Political Behaviour/Sociology

F04(a) - Political Polarizations II: Public Policies and Institutions

Date: Jun 12 | Time: 01:45pm to 03:15pm | Location: UQAM, Pavillon Hubert-Aquin, 400 Ste-Catherine E., classroom/local A-5020

Chair/Président/Présidente : Fred Guillaume Dufour (Université du Québec à Montréal)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : John McAndrews (McMaster University)

Chapter 5: Don't Blame the Media (Probably): Eric Merkley (University of Toronto)
Abstract: One common explanation for affective polarization in Canada is the media ecosystem. The media environment has fragmented with new technology, allowing citizens easier access to opinion-reinforcing content on social media or in partisan news – the “echo chamber” effect. The purpose of this chapter, part of a larger book project of the causes and consequences of affective polarization in Canada, is to explore a possible link between the news media environment and affective polarization in Canada. I use 2019 Digital Democracy Project and the 2020-2021 Media Ecosystem Observatory surveys (N~114,000). These datasets offer rich sets of questions related to self-reported media use and affective polarization. I also use the DDP’s media tracking study, which provides unique tracking of the online behaviour of over 700 participants over four weeks, including over seven million website visits. These data allow us to directly observe media consumption and evaluate a possible connection to affective polarization. We will see that Canadians of all partisan stripes consume broadly centrist, mainstream news. Audiences for partisan news are tiny and traffic to these websites is dominated by an even smaller share of the population. Further, there is no consistent observable link between social media usage nor partisan news consumption and affective polarization using either self-reported or behavioural measures of media use. There is an association between behavioural mainstream news consumption and out-party hostility, but this relationship was not observed using self-reported data. Overall, we should be skeptical of claims that the media ecosystem is driving affective polarization in Canada.

Who supports the judicial reforms in Israel? Societal cleavages, elite cues and democratic backsliding: Dietlind Stolle (McGill University), Elisabeth Gidengil (McGill University), Liron Lavi (Bar Ilan University), John Hicks (McGill University)
Abstract: Democratic Backsliding can be observed in several countries around the globe. The question is how the public reacts to such attempts. Many studies on this topic ask hypothetical questions and present hypothetical scenarios to determine whether a country is prone to democratic backsliding. In this paper we leverage an actual attempt at democratic backsliding in Israel during the period of the proposed judicial reform. We combine actual questions on the reform, which was aimed --in part-- at weakening judicial checks on the government with questions about support for democracy and other forms of democratic backsliding to understand: Who supports the reform? To what extent does support reflect elite cues (via party or leader) versus fundamental divisions within Israeli society (internal and external)? Is support stronger when these divisions are more salient and/or when people are more affectively polarized? 2) Supporters and opponents each claim they are defending democracy. Is the judicial reform supported by those who are least supportive of democracy? Is support for the judicial reform just one manifestation of support for democratic backsliding in Israel? Why or why not? To answer these questions we use a two-wave panel survey in Israel that was asked during the reform attempt and again during the period of war against Hamas in repsonse to the October 7 attacks.