More than Two-Party Divides? Social Media, Ideological Extremity, and Affective Polarization in the Multi-party System

How social media fuels affective polarization, characterized by favorability toward in-party members and apathy toward out-party members, has emerged as a crucial topic in political communication. However, few studies examine the relationship between social media and affective polarization in multi-party contexts outside American politics. Applying Wagner’s methodology for measuring affective polarization in a multi-party system, we calculate affective polarization in three ways: the traditional method as the absolute difference between liberal and conservative politicians, mean distance as the average distance from a person’s favorite politician, and spread as the average distance from an individual’s mean feelings toward politicians. We investigate how social media use is related to affective polarization using these three measures based on a survey of 1,159 respondents from Colombia in 2022. The findings indicate that the three measures of affective polarization intensify with the use of social media, mediated by ideological extremity. The results suggest that the role of social media and ideology may be consistent regardless of the way of measuring affective polarization when a country has multiple parties and political elites, further suggesting implications for affective polarization in political systems with more than two parties.