Stuart Soroka, a professor of communication and political science at the University of California Los Angeles, was named a 2026 Andrew Carnegie Fellow according to a May 5 announcement. He is one of 24 fellows selected to receive a $200,000 research stipend from the Carnegie Corporation for projects addressing the causes of political polarization and exploring possible solutions.
The fellowship highlights ongoing concerns about how media influences public opinion and political divisions. Soroka’s project, titled “Political Polarization and the News Media Ecosystem,” will investigate how evolving media technologies and market pressures can lead to more polarizing news content.
Soroka plans to use both human coding and computational methods to analyze news content across newspapers, television, and social media platforms over several decades. He aims to demonstrate that polarizing content results not from individual editorial decisions but from competition in the media market that encourages sensationalism. “There is competition amongst news outlets such as CNN and Fox News, of course. There is also competition across news platforms, like television and social media. The nature of one outlet’s content on social media does not just affect other social media content; it likely affects content on other media platforms as well,” Soroka said. “Exploring this kind of co-adaptation across outlets, platforms and audiences may be central for our understanding of the rise of political polarization and the potential for reducing it.”
He noted that while changes in news coverage can influence public attitudes only up to a point, even small adjustments—such as altering social media algorithms—could have broader effects throughout society. “Small, depolarizing changes in news content may lead to more productive and effective news coverage — coverage that increases news consumption, produces a more informed electorate and facilitates government responsiveness and accountability,” Soroka said.
Soroka has published works including “Information and Democracy: Public Policy in the News,” “The Increasing Viability of Good News,” Cambridge Elements in Politics and Communication,” as well as “Negativity in Democracy Politics: Causes and Consequences.” He expects his fellowship will allow him to publish a book based on his research findings.
The University of California Los Angeles has been associated with notable figures such as Nobel laureates and MacArthur Fellows; it operates within the University of California system on its 419-acre campus supporting academic excellence across diverse disciplines according to the official website.
Reflecting on his selection for this award class—the third cohort focused on evidence-based research into U.S. cohesion—Soroka said: “I think it is possible, incrementally at least, to produce a news media environment that more effectively contributes to informed democratic citizenship… Exploring this possibility is the focus of my project, and I am grateful to have the resources to focus on this for the next two years.”