Polarization All the Way Down
How Coverage of Elite and Partisan Polarization Spills Over to Perceptions of the U.S. Mass Public
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7971322 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gavin Ploger (0000-0002-5781-3163, University of Pennsylvania, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 393-412 |
| Publication date | 2024-05-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Communication (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1058-4609 • E-ISSN: 1091-7675 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10584609.2024.2312867 |
| OpenAlex | W4391616132 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 52 |
How do ordinary citizens perceive and respond to different kinds of political polarization in the U.S.? Recent work shows that people believe that the parties are intensely polarized but, in reality, the extent of polarization depends on whether we focus on political elites or the mass public. This paper reports results from two survey experiments with samples from Dynata and CloudResearch (total N = 2,940) exploring how people perceive ideological and affective polarization among (a) party elites, (b) partisan voters, and (c) ordinary Americans in the mass public. I show that participants believe that the public is both ideologically and affectively polarized, only marginally less than partisans and elites. I also find some evidence that news media creates perceptual spillover between elites, partisans, and the mass public: participants given information about (non)polarization for only one group nonetheless update their perceptions of all three groups in parallel. Given the dominance of information about elites and elite polarization in the U.S. media environment, I argue that top-down spillover from news stories about elites may help to explain why people think the public is more polarized than it really is
Dominance (genetics · Economics · Elite · Ideology · Mass media · Perception · Polarization (electrochemistry · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · Sociology · Spillover effect · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology
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Assessing the Influence of Political Parties on Public Opinion
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The Impact of Elite Polarization on Partisan Ambivalence and Indifference
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The Differential Effects of Actual and Perceived Polarization
Social Trust in Polarized Times
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No Harm in Checking
Dimensions of Elite Partisan Polarization
The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States
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| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |