Polarisation

The final speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is João Gonçalves, whose interest is in polarisation in the content recommended by YouTube in the Netherlands. This focusses especially on affective polarisation, on labelling of out-groups as extremist, and on a lack of discursive crossover between polarised opponents.

Past research on polarisation has shown a substantial role for non-news Websites; investigating YouTube recommendations is therefore especially important. A key distinction introduced in the present study is between content recommendations around established and non-established parties; additionally, the study also explored content recommendations specifically around right-wing parties.

The project selected five seed videos …

The next speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Remzie Shahini-Hoxhaj, whose interest is in visual affective polarisation on Instagram, focussing on political parties that promote extreme or radical right-wing views. Social media algorithms might in fact actively promote and amplify such content, but fostering in-group favouritism and out-group hostility.

This study examined the distinct visual framing strategies of far-right political parties in Europe. Such parties tend to emphasise their own distinct identities; use euphoric language for in-group identification and dysphoric language for out-groups; and include nationalist and historical symbols to appeal to their audiences. The study focussed on France …

The next speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Petro Tolochko, whose focus is on affective polarisation in climate activism visuals. Such content can be highly affective in climate activist communication, spark audience reactions, and spread online to promote the emergence of like-minded or opposing groups. The analysis here might include aspects of structural polarisation (using network analysis) and reactionary polarisation (using communication analysis).

An initial question might thus be which types of images lead to increased polarisation online; more recently, however, with the shift from Xitter to TikTok the role of videos in such activist communication has grown. Polarisation …

For the next session at ECREA 2024 I am once again in a session on polarisation, and we start with a double-header presentation by Quirin Ryffel and Nayla Fawzi. They begin with an overview of polarisation patterns in German – here, as in many other European countries, there is no simplistic left/right polarisation as there is in the US, but more usually polarisation on specific issues. One of these is environmental policy.

There is broad consensus on the science of climate change and the need for action in Germany; however, there are also strong perceptions of polarisation between groups who …

The final speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Dominika Betakova, whose interest is in news avoidance – a growing pattern around the world. Such news avoidance is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, though: it may be intentional, or may simply represent a low level of news consumption – and the people who engage in one or the other practice are not necessarily the same.

Intentional news avoidance may be temporal (e.g. during the COVID-19 pandemic), and can lead to better mental health; it can also be related to greater adherence to misbeliefs, a lack of political knowledge, and less political participation …

The next speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Ernesto de León; his focus is on hyperpartisan, alternative, and conspiracy (HAC) media. These are all united by an anti-establishment dimension: they peddle misinformation that has a potential to shape public perceptions. Ernesto points here for example to a strange case of such sites promoting stories about elite sportspeople collapsing on the field; they promoted these stories as part of an anti-vaccine campaign claiming (falsely, of course) a connection between such medical cases and their vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccine.

But such content also circulates on non-HAC media sites, and through …

The third speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Michael Hameleers. He begins by highlighting the supposed threat of mis- and disinformation, but also notes that the dissemination of such content is not necessarily very widespread; news users are very concerned about misinformation, however, and about their own susceptibility to such misinformation – they think much of the information they encounter is mis- or disinformation.

This means that we need to focus further on such risk perceptions, and on what groups in society are most likely to hold such perceptions. It seems likely that such perceptions about misinformation are also …

The next speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Peter van Aelst, whose interest is in how news media consumption affects conspiracy theory beliefs. Mediating factors here might include misperception and populist attitudes, and the present paper examines this in the context of conspiracy theories that believe that a small elite of actors deliberately hide the truth about what is happening in the world.

These beliefs might be heightened if people hold existing misperceptions already – e.g. about the efficacy of vaccines, or the impacts of migration –, as well as by populist attitudes that predispose people to be sceptical …

The final day at ECREA 2024 begins for me with a panel on conspiracy theories, and a paper by the great Annett Heft. Her focus is on the diffusion dynamics of conspiracy theories across platforms. She begins by noting the substantial growth in conspiracy theory diffusion, and the severe consequences these ideas can have. Cross-platform activity (involving social media, social messaging, multimedia platforms, alternative news media, and mainstream media) can further heighten this impact.

This project focusses on the two far-right conspiracy theories of the New World Order, with a strong anti-Semitic component, and the Great Replacement / White Genocide …

The next speakers in this ECREA 2024 session are Sabina Mihelj and Václav Štětka, presenting a new framework for the understanding of current trends towards illiberalism. This focus on illiberalism follows the dismissal of the concept of populism as ill-defined; illiberalism is instead marking a grey zone between democracy and authoritarianism, and communication is a central element in its rise – indeed, there is a need to better investigate the illiberal public sphere.

There are three constitutive features here: the paradoxical emergence of and dependence of illiberalism on liberal democratic institutions and values, and their championing of liberal values such …