NMRC 2022

The Filter in Our (?) Heads: Digital Media and Polarisation

Axel Bruns

• 13 Oct. 2022 – Keynote presented at the Norwegian Media Researcher Conference, Stavanger, Norway

Presentation Slides

Abstract

Climate change, Brexit, Trump, COVID, Ukraine: there is hardly a topic in contemporary public debate that does not attract heated discussion, entrenched partisanship, widespread misinformation, and conspiracy theorists. Rational, evidence-based contributions often fail to cut through, while affective polarisation is prevalent, and difficult to overcome. The facile, simplistic view of these developments is that digital and social media have disrupted the traditional public sphere, enveloped us all in ideologically homogenous echo chambers and filter bubbles, and thereby ushered in the post-truth age – but such techno-determinist explanations have been rightly debunked for failing to account for the full complexity of the present moment in public communication. Hyperpartisans and conspiracy theorists, for instance, are abundantly aware of what their opponents think and say, but instinctively, reflexively reject those views: if there is a filter, it is located in their (and equally perhaps in our) heads, not their information feeds. Similarly, if global digital media platforms were predominantly to blame for the decline of societal cohesion and consensus, why are countries like the US on the verge of disintegration while other democracies remain considerably more resilient? This keynote does not pretend to offer definitive answers to this and related questions – but it pushes us to ask the questions that can advance our research agenda in more productive directions.