The “Clinching” Effect and Affective Polarization: Exposure to Incivility via Social Media in the Presence of Online News

Abstract The contemporary media environment is often characterized as awash in uncivil and divisive messages. Central to this characterization, are social media, where partisans may engage in uncivil exchanges with outgroup members. The Internet has also become a key source of partisan news content, which is often filled with vitriol and “outrage” toward “the other side.” Using panel survey data from a large and diverse general-population sample of the US, the current study considers the influence of exposure to incivility on social media and online news use on a particularly emotional form of division, affective polarization. Fixed effects regression analyses find no main effects, but significant interaction effects between exposure to incivility via social media and online news use (pro-attitudinal, counter-attitudinal, and nonpartisan online news use) on affective polarization. Exposure to incivility via social media as a form of personal contact, appears to supplement the effect of partisan online news (and vice versa), whether pro-attitudinal or counter-attitudinal, intensifying affective polarization. However, when combined with exposure to incivility on social media, nonpartisan news appears to have an attenuating effect on affective polarization.