The Public in our Minds – Comparing the Importance of In-Group Opinion Climates in the US, Israel and Germany

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Poster Session: Political Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

The main argument to be advanced in this paper is that under conditions of political polarization, citizens will be influenced more significantly by their perceptions of the opinion climate in their in-group, as opposed to the public opinion climate in the general population..
We put these ideas to empirical test, using a cross-sectional online survey from three countries, varied in their levels of political polarization: the United States, Israel, and Germany . The study takes as its departure point the documented relation between perception of opinion climate among the general public and two political phenomena: feelings of affective polarization, and participation . Thus, we replicate past work on feelings of affective polarization and participation, and add two new elements: a comparison of the effect of general vs. in-group opinion climate, and testing the effect of country-level polarization on this relationship.

Authors

• Shira Dvir-Gvirsman, Tel Aviv U

• Stephan Winter, University of Koblenz-Landau

• German Neubaum, U of Duisburg-Essen