Experiments on Media Effects and Political Polarization in India

• In Event: Partisanship in the Media

Abstract

If you ask the average American whether they think America is polarized, you might be chided for asking an obvious question. This is due in part a rich body of literature on political polarization in the US which has developed to the extent that we can predict people’s vote choices, issue opinions, and even preferred shoe brands based on their political ideology. A large part of the increase in polarization is attributed to the media: not only does the media increase affective polarization (Levendusky & Malhotra, 2016) but also people self-select into partisan media sources, which further heightens polarization (Lelkes, Sood & Iyengar, 2017).

Despite the growing focus on media effects and polarization in America, scholarship to date has yet to comprehensively test propositions relating media and polarization in India. Do partisans differ from non-partisans in their opinions about the credibility of news? Do partisans think that information from certain media outlets over others is more likely to contain misinformation, even when the information itself is held constant? What is the effect of WhatsApp as a medium of information on partisans’ trust in the media? My paper sheds light on these questions in the context of India, where not only is there a dearth of research on media effects, but also where newer forms of media such as WhatsApp have an arguably devastating impacts on society given their ability to polarize, spread misinformation, and result in violence.

In order to answer these questions, I leverage data from an original survey of 7000 households across 4 states in India. The survey was conducted in November 2018, at a time when the populist Hindu-nationalist prime minister of India was accused of anti-minority propaganda, said to have aided the deaths of several Muslim youths through mob lynchings. Two survey experiments inform my results. The first tests whether credibility and trustworthiness in media differs by the source of the news. Respondents read the same piece of news that is either reported by a left-leaning outlet (New Delhi TV) or a right-leaning outlet (Zee News). The second is designed to test whether varying the medium of news affects the perceived credibility of information. Respondents are presented with three pieces of information: a negative story about the current (right-wing) government, a positive story, and a neutral story. I randomize the medium through which this information is received such that it is presented as a story received on WhatsApp, seen on TV, or read in the newspaper. Three DVs are measured in both survey experiments: 1) the respondent’s perceived credibility of the information, 2) the likelihood of sharing that piece of information with others, 3) the degree to which respondents think the information they received is false.

The key independent variable in my analyses is the ideological polarization of the respondent. I create an index with a comprehensive set of questions measuring opinion on ideologically polarizing issues in India such as demonetization, public lynchings of Muslims, the beef ban. The scale is constructed such that answers to one question are predictive of answers to other others and predictive of party ID, much like opinions on issues of gun control and abortion in the United States. I hypothesize & find that partisans are significantly more likely to say that the information they receive is false when it comes from an ideologically non-preferred source. Results suggest the presence of a U-shaped curve on the ideological index a-la-Zaller, in that likelihood of saying that a news story is false increases towards the extremes on the scale. Interestingly, those who are more polarized are more likely to also say that they will share information, regardless of source. Interview data suggests partisans also share media sources they do not necessarily believe, but for the purposes of satire. Results from the second experiment demonstrate that belief in WhatsApp as a credible medium of news is lowest when neutral information is presented; however while non-partisans continue to demonstrate the same low trust in WhatsApp for both positive & negative information, partisans’ trust in WhatsApp is raised to the level of traditional media when confronted with a news story that aligns with their political beliefs. I also find interesting heterogeneous effects: while duration of connectivity to the internet dampens partisans’ trust in WhatsApp, education, surprisingly, has no effect.

Taken together these results demonstrate the presence of a strong partisan divide affecting media credibility and polarization, questions that have been hitherto unexplored in India. This is the first paper of its kind to explore the impact that the medium of WhatsApp can have on opinions and information, making it an important contribution to the literature on political communication in a country with a rising populist leader infamous for his anti-Muslim remarks and policies.

Author

• Sumitra Badrinathan, University of Pennsylvania