Polarisation

The next speakers in this ECREA 2024 session are Tomasz Gackowski and his colleague whose name I did not catch; they begin by pointing to the considerable volume of research on social polarisation, and are especially interested in how such dynamics play out in Poland. They worked with a politically representative sample of residents in a major city in Poland, who were confronted with a range of anonymised quotations from politicians about the situation in Poland and Europe. Eye- and facetracking was used to assess their reactions at this point, and again when the author of each quotation was revealed …

The second day at ECREA 2024 starts with yet another panel on polarisation, with begins with a paper by Diógenes Lycarião. His interest is in testing the hypothesis that digitalisation and platformisation are fragmenting the public sphere. This is critical since much of the scholarly discussion on this public sphere fragmentation hypothesis to date builds on unverified assumptions. This has two elements: the idea that the expansion of the mediasphere fragments the public sphere, and the suggestion that this then causes phenomena such as ‘echo chambers’ or polarisation.

First, then, is an expansion in media choice actually fragmenting the public …

The final speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Mikkel Bækby Johansen, whose interest is in hybridisation of extremism on social media. Hybridisation is a term which has emerged from terrorism studies, pointing to the increasingly complex nature of terrorist threats; however, the role of social media in such hybridisation remains poorly understood. Hybridisation connects ideological and religious views with conspiracist beliefs and concepts of who the enemy is; QAnon is a useful example of this more complex and potentially contradictory form of extremism.

Extremism is now especially closely linked to conspiracy theories, and conspiracy beliefs often end up being …

Up next in this ECREA 2024 session is the excellent Giovanni Boccia Artieri, whose interest is in networking between fringe Telegram channels in Italy. These are connected to disinformation ecosystems, the spread of conspiracy theories, and the normalisation of populism and political extremism. Fringe online spaces can especially serve as laboratories for extremist narratives here – even though they can also provide a safe space for marginalised and disadvantaged communities.

The present study examines the fringe Telegramsphere in Italy, but eventually also aims to study its interconnections with mainstream media. Telegram is already know for fostering affective polarisation, spreading alternative …

The final speaker in this ECREA 2024 on polarisation is Michael Brüggemann, whose interest is in normative perspectives on polarisation. These stem largely from the two normative traditions of the Habermasian public sphere, where issue and ideological polarisation is not a problem if it can be resolved through rational debate and democratic listening; and Chantal Mouffe’s concept of agonistic pluralism, where transparency in conflicts and political mobilisation are central and polarisation can be a useful motivator for passionate and divisive (but not inimical) communication.

Current debates are moving beyond this by discussing levels of polarisation, which may become problematic and …

Up next in the session at ECREA 2024 is Christel van Eck, whose focus is on how we understand the concept of depolarisation. Her project conducted a systematic literature review of the (de)polarisation literature, eventually identifying some 89 relevant articles from a much larger list of work that somehow mentions the concept. It coded these for a number of features, including conceptual, analytical, and methodological factors and the evidence base provided.

The majority of these articles came from communication, political science, and psychology; the vast majority addressed polarisation rather than depolarisation; they focussed on ideological more than affective polarisation; examined …

The next speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Shota Gelovani, who shifts our discussion further to the theme of democratic listening: the scrutiny and constructive discussion of statements by other citizens in a democracy. This can happen also between dissenting individuals, and may lead, if not to the removal of differences, then at least to partial consensus and an enlightened dissent.

Analytical listening (understanding others’ views) and critical listening (identifying errors in others’ judgments) are especially central to this, and democratic listening will also involve giving listening signals, substantive engagement with others’ claims, taking perspectives, and generating a feeling …

The next speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Matthias Revers, who continues our focus on polarisation in climate communication. The project sent out a recruitment survey in Germany and the UK to recruit participants with divergent views on climate change, then organised some 40 conversations on Zoom between participants with opposing views, and examined whether such conversations entrenched or weakened disagreements and antipathy between viewpoints. This examined conversational moves (like signalling willingness or interest, and steering the conversation in particular directions), as well as practices of assessment (articulating approval or disapproval), drawing on analytical categories like conversational receptiveness and …

The post-lunch session on this first day of ECREA 2024 conference is on polarisation, and starts with Hendrik Meyer, whose interest is in the case of disruptive climate protests. Such protests, in Germany for instance by the Letzte Generation protest group, tend to attract controversial media coverage, and it may be such coverage rather than the protests themselves that drive polarisation dynamics.

Untangling the various factors influencing such dynamics is difficult, and this project examined both news media coverage and social media debates to determine patterns of both issue and group polarisation, in both the content of communication and the …

The next speaker in this ECREA 2024 is Agnieszka Stępińska, whose focus is on understanding from current researchers how they approach the study of public opinion formation. This includes academic scholars, experts working for think tanks, and professional public opinion pollsters, and a short questionnaire will be distributed to these groups within the coming weeks, with a focus on central and eastern European and Balkans countries.