The Impacts of Political Internet Memes on Opinions: The Moderating Role of Political Party Identification

ABSTRACT

Using memes on two political issues, an online experiment was conducted among a convenience sample of American adults to explore people’s reactions to political internet memes and the memes’ impacts on political opinions while considering the moderating role of political party identification. It found that memes on immigration had a significant main effect on opinions but those on gun control did not. Nonetheless, the memes on both issues produced more meme-consistent thoughts among partisans whose party shares the memes’ views than among those whose party opposes the memes’ views. Moreover, the memes supporting one’s party’s views had significant positive impacts on political opinions; but those challenging one’s party’s views had little impact. The political implications of these findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Motivated reasoning
• political internet memes
• political party identification
• political polarization
• public opinion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).