The Impact of Political Memes: a Longitudinal Field Experiment

ABSTRACT Can political memes on social media change citizens’ political attitudes? I show with an experimental method that exposing individuals to outgroup memes increases polarization, especially among strong party identifiers. Existing observational research demonstrates that political memes have a few functions: building discourse around leaders, forming a common identity, and influencing political opinions. The current literature on political memes does not address whether political memes have a measurable effect in a natural environment. This article employs a pre-post experimental design (n = 192) deployed through Facebook to fill this gap and assess whether political memes have a persuasive or polarizing effect on individuals. Experimental participants were randomly assigned to ideological groups on Facebook. Then, they were exposed to one political meme every other day for three months to simulate a natural environment. Results suggest that memes have, in general, minimal effect but can have a backlash effect, particularly among strong party identifiers. This article contributes to the political communication field by better understanding social media dynamics and, more precisely, the literature on political memes by experimentally assessing their effects on ideology and intergroup feelings.