Polarized or Fragmented? How Social Identities Relate to Political Cleavages and Media Use Across European Countries

In contemporary Western societies, social identity seems to serve as a lens through which political issues are increasingly viewed. It is hence reasonable to expect a relationship between people’s social identities and central political cleavages. At the same time, however, social identities appear to have become narrower during the last decades. Alongside that, the media environment has become increasingly fragmented while the ties between voters and political parties have weakened. Such developments might lead to fragmented social identities, rather than polarized social identities related to political cleavages. Against this background, this study applies a latent profile analysis to investigate how prominent social identities are structured and relate to each other. Furthermore, the study examines the relationships between social identities and digital media use. Among other things, the results from a 3-wave panel survey conducted in 5 European countries (N = 5,333) suggest that (a) social identities are fragmented rather than polarized, (b) there is a clear correlations between alternative media use and social identities, and (c) active social media use, compared to passive social media use, leads to stronger identification with peoples’ most important social identity, and the relationship between social identities and active social media use is likely to be reciprocal.