by Allegra Chen-Carrel
Is your political opinion being swayed by the popularity of the media you consume? Does the number of views in the bottom right corner of that speech you watched on YouTube the other day affect how strongly you feel about the speech itself? A recent study has found that yes, most likely, you are affected by your perception of how many other people are tuning in to what you are watching. A recent article by Shteynberg, Bramlett, Fles, and Cameron (2016) explores how broadcast media plays a role in polarizing viewpoints. Their research examines whether shared attention increases the psychological impact of televised political speeches, and finds that indeed it does. Shared attention refers to the concept that others are also engaging with what we are watching; in the context of television, it refers to the notion that we assume others are also watching what is being broadcast, and that these abstract others are also paying attention. The study found that shared attention led people to amplify their existing views: participants felt the content of persuasive speeches to be even more persuasive, and unpersuasive speeches to be even more unpersuasive. These findings were especially true when people believed others to be watching simultaneously, such as in the context of live broadcast television. In other words, our judgments become more extreme when we believe other people are tuning in to the same content.
Even after this tumultuous election season has come to a close, it remains important to be aware of what is influencing our political judgment. Because our views become more extreme when we feel we are paying attention with many other people, these findings imply that mass media inherently contributes to political polarization. It is not only the content of what we watch which makes us react a certain way, but also the presumption that others are watching with us.
  Reference:
Shteynberg, G., Bramlett, J. M., Fles, E. H., & Cameron, J. (2016). The Broadcast of Shared Attention and Its Impact on Political Persuasion. Journal of personality and social psychology, 111(5), 665. Creative Commons License Photo Credit: U.S. State Department IIP Photo Archive. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.