QUTeX 2021

Societies on the Brink: Understanding the Dynamics of Partisanship and Polarisation

Axel Bruns

• 30 Sep. 2021 – QUTeX talk presented at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane

Rioters in the US Capitol. Anti-vaccination protesters in the streets of Australian cities. Divisive and intractable debates everywhere, fuelled by fringe media outlets, disinformation campaigns, and social media pile-ons.

The increase in hyperpartisanship and polarisation that these developments highlight presents an urgent challenge. It intensifies social conflicts, threatens economic prosperity, undermines public trust, and ultimately destabilises societies. Such instability can be exploited by domestic extremists or foreign influence campaigns to weaken sovereign states. Distracted by polarisation at home, nations also lose their influence in the international community. While Australia has been less affected, so far, than other leading democracies, our society is not immune to creeping polarisation, and we must understand the threats we face.

This Real World Futures lecture by Professor Axel Bruns explores the drivers of these developments, and examines the role of digital and social media as well as of broader social and political contexts in enabling them. Revisiting concepts such as echo chambers and filter bubbles, and reviewing the dynamics of the spread of mis- and disinformation across online and offline media, Professor Bruns will show that we must pay more attention to the social rather than technological factors that intensify polarisation, and will outline a research agenda for his Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship – the first ever awarded to a researcher in the field of Media and Communication.

Video of the Presentation

Presentation Slides