Disinformation and political polarization: A pernicious association

Abstract

Political polarization can have pernicious consequences for democracy. Disinformation has been theorized to contribute to turning political polarization pernicious but the connection has not been thoroughly examined. Digital media have been proposed as the reason for increasing levels of both of these. The purpose of this study is to examine if there is an association between disinformation and political polarization. The study will also examine the mediating role of digital media in this association. It has been conducted with a statistical design utilizing bivariate and multivariate regression analyses. With these methods it is examined how disinformation levels affect levels of political polarization and how digital media mediates this as an interaction variable. The results show a significant, positive association between disinformation and political polarization, despite contra-intuitive coding. The results also show that digital media can significantly increase the effect disinformation has on political polarization.