Curating political animosity? The relation of algorithmic news curation to ideological extremity and social and political intolerance

Political animosity appears to be widespread in today’s democracies and in the online public sphere, where citizens not only tend to disagree and discuss vehemently but also display intolerance towards the people they disagree with (Gervais, 2015; Lee et al. 2019). Ideological conflicts lie at the heart of this: the perception that the opponent’s values and beliefs are incompatible with and a threat to one’s own fosters social and political intolerance (Brandt et al. 2014). As a result, citizens with extreme ideological stances are more likely to be hostile towards opponents (Helbling and Jungkunz 2020; Lelkes, 2019). While social as well as political intolerance in the US political landscape is shown to be driven by ideological extremity, the origins of such political animosity in a digital communication ecology are less clear, and even less so in non-US contexts (Wagner, 2021; Reiljan, 2019). In this study we argue that the extent to which the opponents’ worldview is perceived as threatening is dependent upon the online information environment individuals create for themselves, specifically via acts of news curation. One major asset that is believed to prevent growing intolerance and distance in society is the free flow of political arguments (Jenkins and Thorburn 2004; Sullivan et al. 1982). Being confronted with opposing views will help citizens see and understand ‘the other side’ or even prevent the establishments of oppositional camps in society. On more and more platforms, however, active and passive selection mechanisms determine the information users see. Hence, we test a potential mechanism where the limiting or boosting of one’s exposure to diverse sets of political information via news curation practices on algorithmic platforms is related to political animosity. Specifically, we study whether four types of news curators (tech avoiders; news omnivores; news limiters; and news boosters) differ in strength and direction of the relationship between ideological extremity and political animosity. Drawing on a sample of 1,663 adults in the Netherlands, our findings suggest that while ideological extremity predicts both social and political intolerance, it does not predict a higher use of personal news curation practices. In line with our expectations, the relationship between ideological extremity and both types of political animosity is conditional on the type of news curation practices. The more users with more extreme standpoints confine the news diet to their needs while only receiving little political information on algorithmic platforms, the less intolerant are they. This means, a curated news diet, even for citizens with extreme viewpoints, is not necessarily positively related to social and political intolerance. It only is when algorithmic news use is high. As such, our findings suggest that a high algorithmic news intake supports a possible reinforcing spiral between extremity and intolerance, while a lower intake, especially if it is highly curated, seems to decrease the chances of setting a reinforcing spiral in motion.