Motivation

Political Polarization: Three Party Structure

Polarization, media and hyperpartisanship

• Exaggerated form of partisanship or partisan extremism.
• Beyond sorting 
• US: 
  • Breitbart news
  • The Young Turks
  • Chapo Trap House
  • Occupy Democrats​

1. Strong or superlatively partisan attachment

   • Hyperpartisans are usually strong political party supporters who identify as close or very close to one political party.

2. Exclusivity

   • Hyperpartisans are highly exclusive of the identified rival, opposite party or camp.

3. Hostility

   1. Hyperpartisans treat oppositive party or camp with high level of hostility with the often use of the verbs of “hate”, “despise”.

4. Apprehension

   • Hyperpartisans consider other rival party or camp as threatening and associate it with a negative or highly negative labels

• Taiwan                                                  

Data

• Taiwan Institute for Governance and Communication Research (TIGCR) (https://tigcr.nccu.edu.tw/en/)
• Surveys on media usage and political attitudes and political behavior since 2018.
  • Face-to-face, internet, telephone interviews
  • Longitudinal design and generally low rate of attritions (40%)
  • Four-wave panel (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), 4,470 cases each year (total N=17,800)
  • Allows dynamic modeling

Mixed Effect Logit Models

Structure of the Negative Partisan Sentiments and Exclusivity: Correlation Heatmap

• hatekmt/hatedpp:
  • Which of the following ethnic groups do you hate the most?
• angrykmt/angrykpp:
  • Which political party ever made you feel angry?
• threatkmt/threatdpp:
  • From point 0-10, how many points will you grade KMT/DPP as threatening to the normal development of the country?
• negkmt/negdpp:
  • From point 0-10, how many points will you grade KMT/DPP from "no negative impression" to "very negative impression"?
• marriedkmt/marriedpp:
  • How would you feel if you had a son or daughter who married a KMT/DPP's supporter? Very disappointed/upset to not disappointed/upset at all?

Figure 7. Structural models of Hyperpartisans, DPP and KMT

Hyperpartisanship and Talkshow:

Panel Vector Autoregression

VAR Granger Causality Wald test: Talkshow Granger-causes Hyperpartisanship

Summary of findings

• Hyperpartisanship is different from sorting or partisanship

  • Exclusivity

  • High negative sentiments

    • Hostility

    • Apprehension

• Media effect: weak exogeneity

• New hypotheses:

  • Exposure to highly partisan political talkshows reinforces partisan position, fostering hyperpartisanship

  • Hyperpartisanship is a combination of attitudes and affects, beyond rational models.

Conclusion and implications