Social Media as an Alter Ego of Reality: What Does Affective Political Polarization Teach Us?

Affective political polarization is comprehensively considered in combination of its emotional, behavioral and cognitive aspects. They manifest themselves in the differences between an individual’s attitude towards politically like-minded people (the in-group) and opponents (the out-group), including emotions experienced, willingness to cooperate, and a tendency to attribute positive or negative qualities. Particular attention is paid to the problem of differences between the intensity of manifestations of affective political polarization in the online environment compared to traditional forms of communication. Most contemporary researchers predict a higher level of polarization within online interactions. This hypothesis is based on the properties of Internet communication, which make it easier for the user to manage the network of contacts and sources of information and lead to the emergence of “echo chambers” and “filter bubbles”. The empirical evidence in favor of this mechanism, however, is rather limited. Indeed, there is very scarce research that would directly compare the levels of affective polarization in the digital and traditional environments. This problem is addressed by the authors based on survey data collected in 2025 among Russian respondents. We measure all key indicators of affective polarization for both online and offline environments, thereby making it possible to compare them directly. We build on previous research and use the attitude towards the country’s leadership as a key polarizing dimension. We analyzed data using correlation, regression and principal component analyses. Our results show that affective polarization demonstrates overall high consistency in the physical world and on social media. Regression analysis does not reveal any significant differences in levels or factors of affective polarization in the two environments.