New Publication in Political Communication

Mike Cowburn, Research Fellow in the Chair of European Politics, has a new publication in Political Communication that introduces a novel framework for understanding how digitally networked political elites and hyper-partisan media contribute to political radicalization. Utilizing an original dataset comprising right-wing and mainstream news sources, newsletters, and social media posts by Republican Members of Congress totaling nearly two million items, Cowburn and his co-authors analyze ideological behavior and connectivity patterns surrounding the emergence of "Critical Race Theory" as a politicized issue on the American right. They introduce the concept of a "logic of connective faction" to explain how digital connectivity shapes factional dynamics within parties, showing that Republican legislators who adopted the "CRT" agenda represent a distinct faction characterized by greater ideological extremity, deeper integration into right-wing digital networks, and disproportionate presence on alternative platforms like Rumble, Truth Social, and Gettr. The study further demonstrates that mentioning "CRT" was associated with more social media engagement and attention from ideologically aligned media, highlighting new incentive structures that may drive elite radicalization—with implications for political actors and media systems beyond the United States.