What you need to know
When a person receives all their news and information from partisan sources that conform to their worldview, we say that person lives in an information silo. One of the most important questions about information silos is how many Americans are affected by them. A second question is whether partisans (Republicans or Democrats) are more likely to be siloed. A final question is whether these siloed partisans drive the policy debate at the expense of moderate voices.
- One of the most important variables about an individual’s media consumption is whether they are in an information silo.
- This brief describes information silos, shows how many Americans are in one, and whether the percentage varies by partisanship.
- The evidence raises a new question: do siloed individuals have a disproportionate impact on policy outcomes?
What is an information silo?
Information silos have been common since the earliest days of the United States. Many newspapers still retain partisan identification in their names, such as the Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, NY) or The Republican (Springfield, MA), relics of a bygone era when newspapers explicitly aligned themselves with political parties.
In the 20th Century, most news sources attempted to move away from overt partisan or ideological slants, even if some had an identifiable lean in their coverage. Today, for example, audience data flags Fox News and the Washington Examiner as conservative outlets, and MSNBC and National Public Radio as liberal outlets, even though none of those sources explicitly identify themselves with a partisan or ideological label.
Why are Information silos a problem?
Someone in an information silo would see a narrow range of perspectives on how to address policy problems and a narrow definition of which issues are problems in the first place. Even if conservative and liberal media cover the same story, the coverage may differ in terms of what is emphasized and the solutions proposed. Thus, information silos make it more difficult for individuals to understand the perspectives of political opponents, identify possible solutions and compromises, or be exposed to new information that would allow them to refine their beliefs.
Furthermore, when a partisan is exposed to only one viewpoint or limited information, it is more likely that opinions become seen as facts. Similarly, an issue that is overemphasized by one ideological side is likely to become the most important issue to that partisan, regardless of whether that issue is actually a significant aspect of the policy being discussed.
How many people are in information silos?
The Pew Research Service published a study on media consumption by party identification in 2020. The survey asked respondents about their partisanship, which media sources they trusted, and which sources they used.
This data is limited because it relies on a respondent’s report of which media sources they use. We don’t know how people read or watch from each source, or whether they are being fully transparent in their responses. Even so, this data provides some insight into the prevalence of media silos.
Based on this data, Everything Policy’s analysts divided respondents into four categories:
- Only Partisan Sources: a respondent who only consumes partisan media (sources trusted by a majority of their co-partisans), such as a Democrat who only watches MSNBC. These individuals fit the definition of an information silo.
- Combination of Sources: a respondent who consumes partisan and nonpartisan sources (a Republican who watches FOX News but also reads The Wall Street Journal).
- No Partisan Sources: a respondent who does not consume any partisan sources
- None: a respondent who does not consume any of the 60 sources in the Pew Survey.
The results are shown in the figure below.
Surprisingly, only about 20 percent of Republicans and Democrats and less than 15 percent of Independents report being in an information silo. Moreover, regardless of partisan affiliation, a majority of Americans report consuming a combination of media sources, including both partisan and nonpartisan ones.
A New Question
One of the most well-known ideas in political science is the Median Voter Theorem (MVT). The MVT shows that politicians should seek the middle ground (or median voter) to get elected. According to the MVT, then, moderates should be driving political debate and policy discourse.
However, existing evidence shows that extreme partisans (those who are siloed) are instead leading American political debate and policy discourse on both the left and the right. For example, Congress today is highly polarized, which hinders the ability to make meaningful policy decisions and potentially compromise on important issues. Analysis by political scientists shows that politicians who behave in this way are responding to relatively extreme constituents over more moderate groups. In this way, the existence of information silos at the voter level shapes political discourse and policy outcomes in Washington.
The Takeaway
Living in an information silo can lead to self-reinforcing beliefs about how policy problems should be approached and about what constitutes a problem in the first place.
Survey data indicate that while the extreme partisans in both parties appear to be siloed, about half of Americans report consulting a wide range of media sources.
Nonetheless, the extreme partisans appear to be dominating political debates and driving policy discussions. In a future brief, Everything Policy analysts will explore this topic further, including why the Median Voter Theorem does not appear to hold in today’s political climate.
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Further reading
Iyengar, S., Y. Lelkes, M. Levendusky, N. Malhotra, and S.J. Westwood. (2019). The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science 22: 129-146. Available at https://tinyurl.com/2tjuyhks
Levendusky, M. (2013). Partisan Media Exposure and Attitudes Toward the Opposition. Political Communication 30(4): 565-581. Available at https://tinyurl.com/3f9chf9d
Sources
Ballard, A.O., R. DeTamble, S. Dorsey, M. Heseltine, M. Johnson. (2022). Dynamics of Polarizing Rhetoric in Congressional Tweets. Legislative Studies Quarterly 48(1): 105-144.
Jurkowitz, M., A. Mitchell, E. Shearer, and M. Walker. (2020). U.S. Media Polarization and the 2020 Election: A Nation Divided. Pew Research Center. Available at https://tinyurl.com/437vnruw.
Sinclair, B. (2016). Partisan Polarization and Congressional Policy Making. In Congress and Policy Making in the 21st Century, J.A. Jenkins and E.M. Patashnik (eds). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pew Research Service (2020) U.S. Media Polarization and the 2020 Election: A Nation Divided. January 24, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/setkdhyh, accessed 6/2/25
Contributors
Robert Holahan (Content Lead) is Associate Professor of Political Science at Binghamton University (SUNY). He holds a PhD in Political Science from Indiana University where his advisor was Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom. His research focuses on natural resource policy, particularly in domestic oil and gas production, but also extends into international environmental policy. He was PI on a National Science Foundation grant that utilized a 3000-person mail-based survey, several internet-based surveys, and a series of laboratory economics experiments to better understand Americans’ perspectives on energy production issues like oil drilling and wind farm development.
William Bianco (Research Director) is Professor of Political Science at Indiana University and Founding Director of the Indiana Political Analytics Workshop. He received his PhD from the University of Rochester. His teaching focuses on first-year students and the Introduction to American Government class, emphasizing quantitative literacy. He is the co-author of American Politics Today, an introductory textbook published by W. W. Norton now in its 8th edition, and authored a second textbook, American Politics: Strategy and Choice. His research program is on American politics, including Trust: Representatives and Constituents and numerous articles. He was also the PI or Co-PI for seven National Science Foundation grants and a current grant from the Russell Sage Foundation on the sources of inequalities in federal COVID assistance programs. His op-eds have been published in the Washington Post, the Indianapolis Star, Newsday, and other venues.
