Study: Decline of traditional media feeds polarization - Columbia Journalism Review

with newsrooms reeling... a weakening of the stable platforms threatens to cause general informational impoverishment, a degradation of the entire information ecosystem. Adding to the worry, people today are exposed to news ... through a single platform—mainly social networks, which tend toward a clustering of like-minded individuals. Together, the decline of stable platforms of production and social-media-driven feedback loops enfeeble the setting of what social scientists call a “common public agenda.” ... can lead to unexpected and potentially destabilizing behavior in politics and markets....
This new environment... can be defined by a single word: fragmentation. The concept was the central focus of the research I recently ran... The numbers reveal a decrease in information processed by professional newsrooms and an upsurge in official government propaganda and content propagated through government shills. ...
There is strong empirical evidence to suggest that fragmentation feeds polarization... The superficiality of the debate on the social media is another catalyst... further impoverishes the debate by eradicating all semblance of nuance.