Investigating the Dynamics of Destructive Polarisation in Public Communication

BrIAS invites you to the first lunchtime seminar of the new Programme theme “Democratic Challenges” with Prof. Axel Bruns:
Investigating the Dynamics of Destructive Polarisation in Public Communication

Abstract:

The focus of concerns about societal fragmentation in public communication is shifting. Instead of the retreat into echo chambers and filter bubbles that had been assumed in previous research, and which has not been confirmed by empirical evidence, greater emphasis is now being placed on polarisation along issue, ideological, and identity lines.

Mild forms of polarisation can be productive, but at elevated levels it variously leads individuals to dismiss alternative viewpoints, to attack political opponents verbally and even physically, and to embrace and disseminate (dis)information because of its ideological stance rather than its truthfulness.

Social media play a particular role as a public space where such dynamics manifest, and activities there are themselves fed by material from mainstream as well as fringe media.

This presentation introduces destructive polarisation as a particularly pernicious form of polarisation that is distinguished by a number of distinct symptomatic features, and outlines practice mapping as a novel approach to analysing such polarised debates.

Presenter bio:

Axel Bruns is an Australian Laureate Fellow and Professor in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.

His books include Are Filter Bubbles Real? (2019) and Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere (2018), and the edited collections Digitizing Democracy (2019), the Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics (2016), and Twitter and Society (2014).

His current research focusses on public communication in digital and social media environments, with particular attention to the dynamics of polarisation, partisanship, and problematic information, and their implications for our understanding of the contemporary public sphere. His work draws especially on innovative methods for analysing big social data.

He served as President of the Association of Internet Researchers in 2017–19. His research blog is at http://snurb.info/, and he posts on Mastodon at @snurb@aoir.social and on Bluesky at @snurb.info.