Not Bowling Alone: Revisiting Partisan Types and Participatory Behaviors Using the Communication Mediated Model

Abstract

Drawing on the two-wave 2020 American National Election Studies (ANES) survey, this study revisits partisan types by categorizing individuals’ party identification and positions on party-divided issues. A Latent Class Analysis reveals six types of partisans, which were further clustered into three types: polarized partisans (i.e., polarized Democrats and polarized Republicans, 47.85%), incongruent partisans (i.e., conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, 28.23%), and floating citizens (i.e., hesitant citizens and apathetic citizens, 23.92%) based on the partisan typology proposed in this study. Employing the O-S-R-O-R model, this study found that polarized partisans (O), who are the most politically active citizens, are more likely than incongruent partisans and floating citizens to seek pro-attitudinal news on multi-platforms (S), then to discuss politics (R), then to be politically knowledgeable (O), which finally leads to higher levels of political participation. The results highlight a worrisome tendency in US politics as participation is largely by biased polarized partisans. Nevertheless, incongruent partisans also have the potential to make contributions to both deliberative and participatory democracy because they are also politically active. Their discussion and participatory behaviors can be attributed to their mixed issue positions and counter-attitudinal news consumption on multi-platforms.