CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Kostryba, Oleksandr |
|---|---|
| Title | Traditional and Digital Media Influence on the Polarization in Poland |
| Summary | Over the past decades, polarization has become an increasingly popular topic of researches in democratic countries. According to the previous researches, one of the potential causes of polarization is media consumption. This research focuses on the relationship between polarization and the consumption of traditional and online media in Poland. This paper examines the polarization in Poland in 2012, when online media just started to gain momentum in this country. The study focuses on two main issues: the relation between the amount of media consumption and polarization, and comparison of the polarizing effect of online and traditional media. To study this issue, the thesis uses the method of regression analysis and dataset of the European Social Survey. The analysis shows convincing evidence in favor of the first hypothesis, confirming the positive relationship between media consumption and the level of polarization. The increase in the consumption of media by citizens leads to the increase in the level of polarization. At the same time, the study does not confirm the second hypothesis that online media have a higher polarizing effect than their traditional counterparts. Moreover, the model shows the absence of any polarizing effect from the online media, which contradicts the theories of “community effect” and “echo chambers”. At the same time, the analysis of one age group of the sample confirmed the presence of the polarizing effect of online media. This may indicate different polarization patterns of online media, depending on how they are consumed. |
| Supervisor | Bruszt, Laszlo |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/kostryba_oleksandr.pdf |
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