Audience Fragmentation and Social Polarization: Case of Argentina, Brazil and Colombia

South America is transitioning from an era of mass media—one with consolidated media players and actors—to one of many media—with emerging new faces, as is the case of digital-native news organizations. This increased offering through digital and social media results in a high-choice media environment where audiences (given they have the means, capitals and interest) can consume news from sources more varied than ever before. This is a departure from an era of mass media when few news organizations overwhelmingly dominated the flow of information in the region. From a media perspective, news organizations are seeing their audiences distributed across a great number of outlets, fragmented and segmented. From an audience-centric approach, media consumption online resembles more properly a repertoire of media, with potential for audience duplication. This chapter focuses on the current high-choice media environment, providing evidence for this phenomenon, and three cases evidencing the relationship of the news media environment and polarization in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.