Digital Dilemmas: How the Backfire Effect and Echo Chamber Effect on Social Media Contribute to Political Polarization in the United States

This paper explores how social media contributes to political polarization in the United States by addressing two of the most common effects that social media users encounter: the backfire effect and the echo chamber effect. By using the results from previous studies on these topics, the two effects are synthesized to show how they collectively contribute to increased political polarization by widening the gap of political discourse between both ends of the spectrum. Additionally, a study that attempts to prove that political polarization is not a result of increased social media use is refuted by exploring how social media microblogging has begun to affect traditional forms of media