Affective Polarization, Media Outlets, and Opinion Dynamics

Sebastiano Della Lena (), Luca Merlino () and Yves Zenou ()
Additional contact information
Sebastiano Della Lena: Monash University
Luca Merlino: ECARES, Universite libre de Bruxelles
Yves Zenou: Monash University

No 18823, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: We study opinion dynamics in a social network consisting of two groups. Agents update their opinions by conforming to members of their own group while rejecting the views of the opposing group (affective polarization), and by listening to a media outlet that may provide biased information. We characterize the long-run opinions and identify when affective polarization and media bias lead to ideological polarization, persistent disagreement, or failures of learning. We also derive when information interventions or censorship improve { the accuracy of average opinions} and reduce disagreement, and when they backfire: better information helps only under specific media bias configurations and when directed to the agents we identify as most effective at propagating it through the network.

Keywords: signed networks; opinion dynamics; affective polarization; group antagonism; information campaigns; targeting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C7 D7 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp18823.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18823

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().