The Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship presents :

The Polarizing Effects of Political Attacks on the Press – Evidence from Israel
Chagai Weiss | Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science and Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies (Université de Toronto)

📅 Friday, November 6, 2026, 3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
📍 McGill University, Thomson House, Ballroom

Political attacks on the press are increasingly common in polarized societies, yet their effects remain underexplored. We conceptualize such attacks as rhetorical public efforts by political actors to delegitimize and constrain journalists in order to influence the production, circulation, or reception of political information, and we theorize that such attacks can polarize politics by influencing journalists’ reporting patterns, audiences’ media consumption, and citizens’ broader political attitudes. We test this theory in Israel, a context marked by rising polarization and intensified attacks on the press. In Study 1, we estimate the effects of political targeting of radio hosts using an event-study design, finding suggestive evidence of an immediate but short-lived increase in anti-government content among targeted hosts. In Study 2, survey-based selection and evaluation tasks reveal that political attacks on the press polarize both the consumption and evaluation of content produced by targeted journalists. In Study 3, an information experiment shows that learning about political targeting of journalists does not affect government supporters, but increases opposition supporters’ preferences for social distance from outpartisans and concerns about democratic backsliding, while reducing their trust in government. Our findings highlight how attacks on the press may shift media production, consumption, and political attitudes, creating a potentially reinforcing cycle of polarization.

The Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship is funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC).