Polarization is widely recognized as one of the most pressing issues facing the United States today. Stories frequently make the news about how this country is fractured along partisan lines, and how the internet and social media are exacerbating those fractures. Americans hate their political opponents more than ever before. Meanwhile, disinformation and hate speech, often produced by actors with strong motivations to inflame existing social and political divisions, is proliferating in the digital space. The real-world implications are far from trivial. Consider the violence at the Capitol on January 6th or even more recently Nancy’s assault on Pelosi’s husband. While the extent to which political polarization causes individuals to violate democratic norms is debatable, it is difficult to imagine that events like the Capitol riot would occur without such a polarized political climate. Hard to imagine.
Of particular concern is the polarization of emotions. This refers to the hostility that individuals feel toward those who disagree with them politically. If the free exchange of ideas between like-minded people is a fundamental tenet of democracy, then emotional polarization threatens to undermine democracy itself. Polarized sentiment is currently at the root of partisan conflicts in the United States over everything from coronavirus policy to climate change.
For social networks and digital platforms, polarization is both a challenge and an opportunity. Social media companies are often accused of promoting polarization through the way they segment political audiences and personalize recommendations to users’ existing beliefs and preferences. However, given its size and scope, it is also uniquely positioned to help reduce polarization. A recent review of more than half a century of research on how best to bridge social divides found that there are clear steps digital platforms can take to curb polarization.
What we know about polarization and social media
Recent research suggests that social media can fuel polarization, although the full relationship between digital platforms and polarized attitudes remains unclear. The study found that polarization varies significantly across different platforms, with different results varying in strength depending on how polarization is measured. The extent to which polarization depends on online echo chambers and filter bubbles is also poorly understood, and there is some evidence pointing to countervailing directions.
Nevertheless, a growing body of scholarship suggests that social media use actually promotes polarization, especially in established democracies. For example, Jamie Settle’s research combines surveys and experiments to show that when social media users encounter partisan content, even when the content is not overtly political, they experience polarization of emotions. It has been demonstrated that there is a possibility of increasing His 2020 study by Hunt Allcott and colleagues echoes these concerns. The authors asked some participants to refrain from using Facebook for four weeks. These participants subsequently reported less polarization in their political views than participants who were not asked to refrain from using Facebook. Disabling Facebook also made people less hostile toward the “other,” but this only applies to those who regularly get news content on Facebook.
So what makes social media so polarized? A big problem is that divisive content tends to spread widely and quickly on social media. For example, posts that express moral outrage or bash parties other than your own tend to be particularly successful in going viral. This virality is driven by social media algorithmic prioritization and people’s general tendency to favor sensational content. As a result, when people log on to social media, they are likely to see content that is divisive and pushes their emotional buttons. Furthermore, these trends are encouraging politicians, news outlets, and would-be influencers to post divisive content. Because it’s most likely to generate the engagement they’re looking for.
What we know about how to reduce polarization
A review of the scientific literature on how to build bridges in society highlights two key ideas about how to reduce polarization. First, decades of research have shown that when people interact with someone from a social “outgroup,” they often begin to view that outgroup more favorably. Importantly, individuals do not have to participate in these interactions themselves. Exposure to accounts of contact with outside groups in the media, from news articles to online videos, can also have an impact. Positive intergroup contact and stories about such contact have been shown to reduce prejudice against various minority groups.
The second key finding of our review concerns how people behave. perceive The problem of polarization. Despite increased polarization in recent years, research consistently shows that many Americans believe the country is more divided than it actually is. Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans think they hate each other more than they actually do. These misunderstandings can, ironically, push both sides further apart. Therefore, any effort to reduce polarization also requires revising perceptions about how bad polarization really is.
The literature on bridging social gaps has important implications for social media platforms. In addition to implementing sound moderation policies, social media companies should consider the following:
surface more active contact between parties;
Social media algorithms tend to favor content that is hostile to outgroups, as negativity and moral outrage promote virality. In contrast, positive party contact shown in users’ news feeds (whether from friends, politicians, or news outlets) can weaken emotional polarization. Platforms should therefore strive to surface more examples of active cross-party contacts between left and right authoritative voices.
Prioritize content that is popular among different user groups
One way to identify posts that are interesting without being polarizing is to prioritize posts that have received a lot of active engagement from stakeholders across the political spectrum. In doing so, the platform could build on initiatives such as Birdwatch/Community Notes. Prioritize notes Rated as “helpful” among users who previously disagreed.
correct a misunderstanding
As mentioned above, Americans tend to think the country is more polarized than it actually is, given how negative and extreme voices tend to be amplified on social media. This result is not surprising. Instead, the platform will issue a warning if a user engages with content that exaggerates the degree of polarization and insert links to more accurate research on how polarized the nation really is. can do.
Design a better user interface
A platform’s user interface has a significant impact on how users interact with each other. For example, Twitter’s “quote-retweet” feature has been widely used to quickly “blame” political opponents rather than engage in meaningful dialogue. This is one reason why Mastodon, an increasingly popular decentralized alternative to Twitter, was explicitly designed not to have this functionality. Features. Similarly, Tumblr and other networks are experimenting with removing comments in order to make the platform’s affordances more conducive to positive and constructive discussions.
collaborate with researchers
Some of these proposals hinge on each platform’s ability to identify specific types of content (such as depictions of positive contact between groups) and assess the impact of the measures they introduce. Both tasks are easier said than done. As a result, social media platforms would benefit from collaborating with third-party researchers currently working on these types of questions. Providing computational and qualitative researchers with greater access to platform data would also go a long way toward advancing understanding of how best to reduce polarization and other potential social harms. It may be helpful.
By adopting the above approach, social media platforms can play a leading role in curbing online polarization. Reducing the frequency with which divisive content is amplified and the opportunities to engage with it will discourage news organizations, elites, and would-be influencers from producing and publishing divisive content in the first place. On the other hand, further disseminating examples of positive intergroup contact and emphasizing accurate data on polarization could help improve our perception of how polarized we really are. It could be of great help.
Online polarization, especially in light of laws such as the European Union’s Digital Services Act, places great pressure on platforms to accept responsibility for the content on them and its impact on users and society at large. It is essential to adopt new measures to reduce Fortunately, there are many scalable ways to reduce polarization and strengthen democratic societies. Given that social media platforms are widely accused of causing polarization, they would be wise to: use We deny ourselves the opportunity to reduce division and strengthen democracy instead.
Christian Staal Brun Overgaard I am a Knight Research Fellow at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin.
samuel woolley He is an assistant professor of journalism and media, program director of the Propaganda Lab at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of the forthcoming book Manufacturing Consensus: Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymousity.
Meta and Google provide financial support to the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous, independent, and in-depth public policy research.