Dr. Lisa Merten will give a presentation on the relationship between the diversity of online information repertoires and political polarization during her guest stay at the Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology.
She will present the research project “Political Polarization and Individualized Online Information Environments: A Longitudinal Tracking Study (POLTRACK),” introduce the research design, initial findings, and data infrastructure of the project, and outline opportunities for further international collaboration.
About the Event
A Reinforcing Spiral? Online News Exposure and Political Polarization in Digital Information Environments
Polarization is often attributed to digital media consumption, yet evidence on how concrete news exposure shapes polarized attitudes over time remains limited due to methodological challenges in measuring specific news exposure. This talk introduces the collaborative research project POLTRACK – Political Polarization and Individualized Online Information Environments (2022–2027).
The project is based on an 18-month web-tracking study of more than 2,500 German citizens, complemented by four survey waves on political attitudes and media use. By linking real-world online news exposure to survey-based measures of polarization, POLTRACK enables longitudinal analyses of how individualized information environments relate to changes in political attitudes toward political issues and actors over time.
Lisa Merten presents preliminary results on the relationship between online news consumption and polarization in the climate discourse, distinguishing between ideological polarization around climate mitigation policies and affective polarization toward politicians and climate-related social movements such as Fridays for Future and Last Generation. Adopting a reinforcing spirals perspective (Slater, 2007), the analysis examines how issue- and actor-related news exposure contributes to polarization dynamics and discusses implications for current debates on media diversity and democratic cohesion. The talk also introduces the POLTRACK data infrastructure and outlines opportunities for international collaboration.
