In past years, a large amount of research was conducted to determine
whether the use of social media causes political polarization. This research
field, however, lacks clear terminological definitions and concepts such as
fragmentation and selective exposure are often imprecisely equated with
political polarization, which may explain the widespread assumption that
social media cause political polarization. With this article, we aim to un
ravel conceptual confusion and offer distinct definitions of affective, ideo
logical, and partisan polarization. We conducted a structured literature
review of 88 studies addressing the potential effects of social media use
on polarization. We find the operationalization of relevant concepts to
differ significantly between research projects, making the comparability
of results difficult and possibly contributing to inconsistent findings. No
clear evidence is found to support the generalized perception of strong
polarization effects through the use of social media. Implications for future
research are proposed.
