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The next speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Harry Li, whose interest is in affective polarisation in China towards Russia and the United States. Such affective polarisation describes in-group favouritism and out-group hostility, but past research has mainly examined how this plays out in two- or multi-party political systems, rather than towards broader issues and themes.

In China, while there is a one-party system that does not allow for partisan polarisation, polarisation around specific issues and topics may nonetheless exist; here we might regard friendly or allied countries as part of the in-group, and …

The next speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Yuan Zhong, whose interest is in polarisation in hybrid media systems. She notes the specificity of polarisation patterns to specific media and political systems; observations from the US do not translate easily to other countries, for example. How might polarisation unfold in as tightly controlled a media system as China’s, for instance?

Discursive power in China is distributed across state-owned mainstream media, other commercial media, individual influencers on social media, and ordinary users on social media platforms. Such platforms include Weibo, WeChat, and leading Q&A platform …

My second day at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore starts with a session on polarisation and media effects, which begins with a paper by Rachel Neo and Benjamin Johnson, whose focus is on affective polarisation on Reddit in the US. The US is now deeply polarised, and this also expresses in incivility from both sides of politics. Such incivility is visible in disrespectful exchanges between partisans, which is often expressed affectively.

This is a case of affective polarisation: positive feelings towards the in-group, and negative feelings towards the out-group. Reddit is one space online where this can be seen …

The final speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Jinzhuo Liu, whose focus is on affective polarisation in online discussions about Chinese traditional medicine. Is this reduced by shared national identity? The mechanism to explain such a tendency would be the Common In-group Identity Model.

Affective polarisation between opinion-based groups results in the formation or identification of in- and out-groups, treating each other in hostile ways. This is often also observed in online engagement between such groups. Such groups nonetheless foster cross-cutting discussions online; such exposure to opposing views may only increase polarisation between them …

The next speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is my great QUT Digital Media Research Centre colleague Sebastian Svegaard, presenting progress findings from a large literature review on populism. We have previously observed how poorly defined the concept of polarisation is in the literature; there are many forms of polarisation that scholars have identified, but hardly and overarching perspectives.

This project took a similar approach to the concept of populism, which turns out to be better defined; dominant in this is Cas Mudde’s definition of populism as a thin ideology that highlights divisions between ‘us’ …

The second speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Yuefeng Qu, whose interest is in the growth of far-right populism on Xitter. She is exploring this especially in the context of the French far-right party Rassemblement National. RN has now emerged as a major force in French politics, with typically nationalist and exclusionary views.

This might be understood as a kind of populism 2.0, which bypasses conventional media, draws on viral rhetoric, and positions political leaders as personal brands and political influencers. It also capitalises on mainstream media tendencies to favour game frames over issue …

For the last session on this opening day of the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore I’m at a session on populism and propaganda, and we start with Karl Mendoza. He highlights the importance of trust, and the way that trust can fracture at times of scandal. When trust breaks down in a democracy, what exactly is if that people stop believing in – democracy itself, the system, its actors?

Scandals are often seen as breaches of ethics or governance, but they also activate competing moral grammars: in deeply divided democracies, trust does not simply divide – it polarises. Trust is …

The final paper in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is by Zhangyan Li, Xinrui Wang, and Xingye Yao. Their focus is on reactive environmentalism in China. China has faced several recent environmental challenges, and documentaries have tried to call attention to these issues, but were sometimes banned by the government for ‘defaming China’; this indicates a tension between such discussions of environmental challenges and the state promotion of robust Chinese nationalism.

Environmental nationalism is a concept that seeks to address this, and to shift public debate especially on social media platforms in China. Nationalism can take …

The next speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Dhyan Singh; his interest is in the use of documentary films to create environmental awareness amongst students in India. Climate change is a severe global challenge, of course, and especially also for vulnerable countries like India; India also has the world’s largest youth population, and addressing this group is therefore also key to addressing climate change itself. Documentary films can play an important role here.

How do such films impact on students’ emotions and encourage them to take action, then? This study worked with 63 students …

The next speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Tanmay Samanta, whose focus is on digital greenwashing. Social media, and especially influencers on social media platforms, are critical to promoting sustainable consumerism; influencer marketing is also a key element of greenwashing, however.

Their style of storytelling is central to their success, and considerable effort goes into this. Greenwashing, in particular, purposefully creates false, favourable opinions about a product, service, or company’s efforts to be environmentally friendly. Tanmay explored this especially for social media influencers in India, examining their influence, their use of sustainability or greenwashing …