It’s not the fault of right-wing news

I am definitely not breaking new ground when I say that the US public is polarised. In fact, it has become more polarised over the last two to three decades.

Many people, and I am one of them, blame the rise of cable news, in particular Fox News and more recently Newsmax and OANN on the right as well as MSNBC on the left, for this increasing polarisation. Of course, there are other factors like the outrage machine that is social media, but in general, the changes in the media landscape are often considered the main factor that drives that polarisation.

Yet, a new study from the Tinbergen Institute claims that it’s not the media’s fault. They have seen the enemy, and it is our friends and social circle. The chart below shows one key result from the study. How much does concern about climate change vary if there are changes in the news diet and the social circle of the respondents?

Difference in view on climate change for changing news diet and social circle

Source: Ikefuji et al. (2026)

What the chart clearly shows is that differences in the news sources the respondents used changed their views on climate change very little. But people living in a different social circle had vastly different views on climate change, even if their social circles differed only marginally.

Because the study used county-level data, one could even say that what you think about climate change depends more on the county you live in than the news media you consume. In fact, the more mixed your social environment (mixed by race, education, age, and political affiliation) is, the more likely it is that you come into contact with people who have a different opinion from yours. And that reduces political polarisation but also increases concern about climate change in this study.

If you live in your own social bubble where you only interact with people who are like you, you become increasingly polarised, and as a result, your opinions are increasingly dominated by your circle of friends. The more closed your local society becomes, the more closed your mind becomes as well. This is true on the left and on the right of the political spectrum.