Drifting Further Apart? How Exposure to Media Portrayals of Muslims Affects Attitude Polarization

Abstract

Political discourses about Muslim immigration in the media and on social networking sites (SNSs) are highly contentious and have the potential to further polarize societal segments, which may ultimately harm democratic processes. Especially on SNSs, politicians and citizens can circumvent journalistic filters often resulting in blatant and emotionally charged content. Using a two-wave panel design (N = 559), we investigated how positive and negative portrayals of Muslims in traditional media outlets and on SNSs influence anti-Muslim immigration attitudes among people who either agree or disagree with the encountered information. Our findings indicate that exposure to negative portrayals further reinforces anti-Muslim immigration attitudes among those who agree with the encountered information. In contrast, for those who disagree with the negative information, a backfire effect emerges, showing that anti-Muslim attitudes even decrease. This effect occurs for both SNSs and traditional media. Positive information about Muslims did not result in attitude polarization.