Partisan audience polarization: Beyond selective exposure

The proliferation of available media outlets provides unprecedented access to specialized content. This dynamic media environment facilitates the emergence of partisan selective exposure at the individual level. When aggregated, these selective choices can materialize as partisan audience polarization, defined by the use/nonuse of so-called “Red” and “Blue” news media. The present study extends this line of inquiry beyond selective exposure. The author uses metered exposure data to explore patterns of loyalty and avoidance using single-source, cross-platform data from Nielsen’s TV/Internet Convergence Panel. The results are mixed, suggesting that audiences of partisan news outlets exhibit high levels of loyalty, but also that they do not avoid news of a different slant.