Media Research

So I recently gathered all my notes together and was able to compile a list of all the reasons why the media has become politically polarized. I also found many scholars that argued there were other causes to political polarization but I do not agree with them.

First off, many would say that social media hurts media polarization but I don't think that is true because social media is so huge and has so many factors that it would be hard to directly prove a connection between the two. In addition, social media has little to no political bias now. There are very few if any political advertisements on social media websites and thus, its hard to tell if people are being affected by it.

Another thing people would say about media polarization is that it is caused by past political polarization in congress. It is often debated in the media world to see if media polarization drives political polarization or vice versa. Lindsay Hoffman, political science professor at the University of Delaware believes that the media is to cause for political polarization adding, “polarization in the media are only leading to increased ideological distance”. Therefore, using her words, the media isn’t affected by a lack of current political partisanship but rather a gap on issues in the media now, is causing a wider gap in the world of politics between Democrats and Republicans.

There are a lot of reasons why the American media is currently biased in its reporting but social media and political polarization are not two of those factors.