Study: Media bias + homophily drive climate policy support misperception

Many climate change mitigation policies enjoy large majority support from the U.S. public, yet both Republicans and Democrats underestimate that support—with Republicans underestimating more. This phenomenon has puzzled political scientists and climate communicators. A new paper by Landgren, Nagpal, Garland, Acquah, and Burgess (arXiv:2606.15106) explores whether homophily—the tendency to associate with people who share your views—can explain this misperception. Using a stochastic block model and a preferential attachment model, the researchers simulated how network structure and selective exposure interact to shape perceived public opinion.

Their results show that homophily alone can explain why opponents underestimate support more than supporters, but it cannot explain why supporters also underestimate support unless their homophily is unrealistically low (i.e., they disproportionately associate with opponents). When the model adds Bayesian rescaling (adjusting perceptions based on prior beliefs) or inaccurate priors, homophily still needs to be highly asymmetric to produce realistic patterns. Only when they incorporate asymmetric media bias (opposing views more prominent in coverage) with realistic, symmetric homophily does the model match real-world misperception patterns. However, empirical evidence for media bias on climate policy is mixed. The study provides a theoretical framework for understanding and addressing public opinion misperception across many issues.