ABSTRACT
This study examines the role of partisan social bonding and bridging in the new digital media era to provide a theoretical proposition for the unprecedentedly polarized 2020 presidential election. Utilizing the American National Election Studies (ANES) 2020 Social Media Study Data (n = 5750), this study investigates the trends of political polarization between exclusive partisan-bonded voters and inclusive cross-partisan voters across different political news consumers of electronic, hybrid, and digital social media in 2020 presidential candidate and party evaluations. The study finds that digital social media political news consumers that engaged in exclusive digital partisan bonding were 1) more polarized in their candidate and party evaluations, showing more distinctive political preferences towards their political parties and candidates, and 2) exhibited more political distance from the opposing parties and candidates than traditional electronic media news consumers that engaged in either exclusive digital partisan bonding or inclusive digital cross-partisan bridging. This study concludes that the hybrid effects of social capital and social media contributed to the heightened political polarization in the 2020 presidential election.
