… The evidence suggests that we may not be trapped in bubbles, that media may not cause polarization and that declining trust may not threaten democracy. But this does not mean we should rest easy. Although scholarship in political science and communications has undermined the widely held “bubble” theory of polarized partisan media consumption, research on each step of that theory’s hypothesized causal chain raises other worries.
Rather than inhabiting unpunctured bubbles, partisans in fact sample a variety of online news sources. However, it appears that media choice has become more of a vehicle of political self-expression than it once was. Partisans therefore tend to overestimate their use of partisan outlets, while most citizens tune out political news as best they can.
Furthermore, rather than media itself being the main source of polarization, media outlets seem to function mainly as conduits for competing political elites to mobilize already polarized partisan teams. CONT. – pdf
Matt Grossmann (Michigan State U.), Knight Foundation