Does news use lead to higher affective polarization toward Russia and the US in China? The mediation role of political knowledge

People around the world have witnessed the upsurging of affective polarization across various countries in contemporary society. This study investigates whether news use leads to higher affective polarization toward Russia and the US in China and explores the mediating role of political knowledge.

Affective polarization refers to the negative emotional attitudes toward opposing parties or groups, which is closely related to social identity and psychological attachment, where people cultivate ingroup favoritism and outgroup hostility (Druckman & Levendusky, 2019; Garrett et al., 2014; Kim et al., 2023). Traditionally, studies on affective polarization concentrate on the two-party political system, with a particular focus on the Democrat and Republican divisions in the United States, comparing the attitudes toward ingroup and outgroup (Westfall et al., 2015). Some scholars have found opinion-based affective polarization on topics like climate change and Brexit, indicating that affective polarization can transcend narrow ingroup and outgroup comparisons and emerge based on groups’ views on different specific issues (Bolsen & Shapiro, 2018; Hobolt et al., 2021).

In the recent decade, geopolitical tensions, including the trade war between the United States and China, have simmered. Chinese citizens’ attitudes toward America have also deteriorated while they hold a positive tone toward Russia in general (Liu et al., 2023; Van der Noll & Dekker, 2016). Past studies have shown that people hold a positive attitude toward their favorable political entities and rebuke hostile or enemy countries, forming an ingroup and outgroup demarcation (Uluğ et al., 2023). In a broad sense, friendly/allied countries can be regarded as the ingroup, while competitive/enemy countries can be viewed as the outgroup. Based on this rationale, we argue that similar ingroup and outgroup categorizations can also be fostered in the context of international relations. Therefore, affective polarization offers an appropriate theoretical lens to analyze Chinese people’s attitudes toward the United States and Russia.

Due to its negative impact on a well-functioning society, academia has focused on the factors contributing to affective polarization. From the perspective of communication, the news media play an essential part. Accompanying by the increasing fragmentation of the news media landscape, especially the burgeoning of various social media platforms, partisan media, and the myriad negative coverage of the opposite sides, creating the so-called “echo chamber,” people are becoming more divided and contentious with growing intolerance of dissent and attachment to likeminded groups (Groshek & Koc-Michalska, 2017; Himelboim et al., 2013; Waisbord, 2013).

Although there is no partisan media in China, Chinese media organizations do demonstrate certain features of it. The most critical role of journalism in China is to act as the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, promoting and safeguarding the Chinese Communist Party’s theories, lines, principles, and policies (Zhao, 1998). The state-affiliated media, which occupies a leading position, shows strong partisanship with a dominant pro-government partisan characteristic (Tong, 2020). It is clear that the Chinese government is adopting cooperative and favorable policies toward Russia while taking a more competitive stance toward the United States (Cheng, 2016; Malle, 2017). As a result, news reports on the United States and Russia in China are divided and polarized (Liu & Yang, 2015; Lukin, 2018). It is worthwhile to examine the role of Chinese media in fostering affective polarization.

Some scholars have linked news use, political knowledge, and affective polarization, verifying the mediation role of political knowledge between news media use and affective polarization (Kim et al., 2022; Suk et al., 2023). Political knowledge generally refers to the acquired political information and the ability to process this information of people (Grönlund & Milner, 2006). The basic assumption is that people would acquire political knowledge from news coverage. The content on news media is increasingly polarized, focusing on the negative aspects of the opposing sides. Exposure to partisan and polarized news leads to the formation of preferences and biases about a particular group of people, enhancing pre-existing political values and beliefs and finally contributing to affective polarization (Devine, 2015; Webster & Abramowitz, 2017). However, this mechanism has not been verified in China or in the context of international relations.

Based on the above analysis, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H1: Political news use is positively associated with affective polarization in China.
H2: Political news use will be positively related to political knowledge in China.
H3: Political knowledge will be positively related to affective polarization in China.
H4: Political knowledge will mediate the relationship between political news use and affective polarization in China.

Data from Chinese Internet Users’ Social Consciousness Survey (N = 3,619) in 2020 is used for analysis. Respondents were asked to rate their favorability toward the United States and Russia. Similar to calculating the difference in favorability between ingroup and outgroup, affective polarization in this study was measured by subtracting the favorability toward the United States from that toward Russia. Political news use was assessed by news exposure, namely the frequency of consuming political news. Political knowledge was based on the correctness of answers to politics-related questions. After running the PROCESS macro version 4.2 (Hayes, 2022), all hypotheses were supported.

This study acknowledges that political news use will lead to affective polarization through the mediation role of political knowledge in China. Although the political and cultural setting in China is significantly different from partisan politics in the United States, people’s affective polarization toward the United States and Russia is still positively associated with political news use. One possible explanation is that the divisive, opposing, and one-dimensional evaluation and reporting on a group of people or certain types of subjects contribute to affective polarization. This is consistent with prior research, which indicated that partisan news media tends to focus on the negative side of the opposing party while highlighting the positive side of its own party, enhancing people’s stereotypes and increasing affective polarization (Garrett et al., 2014; Hmielowski et al., 2015). As the stance of Chinese media, especially the official media, is highly aligned with the government (Dimitrov, 2017), it is natural for them to demonstrate polarized content and attitude toward the United States and Russia to follow the suit of the government, generating affective polarization among their audiences.

In conclusion, this study confirms the positive relationships between political news use and affective polarization and the mediation role of political knowledge in the Chinese context, which differs from typical societies like the United States. It has enriched the affective polarization literature by adopting novel measurements of ingroup and outgroup attitudes, as well as expanding the research into the field of international relations.