Stuart Soroka, a professor of communication and political science at the University of California Los Angeles, was named a 2026 Andrew Carnegie Fellow on May 5. He is one of 24 fellows selected to receive a $200,000 research stipend from the Carnegie Corporation for projects exploring the causes of political polarization and identifying possible solutions.
The fellowship recognizes scholars whose work aims to address critical issues in society. Soroka’s project, titled “Political Polarization and the News Media Ecosystem,” will examine how changing media technologies and market pressures contribute to polarizing news content. The project uses both human coding and computational methods to analyze content from newspapers, television, and social media over several decades.
According to Carnegie, this year’s nomination cycle drew a record number of submissions. Projects were evaluated based on originality, promise, potential impact on their field, and applicants’ plans for sharing their findings with broad audiences.
Soroka said that competition among news outlets such as CNN and Fox News—and across platforms like television and social media—shapes how polarizing content spreads: “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 polarizing news can influence public attitudes only so much can be achieved by changing news content alone. Adjustments such as modifying social media algorithms could have wider 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.
At UCLA—a university known for its association with Nobel laureates, MacArthur Fellows,according to the official website, academic excellence in scholarship arts athletics diversity inclusion programs fostering diverse perspectives through its academic research cultural programs within its 419-acre campus—Soroka focuses his research on negativity bias misinformation political behavior legacy new media impacts public policy attitudes including immigration defense welfare health care.
Soroka has published works including “Information and Democracy: Public Policy in the News,” “The Increasing Viability of Good News,” Cambridge Elements in Politics & Communication,”and “Negativity in Democracy Politics: Causes & Consequences.” He plans to use his fellowship award toward publishing a book based on his current project.
Reflecting on his goals moving forward he said: “I think it is possible incrementally at least to produce a news media environment that more effectively contributes to informed democratic citizenship,” Soroka said. “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.”
The Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program began funding humanities/social sciences research in 2015 but shifted focus in 2024 toward understanding political polarization;the class of 2026 marks its third cohort dedicated specifically strengthening cohesion within United States.
