미디어 이용자 공동 언급 기반 네트워크 중심성과 정치적 자기과신 및 정서적 양극화

초록

In the contemporary digital media environment, patterns of news consumption have become increasingly fragmented and individualized, reinforcing personalized media repertoires. Digital media users are more likely to rely on specific news outlets or political YouTube channels, and such selective exposure behaviors significantly influence their political overconfidence and affective polarization. This context raises the crucial question of how political overconfidence and affective polarization are shaped by the specific media individuals primarily rely on. Moving beyond simple metrics of media use (i.e., frequency and duration), this study examines how the structural positions of media outlets within a user-centric co-mention network shape political overconfidence and affective polarization. Drawing on social network theory, this study examines how user-centric media networks (constructed from audience co-mentions across outlets) are associated with political overconfidence and affective polarization: First, the current research compiled comprehensive, nonoverlapping lists of news outlets and political YouTube channels from authoritative digital archives (e.g., the Korea Press Foundation). Second, these lists were presented to survey respondents. Specifically, using a two-wave online panel survey conducted in South Korea in 2024 (Time 1: N = 1,550; Time 2: N = 908), the current research calculated network centrality scores for both news organizations and political YouTube channels mentioned by the respondents. Then, user-centric networks were created to test the effects of news networks on political overconfidence and affective polarization. The findings indicate that reliance on news outlets with higher closeness centrality is positively associated with political overconfidence, which means that those who rely on news outlets that are positioned close to others within the media network—and thus can access information efficiently—are more likely to perceive themselves as politically well-informed. In contrast, reliance on news with higher betweenness centrality tends to be associated with lower affective polarization, indicating that individuals who often use news outlets that are connected with various channels are less likely to experience affective polarization. However, this study did not find any significant relationships among the variables in the case of YouTube channels. Furthermore, this study conducted quadratic regression models and found nonlinear effects of the age variable on political overconfidence. Specifically, political overconfidence was more prominent among respondents who mainly relied on news outlets with high degree centrality and among older adults. In contrast, those who often used news media outlets with higher betweenness centrality were less likely to have political overconfidence. These findings suggest that the news outlets individuals mainly use in everyday life are an important matter for cognitive and attitudinal consequences. The study highlights how user-centric media-network structures generate distinct cognitive and affective consequences and offers theoretical implications for understanding the political consequences of media reliance in the digital age.

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