Living in a Diverse Community: Effects of Geographical Variations in Diversity on Partisan Communication

This study examines the effects of geographical variations in diversity on political communication within the context of partisan media and audiences. Partisan heterogeneity, as an indicator of political diversity, was conceptualized as a geographical context of the distribution of party preferences within a county. Using a set of nationwide representative panel survey data covering three U.S. presidential elections, we conducted multilevel modeling to test its effects on homogeneous political discussion, knowledge, and affective polarization. The results indicate that county-level partisan heterogeneity reduced the average levels of like-minded political discussion and affective polarization. Moreover, it attenuated the positive relationship between like-minded news use and homogeneous political talk. Additionally, we found that the context of partisan heterogeneity significantly moderated the mediation effects of like-minded news use on political knowledge and affective polarization through homogenous political discussion. Implications of these results on partisan communication were discussed.