• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.157-169
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• 2021

YouTube has rapidly grown as a news media outlet. As political content without fact-checking is actively provided and YouTube algorithms are used for content recommendations, users are selectively exposed to certain political ideologies, which could escalate conflicts among political groups. In particular, the stronger the identification of in-group, the greater the antipathy toward outgroup, and the more exposed the content to the parties that support or oppose it, the stronger the identification or the antipathy can be. This study investigated the relationship between selective exposure and political attitude polarization in the context of political video on YouTube. Based on social identity theory, this study also found that political identification mediates the relationship between selective exposure and political attitude polarization.