Where Echo Chambers Live: Television, the Web, and Political Media Diets in Italy

Abstract

Research on political echo chambers has converged on a reassuring conclusion: media diets are largely moderate, they overlap heavily across ideological camps, and the polarized tail is confined to a small minority. This conclusion rests almost entirely on evidence that comes from online browsing. This article asks whether the conclusion survives when the same individuals are observed on more than one medium. By employing a unique dataset combining passive metering of television and web browsing on the same respondents during the 29 days of the 2024 European election campaign with a two-wave survey measuring ideological selfplacement and reported vote, two results emerge. First, the median diet is moderate on both media, which replicates previous findings in a media system that differs substantially from the American one, and the mechanism that produces this moderation is the generalist newscast. Second, a minority holds an almost entirely congenial diet, and this minority is detected on television but not on the web once occasional consumers are set aside.

Introduce

Raffaele Grotti, Università di Trento 

Discussant

Leo Azzolini,Università di Trento 

Registration 

Send an e-mail to csis@unitn.it by by 7 October 2026, 11.59 pm