiences want to hear in a cycle that extends one’s beliefs further on whichever side of the spectrum they are. This is not to say all the media is brainwashing you or there are no independent thinkers left in politics, but to showcase the impact of the evolution of media choice on polarization. Dr. Prior goes more in-depth, of course, back to paper and radio. However, keep the transition from network to cable TV in mind for this article.

If the above explanation is not clear, let me borrow a few passages from Dr. Prior’s book. Prior calls people who only consume news media in a low-choice involvement “Switchers” for the following passage as he explains the above consequences of our involving media environment:

“The central argument of this book is of course that the stability in average news exposure, knowledge, and turnout hides important changes in the distribution of political involvement. News junkies get more news, and entertainment fans and Switchers get less news than before. The variance in news exposure has increased, as has the variance in political knowledge and turnout. In all cases, it is much more difficult to estimate the variance. But the substantial amount of cable news viewing among today’s news junkies evident in cumulative audience data offers at least an illustration of the concentration of television news exposure. This concentration of news viewing in a relatively small segment of the population contrasts markedly with the large number of Americans who watched their daily half hour of network news in the low-choice media environment.” (Prior 160)

Such a disparity in consumption of the news results in problems for our Democracy. Questions about the median voter, public opinion, and the disparities in who is involved in politics. As Dr. Prior puts it:

A higher concentration of news exposure and political knowledge poses problems for a democratic system. It widens differences in turnout rates between more and less interested segments. Increasing inequality in news exposure, political knowledge, and turnout exacerbates concerns about the quality of public opinion and voting decisions. Without attention to the distribution of political involvement in the population – even when average involvement remains stable – we cannot detect the problem or assess the consequences of rising political inequality. (Prior 160)

Disparities in media consumption depress turnout among populations with low news consumption:

If we still lived in a low-choice media environment, and Switchers – people who watch the news only when media choice is low – voted again, voting behavior would be less polarized than it is today. I reached this conclusion through a chain of evidence that began in Chapter 4. Greater media choice reduced turnout rates among entertainment fans. They are more moderate or politically indifferent than the rest of the electorate. Their abstention makes the voting public more partisan. This compositional change is complemented by partisan news junkies becoming even more reliable in going to the polls and casting ideologically motivated votes. (Prior 244)

So, in essence:

Low Media Choice → Low Disparities of Political Participation/Engagement → Steady Switcher Voter Turnout → Low Polarization

Higher Media Choice → High Disparities of Political Participation/Engagement → Low Switcher Voter Turnout → High Polarization

It is important to note that Prior saw such an effect when he wrote this book in 2007; all of the above processes have been streamlined at superspeed with the rise of the internet (which he covers the beginnings of). If we felt we had an immense amount of media choice in 2007, we have infinitely more choices today. This gets me to the 2024 election (yes, I will talk about this for a while). Switchers are low and mid-propensity voters. Those vote max 1-2 times every four years.

Donald Trump’s and Kamala Harris’s campaigns took relatively opposite approaches to voter turnout. While Harris focused on high-propensity base voters, Trump’s campaign staff concentrated on turning out low to mid-propensity voters. These voters are supposed to be not as ideologically captured and take little interest in politics in the high-choice media environment. Let me revisit my previous two articles to see why I believe such a strategy from the Trump campaign was quite effective. Low to mid-propensity voters are more ideologically captured than previously thought. See, they consume “political” content without it being “political.” Right-wing culture has infiltrated all sorts of alternative media choices. Trump attended all kinds of sporting events, from college Football to NFL games to UFC matches and so on! Podcasts are not traditionally news media, but right-wing influencers dominate them.

These voters have been streamed a diet of political content without knowing it is political! Thus, many (enough?) of them are politically predisposed to jump on the Trump train when the campaign focuses on turning out this group of voters. So, while the Harris campaign focused on turning out her already energized base (which arguably was still a fine strategy as there is conflicting data on how energized her base actually was), Trump’s campaign recognized that their base was also sufficiently energized and focused on the low-propensity voters more likely to support him.

Such a voter did not appear in the 2022 midterm, where Dems outperformed in an election where the Presidential winner usually is checked by the electorate, and 2020 was a referendum on COVID-19, while 2018 was a typical check on the incumbent party. I believe the media ecosystem evolved enough in that time with the right-wing infiltration of alternative media choices as part of a grander national republican strategy for turnout in General Presidential elections. This also furthers the narrative that Trumpism only works when Trump is involved.

Let me address two potential problems with my stipulation.

1. Alternative media choices, such as entertainment, are dominated by liberal voices; Harris got the endorsement of Swift and Oprah, not Trump.

   1. Yes, but Swift’s voice, like others, is not a political constant; such a media figure is only political when politics comes around. When do you hear Swift mention politics outside of a presidential election? Rarely! These forms of media do not benefit liberals in the same way part of the grander media choices have been subsumed to help conservatives. Trump being a constant among “bro culture” through his presence on or in the minds of these podcasters and sporting events is consistently political. Even if such a constant is a low percentage of the alternative media choice, there is no liberal equivalent. This means that even if only 5-10% of alternative media is subconsciously a conservative pipeline, it is still quite significant when 0% is a liberal pipeline.

2. If such a phenomenon exists, it may not have been determinative of this election.

   1. Perhaps! It could be that such a referendum on inflation was too great to overcome. But my stipulation also leads us to a media environment in which the low propensity voters are not predisposed to think the Biden administration was an abject failure, which is what many alternative media choices would lead you to believe or at least consume constantly whether or not you are searching out said content. Regardless, this presents a problem for liberal Democrats, as it will only get worse for us if we continue to lose the cultural influence in supposedly a-political environments to our political opponents.

If for nothing else, I hope this article helped you understand the relationship between polarization and media choice. In the end, should I be correct, this would not contrast Prior’s thesis but rather endorse it! Had there been homogenous news sources, such a right-wing culture would never have had the opportunity to invade alternative media choices space, and it could be likely that such distrust in mainstream news would never have occurred.

Thanks again to Dr. Prior and Dr. Garlick. It could be that I am entirely wrong! One day, I hope to examine this idea in an academic setting. I will definitely go back to this topic in the future. In any case, I hope this furthers my case regarding the need for liberalism to invade/build alternative media choices and that you come away with a greater understanding of an aspect of Political Communication.

-Lex